Disentangled: Peter and Philip Counts

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Virginia
Surnames/tags: Counts Koonts

There were several men in the later eighteenth century in Shenandoah and adjoining counties, Virginia, named Peter Counts (or Koonts), and also several men named Philip Counts (Koonts). This has brought confusion to attempts to present a coherent genealogy of this family or families. This free space page will present the various sources for these men and sort out their family relationships.

OVERVIEW (under construction)

1. Confusing tax record: Peter, Jr. was actually the YOUNGER HALF- BROTHER (not son) of Peter Counts, whose name was originally Deter or Teeter (Dietrich).

2. If B.C. Holtzclaw's surmise is correct, the younger Peter and his brothers Jacob, Michael and Philip were younger sons of John Counts of Frederick County who married Anna Stoever (and who later married widow Armentrout in Augusta County).

3. Outline of the earliest generations of this Counts family in Virginia, part of the 1714 Germanna colony.

4. Baltzer Counts and others near him: Descended from John Counts's brother Henry?

5. John Counts of Glade Hollow (with son Philip): Son of Catharine, sister of John Counts? Related y-DNA to Nicholas Counts? Or both?

6. The four men named Philip Counts/Koontz who were discussed in Lowell Koontz's genealogy of the descendants of Elder John Koontz, son of John Counts.

== Part I: The Confusing Tax Record ==

The 1792 personal property tax list in Rockingham County, Virginia shows the following Counts ("Counze") men in the vicinity of Smith Creek^[1]:

1. Phil Counze 2. Peter Counce Sr. and son Phil 3. Peter Counce Jr. 4. Martin Counce

Here we have two men named "Phil" Counce (one of them a teenage son listed with his father), and two men named Peter Counce. Others have mistakenly assumed that Peter, Jr. was the son of Peter, Sr., but that was not necessarily the case in these early tax records: "Jr.," as often as not, simply differentiated between two men with the same name, who were not necessarily father and son.

On the above list of "Counze" men, Holtzclaw (pp. 126-27) shows that numbers 1, 3 and 4 were brothers, together with another brother Jacob: [Summarize documentation]

That is not consistent with the supposition that Peter, Jr. (#3) was the son of Peter, Sr. (#2), unless Peter, Sr. had two sons named Philip (one listed above him and the other in his household). Holtzclaw surmises that Deter Counts, who first appeared in the Rockingham County tax lists in [year] together with John Counts, was the same as PETER Counts who [LOOK IT UP] ...

(UNDER CONSTRUCTION, to be continued)

Sources

1. ↑ Thanks to Sharon Kouns for posting her research notes)