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Andrew Jackson's Paternal Lines: Research Page

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Contents

Introduction to President Jackson's paternal genealogy

No primary genealogical records are known to document President Andrew Jackson's father's family, and Jackson himself provided very little information. As would be expected, this vacuum has been filled with all kinds of declarations that range from poorly supported to bald fabrications. The most honest assessment is necessarily blunt: "With evidence so conflicting and tenuous, the only fair conclusion about AJ's father can be that nothing beyond his name is reliably known."[1] Booraem writes this in his book about the molding of the young Andrew Jackson, and he skirts this evidential deficiency in a manner well-befitting a historian:[2]

In terms of environmental influences, Andrew Jackson was a Crawford, a member of his mother's brother-in-law's family. His father contributed only half his genes and his surname.

But to the genealogist, these contributions are the whole point.

This page is to serve as a repository for sources claiming information about Jackson's paternal ancestry. Judgment will be reserved, except concerning sources that are known to contain fabrications (e.g., Buell). This introduction will further summarize all hypotheses for paternal lines.

DNA

There are claims that Jackson's Y-DNA haplotype has been determined. Such a determination would require a combination of genetic and genealogical information. As is clearly evidenced below, the genealogical information is too scarce to be able to determine Jackson's Y-DNA haplotype with a reasonable degree of confidence.

Summary of hypothesized lines

Father: his name was without doubt Andrew. All sources below with one exception name him thus.[3]

Paternal Grandfather: sources name him either Hugh or Joseph. Most state the the former worked in the linen industry near Carrickfergus. The latter was a physician.[4]

Paternal Great-Grandfather: sources name him one of the following:

Isaac m. Anne Evans
Thomas of Dundonald
John
  1. ↑ Booraem, page 218
  2. ↑ Booraem, page 3
  3. ↑ In a letter to Jackson of 1821, William McCully calls his father Hugh. It is not known if this is a mistake for Andrew's grandfather or if McCully was tying then General Jackson to the wrong family.
  4. ↑ Once again, the lone exception is McCully, who names Jackson's grandfather Thomas.

Sources

  • Unknown author. "Fighting was in his blood" in Ulster links with the White House, pamphlet reprinting articles originally published in the Belfast Telegraph, 194?.
  • Cooper, William Ross and Baldwin, Frances Jackson. The Jackson family genealogy and history", no publication place or date, at the US Library of Congress.
  • Kendall, Amos. Life of Andrew Jackson, New York, 1843.
  • Parton, James. Life of Andrew Jackson volume I, Mason Brothers, New York, 1860.
  • Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson: the course of American empire (volume 1), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
  • Roberts, Gary Boyd. Ancestors of American Presidents, published by Carl Boyer 3rd (in cooperation with NEHGS) at Santa Clarita, California, 1995.
  • Smith, Sam B. and Owsley, Harriet Chappell, editors. The Papers of Andrew Jackson, The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1980.
Paternal family tree, volume 1, 1770-1803, pp.413-414
Letter from William McCully, 1821, volume 5, 1821-1824, pp.106-107

Accounts that may have been reviewed by Jackson

No account of Jackson's ancestry was ever certified by the man himself. The best we have are five contemporary accounts that may have been read by Jackson (although even that is uncertain). These are:

A manuscript of unknown authorship that Jackson preserved among his papers
An account in Kendall's Life of Jackson
An account in Read and Eaton's Life of Jackson
A letter sent to him in 1822 by Robert Jackson of Beaver, Pennsylvania
A letter sent to him by in 1821 by William MucCully in Dundonald Parish, County Down, Ireland

Unfortunately, none of these was explicitly endorsed by Jackson or written by his hand. Smith and Owsley in The papers of Andrew Jackson state that there were many other letters written to Jackson claiming specific lines of kinship.

We summarize the genealogical information from each of the above sources.

Jackson Manuscripts

(The information given here was taken from Correspondence of Andrew Jackson edited by John Spencer Bassett, volume 1, pp.1-2.)

Provenance: In a footnote Bassett writes the following: "This paper is given here for what it is worth. The fact that it is in the Jackson MSS indicates that Jackson thought enough of it to preserve it. It is without comment by him, favorable or unfavorable. It seems to be in the handwriting of a copyist. See Jackson MSS, Library of Congress, vol. 118, page 33."

Father: Andrew Sr. resided near Castlereagh

Paternal Uncles: unnamed.

One resided at Ballymisca in the Parish of Car-Donnell, only surviving son Samuel lived in Philadelphia, Principal in the House of Jackson & Bayard, m. ______ Vateau of Dublin; Samuel had two sons who died and two daughters, one married Revd. ArchDeacon Cleland of Car-Donnell, the other the Revd. Mr. Cassidy Rector of Newtown Ards
One resided at Knocknagoney in the Parish of Holywood, daughter married James Suffern, descendants in New York, brother of John Suffern senator and first Judge of Rockland County
"Laird Jackson" resided at Ballywilly in the Parish of Bangor

Paternal Grandfather: No mention

Reid and Eaton, The Life of Andrew Jackson, pp.9-10

Provenance: John Reid was aide, secretary, friend to Andrew Jackson. He had Jackson's confidence to the extent that he wrote some of Jackson's letters himself. He started a biography of Jackson but passed suddenly in 1816 after completing only four chapters. John Henry Eaton took over and completed the work. Owsley, in the introduction to his recent edition, writes "It is almost certain that Jackson read and approved every line of the manuscript."

Father Andrew, youngest son of his family

Paternal Grandfather: unnamed, was at the siege of Carrickfergus

Kendall, Life of Andrew Jackson, pp.9-11

Provenance: Amos Kendall was a friend of Andrew Jackson. He was approved by Jackson in 1842 to be Jackson's biographer and was granted access to all of Jackson's papers. He carried many of these away from the Hermitage and did not return them when Jackson passed in 1845. He never completed the work, and most of his papers were destroyed by fire, perhaps including some of Jackson's papers. (This narrative is taken from Basset's The Life of Andrew Jackson, preface, pp.vi-ix.)

Father: Andrew (youngest of brothers)

Paternal Uncles: unnamed

one had a son Samuel, distinguished citizen of Philadelphia
another had descendants in New York through a female branch named Suffern

Paternal Grandfather: Hugh, linen draper near Carrickfergus

Letter from Robert Jackson of Beaver, Pennsylvania

(What follows is taken from Correspondence of Andrew Jackson edited by Bassett, volume 1, page 180.)

Provenance: Bassett comments, "It is to be regretted that Jackson gave no intimation of his opinion of this letter. It is indorsed, but not in his hand, "Robert Jackson, claims relationship to General Jackson."

Father and Paternal Uncles: Andrew, James, Hugh, and Robert (himself). Presumably Andrew was older than Robert, since Robert states he was about 17 when Andrew left for America with one son already born and another to be born at sea.

Paternal Grandfather: Hugh

Note: Robert has children Andrew, James, Elizabeth, and Jane, all married. Jane married to brother Hugh's son James. Robert claims "I had 3 letters from Carolina before my brother died" and none since.

Letter from William McCully of Dundonald Parish, County Down, Ireland

(What follows is taken from "The papers of Andrew Jackson, edited by Smith and Owsley, volume 5, pages 106-107.)

Provenance: Smith and Owsley say that the letter was "one that Jackson apparently gave some credence". Following the letter is a transcript of an affidavit that shows William appeared before a magistrate in Dundonald and swore that he had written the letter and that he knows the Revd. James Jackson's family and that the family ties he indicated were ones he thinks to be "perfectly correct & true".

Father and Paternal Uncles: Hugh and brothers James and a third, unnamed

Hugh emigrated in his father's lifetime
James, clergyman who preached 40 years at Ballibay in County Monaghan, succeeded his father in the estate and came home in his final years and passed at Ballyregan. James had son Thomas, doctor of medicine of Ballibay, had only one child -- son Thomas Jr. of Dublin, unmarried. James also had four daughters -- Martha m. Robert Bradford near Ballibay; Elizabeth m. James McCully (brother of the letter's author); Mary m. David Dalzell; Jane m. James Burnside near Fivemiletown, County Tyrone.
third died after receiving his diploma from a College for Clergymen

(States that the bearer of the letter was James McCully, only son of Elizabeth Jackson and James McCully.)

Grandfather: Thomas Jackson, who inherited an estate in Ballyregan in Dundonald Parish, county Down.

Later Accounts

Many accounts of Jackson's family history have been produced since his death. We summarize the genealogical information from several of them.

Ulster links with the White House

Sourcing: No sources listed, and without an author listed it is impossible to view as credible. A blog post states

"Ulster Links with the White House is an interesting book, but it is unreliable as it over-stretches itself by making Ulster ancestral claims to Presidents John Adams, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams - Presidents who were later dropped from the pantheon in similar projects in the decades which followed."

Father and Paternal Uncles: father was Andrew, of Castlereagh, youngest of the brothers; eldest was Hugh, of Ballywilly near Bangor; second was Samuel of Ballymiscaw, Dundonald

Paternal Grandfather: Hugh, linen draper and a little farming, came to settle at Boneybefore in Carrckfergus, lived "in a tiny cottage which used to stand on what is now the L M S railway track through Boneybefore, almost on the edge of the sea"

Paternal Great-Uncles: Hugh's brothers Thomas and John, fought with William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne, John's pistol was blown to pieces when William of Orange was wounded in the shoulder, but John miraculously escaped. (This conflicts with the other data, since the battle occurred in 1690, six years before the purported marriage of their parents.) John was an ancestor of "Stonewall" Jackson.

Paternal Great-Grandparents: Isaac Jackson m. Anne Evans of County Wicklow, m. 1696

Bassett, The Life of Andrew Jackson

Sourcing: Numerous sources throughout. No mention of Andrew Sr.'s family beyond abstracting the memorandum from Jackson's collected works.

Buell, History of Andrew Jackson

Sourcing: Buell does not often indicate his sources and he is a known fabricator, including in his work on Jackson. For more on this, see

Hamilton, Milton W. "Augustus C. Buell, Fraudulent Historian" in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 80 (1956) pp.478-492
Booraem, Hendrick. "Young Hickory: the Making of Andrew Jackson Taylor Trade Publishing, Dallas, 2001.

Father and Paternal Uncles: Andrew had brothers Sam and Hugh. Andrew was older than Sam.

Sam, a sailor. The ship that carried Andrew's family to the Carolinas had just previously been crewed by Sam.
Hugh, served with Braddock in the 49th regiment of infantry, was with Wolfe at Quebec and with Amherst at the surrender of Montreal. In 1756, they were sent for a year to the Carolinas to quell Cherokees. Employed as an agent of the Catawba Land Company. Convinced a group of 20 Irish families to emigrate, but his wife kept him from leaving. Only Andrew Sr. and some Crawfords left, in the end.

Buell claims his information about Jackson's uncles was told by Jackson himself to Congressman William Allen of Ohio in 1833. This conversation was then recounted to Buell by then Governor Allen in 1875.

Paternal Grandfather: Hugh of Carrickfergus, linen weaver and draper. Hugh's estate passed to Andrew Jackson Jr., 300 or 400 pounds, but was tied up with Mr. Barton at whose house Jackson's mother had died. (Buell says this latter was spoken by Jackson in 1815 to three of his "military family", including Eaton.)

Paternal Great-Grandfather: John of Carrickfergus b. 1667, bailiff of the assize court, several times foreman of the grand jury and once a member of the town council.

Colyar, Life and Times of Andrew Jackson

Sourcing: includes some sources throughout, but none on Jackson's family history.

Father and Paternal Siblings: makes no statement about siblings.

Paternal Grandfather: murdered in a massacre by the British at Carrickfergus, supposed to have been around 1765.

Cooper and Baldwin, The Jackson family genealogy and history

(The information here was taken from Sharon Odie Brown's website.)

Sourcing: Brown says it is unsourced.

Father and Paternal Siblings: Andrew Sr. had brothers Hugh, David, Robert and sister Elizabeth

Hugh was with Braddock in the French and Indian war and went with Wolf to Quebec
David came to Pennsylvania in 1762
Robert came to America and descendants were untraced
Elizabeth married James Crawford and came to the Carolinas

Paternal Grandparents: Joseph Jackson and Elizabeth Vance. Joseph married later Mary Carr, a widow with a son Hugh who came to America. Joseph and Mary had a daughter Margaret.

Jackson, Genealogy of the "Jackson family"

Sourcing: inconsistent quality. Quotes, for instance, a church certificate (p.8) and a gravestone inscription (pp.13-14), the latter being easily checked at FindAGrave. Unfortunately, information pertaining to President Jackson and his contemporaries ranges from being unsourced to being "testimony" given by named people, but without any indication of where this testimony was given, in what form, and whether it can be found in any other source.)

Father: Andrew left Ireland and had no further contact with his family.

Paternal Uncles and Aunts: half-brothers Hugh, Robert, and David and half-sister Margaret

David married Elizabeth Reed, four children born in Ireland, then the family emigrated to Pennsylvania
Margaret married William McCaughey, emigrated to Pennsylvania, then moved to Ohio

Paternal Grandparents: Joseph Jackson and unnamed first wife. They located first at Carrickfergus and later at Limavady. He and three of his brothers were all physicians.

James, Andrew Jackson the border captain

Sourcing: includes detailed notes with extensive sourcing throughout the book. Concerning Jackson's family history, references

Buell, A History of Andrew Jackson volume I (1904) p.20 -- this work is known to contain fabrications
Craig, James D. Memoir, dated September 24, 1858, in Walter Clark Manuscripts, III, p.332, North Carolina Historical Commission, Raleigh

James notes that there inaccuracies in the latter document but cobbles together information from pieces that "appear credible".

Father and Paternal Uncles: Andrew had forsaken an apprenticeship in favor of a small farm. He had brothers Sam and Hugh.

Sam was a sailor. Andrew's family traveled to America on a ship on which Sam had crewed.
Hugh had served in His Majesty's 49th regiment of foot, had accompanied Braddock in Virginia, Wolfe in Quebec, and had been with Amherst at Montreal. He had fought Cherokee's in the Waxhaws. He had organized a group of Irish families to emigrate from Larne, but in the end only Andrew's and two other's did. (Hugh didn't come because his wife didn't want to leave.)

Paternal Grandfather: unnamed, linen weaver and merchant of Carrickfergus

McSkimin, "History of Carrickfergus"

Sourcing: bio is attributed to Colyar's book, but includes information about Jackson's father that is not in Colyar -- unknown source.

Father: Jacksons parents lived at Boneybefore "in a house close to the passage to the shore known as Magill's Crossing" -- leveled when the railway from Carrickfergus to Larne was constructed.

Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson

Sourcing: the work begins with a lengthy bibliography, including Jacksonian campaign materials. Concerning Jackson's paternal heritage, only mentions Jackson's papers and McSkimin's book.

Father: Andrew Sr. farmed land near Carrickfergus.

Paternal Grandfather: Hugh of Carrickfergus in 1660,linen-draper, suffered at the siege in 1660 (which Parton says was of "so trifling a nature as to be almost ridiculous). Then talks about the storming of the town in 1689.

Paternal Grandfather: no knowledge, but notes just one mention of a Jackson in McSkimin's book -- John Jackson who was in a list of a grand jury in 1708.

Rantoul, "Some notes on Chipman Hill"

Sourcing: a few scattered sources, but none given for the claimed connection between Jackson and the Hill family.

Father and Paternal Siblings: Andrew Sr. from Carrickfergus had sister Elizabeth who married John Hill, came to America, children

Hugh Hill b. Carrickfergus 1740
Jenny m. _____ McNinch of Baltimore, Maryland
Nancy m. _____ Gardner in America
Peter m. Jane Neilson in Ireland
Elizabeth m. _____ Porter in America
James m. Elizabeth Walker of Dromore in Ireland

Paternal Grandfather: Hugh from Carrickfergus (in 1660!), linen draper, "so says Parton"

Remini, Andrew Jackson: the course of American empire

Sourcing: refers to four of the accounts listed above that may have been read by Jackson (all except the McCully letter). Says "none of these claims can be verified. Because the Kendall and the Reid and Eaton biographies were prepared under Jackson's supervision I have tended to accept their word in such matters."

Father and Paternal Uncles: Andrew Sr. lived near Castlereagh, three unnamed brothers, farmers born in Northern Ireland. (A chart near the front of the book names them Hugh, Robert, and "James or Samuel".)

Paternal Grandfather": Hugh, well-to-do linen weaver

Paternal Great-Parents and Great-Uncles: Chart near the front of the book shows Isaac Jackson m. Anne Evans as g-grandparents, with children Hugh and brothers Thomas and John.

Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents

Sourcing: lists

Goodwin, Ellis Munson. "Crafford of New River, North Carolina" in National Geographic Society Quarterly 53 (1965) pp.251-62, 55 (1967) pp.21-28, 253-57, 57 (1969) pp.298-303, and 59 (1971) pp.89-90.
Rantoul, Robert S. "Some notes on Chipman Hill" in Essex Institute Historical Collections 8 (1866) pp.118-23.
Murphy, Marion Emerson. Early Leslies in York County, South Carolina, their migrations to Tennessee, Missouri, & Arkansas, their ancestry & descendants, 3rd. ed., 1976, pp.7-11b
Smith, S. B. & Owsley, H. C. The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Appendix I genealogical charts

The first two parts of Goodwin's serial article seem to contain no information about Jackson's paternal line other than his father's name. The remainder should be consulted to see what they contain.

Father: Andrew of Carrickfergus before 1760 to Waxhaws, S. C. by 1760-1

Grandfather: Hugh of Carrickferbus, d. ~1782

Great-Grandfather: Thomas of Ballyregan in Dundonald, County Down, living in 1761

Smith and Owsley (ed.), The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume I, 1770-1803

Sourcing: volume 1, page 413 states that the tree on p.414 was drawn from "a manuscript describing the Jackson family found among the Jackson Papers at the Library of Congress" and Robert Jackson's letter." They go on to say that Ulster links with the White House "illuminated Jackson's remote grandfather and great-uncles".

The tree contains exactly what is described. The top level gives the great-grandfather and great-uncles from "Ulster links with the White House", then descendants of Hugh are drawn from Robert's letter. (There is one conflict in this information -- Robert lists his brothers as Hugh, James, and Andrew, while "Ulster links with the White House" would have one of them named Samuel. This is resolved by giving Robert's list of brothers and placing a Samuel Jackson m. Miss Vateau as a child of James as per the manuscript, presumably guessing that James was the father of Samuel and Hugh was the father of Mrs. Suffern, as opposed to the other way around.

They also present McCully's letter sent to Jackson in 1821, which partially conflicts with the information in the tree.

Watson, The life and times of Andrew Jackson

Genealogical sourcing: Unsourced. Watson declares, "Col. Brownlow, particularly, made me acquainted with many out-of-print books, of the most interesting character, which none of the Jackson biographers consulted".

Father and Paternal Uncles: Andrew Sr. had brother Hugh.

Hugh was present at Braddock's defeat in America. He became interested in the Catawba Land Company and convinced a group of Irish families to emigrate. Among those was his brother Andrew's. In the end, Hugh's wife would not leave so they stayed in Ireland.

Paternal Grandfather: Hugh, of Carrickfergus (p.19). Estate was passed to Andrew Jacckson Jr. through his grandfather's agent William Barton, of Charleston, at whose home Andrew's mother had passed.





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