NEWS ABOUT OUR BRADFORDS FROM THE MARYLAND DNA PROJECT!

At the Maryland DNA project website - https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/maryland-dna/faq - it looks like some of our Bradford ancestors are definitely listed, including a fascinating new piece of information.  The first listed William Bradford and David Bradford are brothers to our Rebecca Bradford Miller, and the information listed with them is already known.  However, the first entry is Samuel Bradford, Rebecca's father, and here is where we get that new information:

Samuel Bradford was born in 1727 in Ireland, and he did marry Sarah Bradford. The startling new information is that he is listed as dying in Fauquier County, Virginia!!

It has puzzled many of us that we have never known where Samuel died.  There is no record of him dying in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, which is where his wife, Sarah, moved to with their daughter, Rebecca, her husband, William Miller, and their children around 1782.  We have also never been able to find any death record for him in Cecil County, Maryland, which is where the family lived for many, many years before moving west.

If Samuel did go to Faquier County, why did he go without his family? When did he go there and when did he die there? This opens up a huge new avenue of research for us!

My grandfather, Allen Miller Charpier, contended that his "grandfather Bradford" lived out his years on his "plantation in the Shenandoah Valley."  While Faquier County is not included as part of the Shenandoah Valley, it is very close by and is, as can be seen in the picture below, certainly as beautiful.  I  never put any credence in this story because there was just no indication to this effect in the records, but as we all know, DNA is turning the genealogy world upside down.  It may have just done so to our Bradford research!

I hope you will join me in searching out the records of Faquier County, Virginia.  Please email me or post to this blog if you find anything. Thanks!

Faquier County, VA