Todds of North Carolina and Virginia

Profile manager: Mark Todd [send private message]

How to Join

Please contact the project leader Mark Todd or leave a comment at the foot of the page. If you have any questions, just ask. Thanks!

Goals

This is a One Name Study created to study the ancestral origins of the Todds of North Carolina and Virginia.

For now, the study is collecting in one place everything about the ancestors and descendants of JOSIAH TODD (1778 - 1853) [Todd-2431], with immediate family and connections in

• Bertie County, North Carolina,
• Edgefield County, South Carolina, and
• Dallas (now Lowndes) County, Alabama.

The hope is that other researchers like you will join our study to help make it a valuable reference point for people studying lines that cross or intersect.

Please see the italicized and emboldened tasks inserted in-text below to see if you have an interest in exploring any of these genealogical questions, or if you have family history or sources that help clarify those questions.

A brief, contextualizing bio for Josiah: Josiah was born on 17 Dec 1778 in Bertie County, North Carolina, during the War of Independence. He moved to Edgefield County, South Carolina, in 1805, where he raised family with his first wife Nancy Asbill [Asbill-106] and, upon her death, with his second wife Zilpha Thomas [Thomas-17189]. After service in the War of 1812, he moved in 1817 with his second wife to Collirene, Lowndes County, Alabama, where he later died on 11 Aug 1853.

Task List

Ancestors

So far, only Josiah's two previous generations of ancestors have some degree of documentation and sources, and strong indications of those ancestors living in North Carolina.

According to Richard McMurtry's collection "Todd Families in America," most recently updated April 2016, there are some 55 different Todd lines in the United States including an entry on Josiah, his ancestors, and his descendants. [1]

Josiah Todd is classified by McMurtry under the Edgecombe-Bertie-Tyrell County Todds of North Carolina. [1] (See entries halfway down McMurtry's Web page.) Josiah's parents appear to be as follows:

• William Todd
• Jemima Gray

1. We need more research into Josiah's mother Jemima, finding primary sources for her parents' names, when she was born, as well as more information and sources about her parents.

Note (20 Jan 2020) :Family traditions suggest two candidates for William's wife: [[Edwards-17779 | Jemima Edwards and Jemima Gray. We know very little about Jemima Edwards. She was born about 1758 in Edgecomb County, North Carolina, and her parents were likely Joseph Edwards and Sarah Lawrence. Her father still appears in the 1790 U.S. Federal Census in Edgecombe County, but Jemima married William Todd in 1771. The other candidate is Jemima Gray, who was born in Worcester, Province of Massachusetts Bay. I've gone with the latter because there's DNA -- in fact, triangulated segments -- shared among descendants of Josiah and descendants of Jemima Gray's ancestors.

Josiah's paternal grandparents were as follows:

• Thomas Todd [Todd-3712], by some accounts born in Bertie County, Colony of North Carolina, British Colonial America, but by others in King and Queen County, Colony of Virginia.
• Charity Hardy [Hardy-3108] Some genealogies include the middle name of "Carrel," but no primary source records so far confirm this.

2. We need to determine for Thomas Todd both his firm birth date and birthplace, with good primary sources.

3. We also need to verify with more confidence the identity of his parents. (See "DNA Corroboration" section below for recent progress on this initiative, which may be resolved.)

4. We have a list of names for Thomas and Charity's eight children from a FamilySearch profile. [7] but only a WikiTree profile on one:

• Sarah Todd (b. 1730)
• Mary Todd (1732-1769)
• Christian Todd (1734-1769)
• Thomas Todd (1736-1777)
• John Todd (1738-1816)
• William Josiah Todd (1740-1795) [Todd-3711]
• Elizabeth (b. about 1740)
• William Todd (1750-1815) (Can this be right?)

The above (except for the "William Josiah") have no sourcing and need research.

Thomas's wife and Josiah's paternal grandmother Charity Hardy [Hardy-3108] reaches further back several generations and into Wales. The documentation on these lines are confident. (See the tree for Charity's profile on WikiTree.)

Note: A number of declared genealogical lines for Josiah's ancestry above his paternal grandfather Thomas Todd [Todd-3712] are suspect, including those variously recorded at Ancestry, Geni, MyHeritage, and WeRelate. For example, no primary records confirm that Thomas is related to the Philadelphia Todds who immigrated first to Rowan County, North Carolina, and then several of these Todds to Bertie County. More promising is a connection to the (Capt.) Thomas Todd+Anne Gorsuch line from Virginia, where Josiah's descendants share DNA with descendants of Capt. Thomas and Anne. (See note 24 Dec 2019 below under "DNA." For a snapshot of challenges in identifying female candidates in the Capt. Thomas Todd line, see The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 3. [5])

Descendants

Many descendants of Josiah and his siblings are collectively described as the "Hardy Todds." [1] These lines start in the Edgecombe-Bertie-Tyrell counties of North Carolina, and branch into Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. (Presumably, the "Hardy" name originates with Josiah's grandmother Charity Hardy [Hardy-3108].)

Josiah raised fifteen known children together with either his first wife Nancy Asbill [Asbill-106] or else his second wife Zilpha Thomas [Thomas-17189].

5. Both descendant lines need fleshing out. (See below)

Below is a list of known or reported children of Josiah, including WikiTree profiles, if known.

Children with first wife Nancy Asbill [Asbill-106]:

• James [Todd-6163]
• Penelope
• Lewis
• Martha
• Willoughby

Children with second wife Zilpha Thomas [Thomas-17189]: (All below listed in Josiah's will, dated 12 Sep 1853. [6])

• Atha [Todd-3707]
• Hardy [Todd-3708]
• Lucinda [Todd-3709]
• Elizabeth (married name: Grice)
• Thomas
• Willis
• Mary (married name: Armes)
• Nancy (married name: Gamblin)
• John
• Merina

Thank you for your interest in this Name Study! And hope it's something you would be willing to collaborate on and help strengthen in terms of correct genealogical lines.

Project Members

(Placed on Trusted List for this project)

• Mark Todd [Todd-6590]
• Bryan Todd [Todd-2572]
• Stormy Knight [Knight-10138]
• Dynette France [Todd-6169]

DNA Corroboration

Have you tested your DNA? Consider including that info below, so we triangulate probabilities of shared DNA for our shared ancestors.

• Mark Todd [Todd-6590] -- Do we share DNA? I've tested autosomal DNA with Family Tree DNA [1], kit number 866309. I just got results back from Family Tree DNA's Y-111 test, and hope to have more to report soon. :)
• [Insert your name and info here]
• [Insert your name and info here]
• [Insert your name and info here]

Goforth-Todd DNA

[Update below posted 17 May 2019 by Mark Todd]

My Y-DNA 111 testing results from FamilyTreeDNA has revealed an unexpected ancestral plot twist, we could call it, but it may answer the question of why no one has been able to source – or, at least, to convincingly document – the paternal ancestors of Josiah Todd earlier than his grandparents Thomas Todd and Charity Hardy.

My Y-DNA testing results also correlate with the genealogical findings of Richard McMurtry, whose intensive DNA compilations suggest that Josiah Todd’s ancestry represents a Todd family group that is American born but with no known immigrant progenitors, nor is that group related to any of the other Todd families living in the Americas at that time by following Y-DNA lines. [1, 2, 3, 4]

What’s going on, and what are our roots? The Y-DNA test results show that there seems to have been a Goforth fox in the Todd henhouse in the second, or possibly third, generation prior to Josiah Todd! My test results confirm that I have substantial Y-DNA matches with members of the Goforth family, as do the two other William Josiah Todd descendants who have also taken the FamilyTreeDNA Y-DNA test, and they also show these same Goforth matches.

Further, the particular Goforth matches all come from the same immigrant progenitor-couple: WILLIAM GOFORTH, born 1631 in England; died 1678 in Burlington, N. J.; married July 11, 1662 at a Quaker Meeting in Hull, Yorkshire, England to ANNE SKIPWITH, daughter of Willoughby and Honora [Saunders] Skipwith, born 1642 in England; died February 3, 1723 in Philadelphia, PA., buried in the Roce Street Quaker Meeting House burial grounds, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [10]

William and Anne Goforth arrived in the New World aboard the fly-boat “Martha” on 18 Oct 1677, settlers for the new Quaker colony in the area which later became Burlington and West New Jersey on the Delaware River, about 30 miles above the site on which Philadelphia was founded five years later, in 1682, by William Penn. [10]

Although William Goforth died only a year later, the couple brought with them six sons: George, born 1663, died 1732; William, born 1665, died 1748; John, born 1667, died 1750; Miles, born 1673; died before 1734; Zachariah, born 1675, died 1736; and Thomas, dates of birth and death unknown (although likely born 1676). [10]

One genealogist from the Goforth clan suggested that the latter son above, Thomas Goforth, might be a good candidate to explore. The records concerning his life burned in a fire, and no subsequent research has been done on him. However, the other sons, though officially married, must also be considered as candidates.

When William Goforth died, his wife Anne would later remarry another member of the immigrant passengers on the “Martha,” a man named William Oxley, and with him would settle in Philadelphia. This may be significant since one of William Josiah Todd’s sons, Lewis (brother of Josiah and Henry Hardy), would later marry an Oxley (related only by marriage rather than blood). [10]

Of interest is that Anne Skipwith Goforth Oxley has documented lineage back to King Edward I, and therefore back to the original lords of the Norman Conquest. [11, 12]

This revelation of genealogical origins doesn’t, of course, diminish the percent of ancestral Todd DNA but simply routes those chromosomes through the mother rather than the father. Since this Todd DNA line doesn’t appear to belong to one of McMurtry’s classification of 200-plus other Todd DNA family groups living in America at the time (our group is classified as Todd Family Group 158 by McMurtry), this (great?-)grandmother of Josiah’s would have come from Todd immigrants not yet identified.

My working hypothesis at this time is that the Todd line of immigrants would likely have arrived after 1677 (when the William Goforths arrived in the Colonies) but before 1710 (the earliest possible date of birth for Josiah’s grandfather Thomas Todd). And a promising course of inquiry would lie in trying to identify locations where Todd families overlap with Goforth families during this window of time.

Josiah's paternal great-grandmother -- an unknown Todd

[Update below posted 24 Dec 2019 by Mark Todd]

The above section begs the question, Who was Josiah's great-grandmother, the mother of his paternal grandfather Thomas Todd?

Since DNA results strongly suggest Thomas took his mother's name rather than the Goforth surname (what an interesting -- if unsettling -- story that must be), then the continuation of our ancestral Todd line falls to identifying the family of this female Todd.

In the late fall of 2019, I began collecting and researching DNA matches from three different DNA databases (FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, and GEDmatch) that each have samples of my DNA. As a result, I've identified four descendants that share DNA with me and all four are descendants of the Todd line of Capt. Thomas Todd Sr .

The strongest clue is a DNA comparison to a Capt. Thomas Todd descendant I recently found in the GEDmatch DNA database: Kate Shindler Kit A426692.

A GEDmatch one-to-one autosomal comparison to her DNA with mine reveals that 56% of 599,325 compared and matched SNPs were full identical with "significant validity" segments on Chromosomes 1, 4, 6, 10, 14, 16, totaling 21.6 cM for 0.6% of total shared DNA.

I think that percentage puts me in the ballpark for expected shared DNA going back seven or eight generations to a common ancestor. Kate's GEDmatch kit was listed on the WikiTree profile for William Gorsuch Todd, son of Thomas Todd Jr (and Elizabeth Bernard), and grandson of Capt. Thomas Todd Sr (and Anne Lovelace Gorsuch).

Further, I've found additional DNA matches to this same Todd line, two from DNA comparison matches on FTDNA and a fourth through a MyHeritage DNA match going back to Richard Todd, son of Thomas Todd (and Elizabeth Bernard) and grandson of Capt. Thomas (and Anne Gorsuch).

The next step would be to research the female children and female grandchildren of Capt. Thomas Todd to see if we can identify the most likely candidate for our Thomas Todd's mother.

[Update below posted 26 Jan 2022 by Mark Todd]

After considerable research using available DNA records to augment genealogical records, I've determined with a high degree of confidence Thomas Todd's mother: Frances Todd seems the most likely candidate, with Averilla Todd as a less likely possibility as well.

My DNA research, all autosomal since Y-DNA doesn’t track matrilineal lines, produces a convincing number of shared identical DNA segments with uploaded DNA kits on GEDmatch.com from descendants of Capt. Thomas Todd Sr (1619-1675) and Anne Lovelace Gorsuch (1638-1694). These shared segments are with 15 living, confirmed descendants from Todd+Gorsuch sons Thomas Todd Jr (eight living descendants with shared identical segments totaling 220.5 cM) and William Todd (seven identified living descendants with shared identical segments totaling 215 cM), for a total 435.5 cM. (To be clear, this number represents the aggregate of ALL matching segments with me from all 15 descendants. But subtracting the 57.9 cM overlapping shared segments still produces 377.6 cM of unique matches with me by living Todd+Gorsuch descendants.)

See the detailed discussion of these DNA findings and the correlating genealogical records at this note [13]:

[Update below posted 2 February 2023 by Mark Todd]

Here's an exciting DNA-based corroboration that links us to the early Goforths of Yorkshire: an archaeological site at West Heslerton in Yorkshire has linked SNPs of my DNA with an individual who lived in this vicinity in Early Medieval Yorkshire about 450-550 CE, in the direct vicinity of the site of the earliest know paper-trail Goforth ancestor George Tuttle Goforth I, born in Knedlington, Yorkshire in 1500 CE. The DNA finding is to an individual living a thousand years before George Tuttle Goforth, but in the same vicinity. The two pieces of data--paper trail and DNA--offer a tantatalizing premise that this is likely a continuous bloodline dating back over 1500 years. See attached JPG of this finding. [14]

Project Member Workspace Notes

(Feel free to record your notes and progress here as you address the task list or tangential questions and topics you want the rest of us to consider.)

[Mark Todd note] McMurtry's account [1] only goes so far as asserting William Todd (son of Thomas and Charity Hardy) as a viable candidate for Josiah's parents. But McMurtry records this father Todd had three sons (his notes below verbatim):

• Lewis Todd 1763-1851
• Josiah Todd 1773 md 1798 Bertie Co [different birthdate, but marriage date accords with Nancy Asbill]
• Hardy Todd 1775 md 1793 Sarah Sparkman

(WikiTree contains a Henry "Hardy" Todd [Todd-1277] md to Sarah Sparkman [Sparkman-142]. --mdt 12/8/2018)

[Mark Todd note, 03 May 2019]

From my Y-DNA test, I discovered a match with a direct descendant of Henry Hardy Todd (married to Sarah Sparkman) with a "0" genetic distance between that descendant and me. So I now have a high confidence that Josiah and Henry Hardy are indeed brothers, and other genealogy records name Lewis as Henry Hardy's brother as well.

These two brothers of Josiah merit further research to enrich the Todd family tree.

[Mark Todd note, 10 Mar 2019]

In taking care of my Mother's affairs, who passed away 20 Jan 2019, I discovered she had a copy of an unpublished genealogy project on both the descendants and ancestors of Josiah Todd researched and written by Howard M. Brown. (See note below. [8]) Among those items was a photocopy of a possible Daguerreotype photo of Josiah and Zilpha found in the family bible of James Franklin Todd.

I researched Daguerreotype photography in America and discovered a book about early photography in Alabama called Shot in Alabama: A History of Photography, 1839–1941, and a List of Photographers, by Frances Osborn Robb, which includes documentation of Daguerreotype photography in Lowndes County during the lifetime of Josiah and Zilpha. [9] That Josiah was a prominent citizen and wealthy plantation owner at the time only adds corroboration that this photo could well be of those two.

I've added this Daguerreotype photo to the Todd Name Study space.

Sources

(Please feel free to add to this list for all of our benefit!)

1. McMurtry, Richard. "Todd Families in America" RootsWeb [2]

2. ---. "Essays on Early Todd/McMurtry/Hutton Origins." Summaries and links to nine essays of use for genealogies for early Todds. (Thanks, Bryan Todd, for pointing us to this valuable resource!) RootsWeb [3]

3. ---. "Todd Families in America: Todd Family Numbers and Descriptions" RootsWeb [4]

4. ---. "Todd Family Final DNA Report" RootsWeb [5]

5. Stenard, W. G., "The Todd Family," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol 3, (June 1896), pp. 79-83. Available for free online at GoogleBooks [6]

6. Josiah Todd Will: Alabama, Wills and Probate Records, 1753-1999, Will Books, 1830-1936, pp. 191-92. (See attached image.) [7]

7. Profile for William and Jemima Todd, giving all eight children of Thomas Todd and Charity Carrel Hardy. FamilySearch profile [8]

8. Brown, Howard M. The Todd Family. A copy of unpublished 20-year genealogy research furnished by genealogist Barbara Laine Brunner to MaryKay Todd Mary Kathryn Hardin, now in possession of Mark Todd

9. Robb, Frances Osborn. Shot in Alabama: A History of Photography, 1839–1941, and a List of Photographers. University Alabama Press, 2017.

10. Goforth, George Tuttle. The Goforth Genealogy: A history of the descendants of George Goforth of Knedlington, England. Gateway Press: 1988. [9]

11. Hollick, Martin, “The Royal Line of Anne (Skipwith) (Goforth) Oxley ca. 1642-1723, Part I.” The Slovak Yankee blog. (Also link to Part 2 [10]

12. ---. “The Royal Line of Anne (Skipwith) (Goforth) Oxley ca. 1642-1723, Part II.” The Slovak Yankee blog [11]

13. Mark Todd, "Josiah Todd (1778-1853) and his elusive ancestors, pt 2." Genealogy Blog [12]

14. See attached JPG of report of DNA finding for Yorkshire, England, showing my DNA match with a resident of Knedlington, Yorkshire, England living c. 450-550 CE. This result part of my participation in the J-M241 Haplogroup project on Family Tree DNA. [13]