Who Would You Like to Meet?

The challenge for week 1 is to consider who you would like to meet.  I considered several obvious people:  Lemuel McCracken, Roger Ellis, and George Nicholson for example. I would love to know who their parents are and hopefully they knew.  However, I decided to write about Tabitha, who married Passco Peele (1733).

 

Why?

 

The reason I chose Tabitha is that meeting her would hopefully  put to bed a debate over her parentage or at least determine if the family lore is possible or not.  There are distant members of the family that believe that Tabitha is the daughter of President John Adams and was conceived out of wedlock prior to his marriage to Abigail Smith.  The belief is based on three things:  one of her grandsons being given the middle name Adams (William Adams Peelle),  one man’s grandmother’s story, and a scrap of paper with a note that was supposedly written by her great-grandson (William A. Peelle).  William Adams Peelle was the uncle of William A. Peelle.  Read more about their research and thoughts @ https://peele.info/lawrence/Volume%2015%20Issue%201.pdf.

 

This story got me digging into Tabitha around the time their story was published.  I didn’t find any evidence to support their story.  However, like on other family lines, other researchers seem to think I should simply accept family lore or circumstantial evidence without looking further.

 

So, what do we know about Tabitha? 

 

Early census records and tax lists show Passco in North Carolina.  In 1800, one female over the age of 45 is listed.  Assuming this is Tabitha, that would make her birth year 1755 or earlier.

 

The oldest know child was born in 1776 with the last one born in 1795. A twenty year span for a large family was quite normal at the time.  It does mean, however, that she wasn’t born around the time of her husband as she would have passed her child bearing years before 1795.  Again, that is assuming that all of Passco’s children are also her children. We do know that Passco’s will in 1806 specifies that his wife is Tabitha.

 

At one time I found an article that claimed she didn’t provide her age when asked, stating that the Meeting House (Society of Friends/Quaker) had burnt and that no record of her birth could be found.  She may have been avoiding saying how old she was or she may truly not have known.  The story of the Meeting House burning is a very believable one as many of the old buildings burnt.  In addition,  neither myself or anyone else I know has found a record of their marriage either.  Given that they belonged to the  Society of Friends at the time, their marriage should have been recorded.

 

The additional factor is that family states that her last name was Dunnigan (or some version of that name).  However, I have not seen any records personally that show her maiden name.  So, I am working with the assumption that this name is correct while continuing to look for documentation of her name.

 

What do We Know About John Adams?

 

If Tabitha was about 20 years old when she married Passco (give or take 5 years) and they married a year or two before the oldest known child was born, she would have likely been born 1750-1760.  In 1751 John Adams began attending Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He graduated in 1755.  After graduation, he taught school, studied law, and received his master’s degree from Harvard.  In 1759, he was admitted to the bar.

 

As a young man, John was popular with women and reports were that he enjoyed their company.  It wasn’t until after this period that he met his future wife Abigail Smith.  So, it is possible that he had a dalliance with with a young lady during this interval.  However, it is most likely that it occurred in Massachusetts.  If this did indeed occur, the young lady would have either had to have been sent south to have the child or the child would have had to have been sent south to be adopted by someone.

This distance is bothersome.  It is definitely possible, but somehow Tabitha ended up in North Carolina, which is several hundred miles from where John Adams lived.

 

DNA

 

I have done DNA research on the name Dunnigan (multiple spellings) and the name Adams.  Tabitha is back several generations and which makes it more challenging.  She also belonged to the Society of Friends, who intermarried within the society which can skew the DNA matches.  In addition, i also also related to a different Adams family that lived in the same general area and whose descendant married into my direct Peelle line.  Thus, although I have DNA matches to people with each name in their tree, I have not found conclusive data to prove or disprove who Tabitha’s parents were.

 

Conclusion

 

As I see it, there are many possibilities.  However, there are lots of “ifs” in every version of this story. For now, I will keep the search open as I still don’t believe there is enough evidence to make a determination as to her ancestry.