Indian Girl 1662

What I'm exploring here is the idea there might be a different chronology for Nicketti Hughes, Person of legend than the one we've been working with. It's not that I'm convinced of anything -- just exploring interesting byways and possibilities.

We've been working with a story for Nicketti that comes from the book Alexander Brown, The Cabells and their kin (1895, 1939).

The chronology for the story is summarized by Catherine H. C. Seaman, Tuckahoes and Cohees: the settlers and cultures of Amherst and Nelson Counties, 1607-1807 (1992). She says:

"The genealogy of Opechancanough's descendants is biologically possible although Opechancanough was said to be nearly 100 years old when he was murdered In 1644. 'The daughter of his old age' Nicketti. may have been born when he was in his 70s, (by 1614), and she may have married in the early 1630s. Nicketti's daughter, who was married about 1680, must have been born in the late 1650s when Nicketti was in her late thirties." (Seaman, 1992: 158)."

It's hard to imagine Niketti, born by 1614 and married in the early 1630s could be the "Indian girl" who was the subject of a lawsuit involving two different "Hughes" men in 1662 (Rice Hooe and Rees Hughes).

But also quite a coincidence that we have an Indian girl associated with both Rice Hooe and Rees Hughes in 1662, and a story about an Indian girl associated with a mysterious "Trader Hughes".

What if the chronology we have is wrong? Cut Nicketti loose as a niece of Pocahontas (which could be a later invention), and other possibilities open up.

Gov. John Floyd of Virginia was a descendant of this family. He named a daughter Nicketti, born 1819. His wife wrote about the choice of that name:

"The father of Robert Davis had married a half-breed girl, Nicketti."

Actually, the father of Rpbert Davis was Nathaniel Davis, of Hanover (c1655-c1743) who is supposed to have married Mary Elizabeth Davis (c1654-1740). Mary Elizabeth Hughes would indeed be a half-breed girl, but in our version of the story she would have to be a daughter of Nicketti, not the same person as Niketti.

We can allow some play in the story here. Nathaniel Hughes' wife might have also had Indian name Nicketti, or she might have been the daughter of Nicketti.

Either way, the dates here are approximate. An Indian "girl" in 1662 could plausibly have been young (born say early to mid 1650s or she could have been older and of marriageable or near-marriageable age (born say 1640 to 1650).

Capt RIce Hooe I - father of [Nicketti] according to Devo. [Sarah Hooe}NN fits.

The SNP ancestry of the King Connect NA participants in the line of Mary Davis Hughes are these participants: Hoosier of IN x 1, a Lett of OH x 1, a Dillard of KY x1, a Dillard of Chowanoke x1, - all have Harris/Harrison at the level that ties in these Amherst Co, VA with the Harrison DD of the Rice Hooe IV 2nd wife: Rice Hooe, IV. These kits compare at the same levels of all cousins of Lovey Harris Bass of the Nansemond NA x 11 kits of that house to the Harrison /Anderson DD claiming descent of Cockacoeske. Triangulations to all of the above: X16 and to most, x7 is in common.

It's workable either with Rice Hooe I or Rice Hooe IV; there are options.

** correction: [Nicketti} SPOUSE of Capt Rice Hooe is what Devo said. Excuse me.

The 1662 lawsuit can really only be Rice Hooe, II. His father Rice Hooe, I was dead by 1655. His son Rice Hooe, III was only about 2.

Three points I think might be worth mentioning here.

First, in the earliest written version of the story (1895) the author raises and immediately dismisses a competing version of the story where Nicketti is a Catawba princess rather than a Powhatan princess:

""[W]e will consider another very interesting tradition, which has it that Mrs. Elizabeth Cabell was descended from an Indian princess of the Powhatan tribe (some accounts have it 'of the Catawba tribe,' but this is not tenable) . . . ." (Brown, 1895: 42)

The mention of the Catawba here is interesting. According to their traditions, they lived in Canada until they were driven out by the Iroquois. They migrated south into Botetourt County Virginia and Kentucky until they reached the Catawba River in North Carolina by the 1660s. Amherst County where Trader Hughes lived is separated from Botetourt County only by a narrow neck, the south tip of Rockbridge County.

Second, in this "earliest" version the success and survival of Trader Hughes and Nicketti among the Indians is specifically attributed to her Indian descent AND to her connection with the Quakers:

"it was the knowledge among the neighboring Indians of this descent which protected her husband while locating these lands, and herself when she was managing them in his absence. It was more probably owing to her relationship to members of the Society of Friends, with whom the Indians were on friendly terms." (Brown, 1895: 42)

Nothing spectacular here, although it is worth noticing the Quaker connection. The Davis family were Quakers -- and so was the family of Rice Hughes. Rice himself left land to the Anglican church, but his son Robert "the Quaker" Hughes tried to recover it. There is some speculation Rice Hughes might have been a Quaker himself, but repented toward the end of his life.

Third, we should keep in mind that Pocahontas took hold of the American imagination slowly. She did not become a truly American icon until the American Centennial celebrations in 1876. When we consider the story of Nicketti as a relative of Pocahontas we should keep in mind that any miscegenation in the 1600s or 1700s could be cleaned up in the late 1800s by making it a connection to Pocahontas. By then a connection to Pocahontas could be read as "blue blood" rather than "half breed". And that might be what we see in the The Cabells and their kin (1895). It's likely the Davis ancestor Nicketti was Indian but less likely she was authentically connected to the Powhatan tribe.

The Andersons Co Haliwa-Saponi matching on x16 participating at cousin levels that are 4 cousin upline at [ MRCHA unknown] matches apart from the Old Cheraw cousins matching on the same x16 who know their line to Rice Hooe IV /Mrs Harrison. Point is: x16 for all of the above is the same as for the Nansemond Mrs (Harris)Basse DD and whose participant names are those common to Pamunkey, plus, all of the WHOLE of the above claim descent via Powhaton via oral tradition, found each other by such on Ancestry, did the group SNP, keep doing the group Gedmatch chromosome browser work just to make sure; it's a Powhatan story because that is what was the trend; except for the Haliwa who were in the culture/still are; but, they and the Bass Nansemond still claim a Powhatan link just like Cherokee Moytoy line does.

Haliwa matches: A372035 Shirley Cozo Roberson Co. NC. Anderson Country TN-
T041536 Shirley Cozo - A512798 Charley Lowery ; A156707 John F. Burris
T934926 Tom Lowery; T938674 Alexander Willis ; T874360 Sandra Lowery
T554799 Becky Burris; T271853 Ben Lowery; A456390 Kyle Moorman

Those Eastern Siouan's above happen to match the DD with a doc line and are in part of "Old Cheraw" as the elders called themselves from the line of Pounds back to the line of Cockacoeske line. It's a x16 triangulation. DNA Detectives ran those to the Haliwa kits above. All have x16, levels for them have more cM than the other lines than Harrison/Andersons/and Harris/Bass groups. BUT ALL of these groups have x16 matches.

Doc trail participants to Rice Hooe/ [Sarah Goodwin] for matching x16 to Eastern Siouan descendant is Rhynda Eaton kit A372035 ; matching in haploblock x 16 to 2 Old Cheraw cousins who do not have the Harrison connection but are via Pounds/Price doc line back to Cockacoeske; namely A463626 (*Robert B Pounds and Tushanna Corkern of DNA Detectives.

Is this profile misplaced

Thomas Brackett, of Amelia, VA

Hooks to a New Hampshire line

I know that line due to Col Benjamin Harrison,II - It follows with the trend of a trade tthat Col Claiborne ran north of New Kent (started in 1631) to Canada and licensed the Smith of Purtan by sail on the Atlantic and had been working the Ocaneechi Path since Greene was first patent holder on it.

Not sure what to think about Sarah, wife of Rice Hooe, as Nicketti. She's so early (born c1612) it's easy to create a Powhatan chronology for her but it's almost impossible to put her into the Trader Hughes narrative.

The only child attributed to Nicketti in the earliest tradition was the wife of Nathaniel Davis, born c1654. Seaman says late 1650s. This scenario would make Nicketti = Sarah also the mother of Rice Hooe II, born c1640. Almost a full generation apart with no known children in between.

More seriously, Rice Hooe I died before 1655. it would mean the Indian Niketti was managing the estate of her late husband, acting as guardian for her son Rice II, and it was she who signed the 1656 deed selling Merchant's Hope. There seems to be no will but there is no record Mary Elizabeth Hughes shared in the estate.

It would also mean Rice Hooe II, a moderately affluent farmer and "Cavalier", allowed his sister to marry into a Quaker family. He himself bought 1000 acres and re-settled in Stafford County, still in Tidewater Virginia (1671). In this scenario, his much younger sister would have married down the social ladder c1680.

Nothing impossible in any of this, but the story doesn't really hang together. Each piece is just a bit incongruent.

Cousin-ness is there via Sarah's Nansemond Harris/Bass x16 but that just may mean the Indian Girl and NN/Sarah and Nicketti were Nansemond kin. Does not matter to me if [Sarah] is [Nicketti] or sis. I just believe what Mr Devo said ant that Nicketti is a wife of Capt Hooe.

And the reason I believe it is due to the Chowanoke indentured and bond apprentice cousin of John West c. 1717 and then head to Newman's Ridge after Malungo Town trek. Also, I belive it due to the Lott connection Capt Hooe in the Rev War era and the Goinstown Indian School being cousins from Haliwa and very much connected to Hooe and Pugh in Rev War. I don't need the x16 chromosome haplogroup to prove it; but, it does. I know from the Rev War militia raised by Hooe who would come to the aide and they are all the names of all the people who say they are kin to Nicketti.

Trying to give some shape to the story. Rice Hooe II is a much better match for "Trader Hughes". Especially if we speculate he might have had both wife Susanna at home, and wife Nicketti off in a frontier trading post. The dates work better, I think.

To me it seems significant that Rice Hooe was involved in a trading network. His line are above everything merchants. His home place was even Merchants Hope.

Trader Hughes is supposed to have made his fortune trading with the Catawba, and one early version of the Nicketti story makes her Catawba.

Overall it seems to me very likely the mysterious Trader Hughes was (as you also seem to believe) someone we already know from other sources. I see a lot of confusion between Rice Hughes and Rice Hooe in the written accounts. That confusion is at a level where it is possible the two men were close relatives.

Then, looking at Hughes headrights it seems possible there was really a third man in the mix who has not yet been adequately distinguished from the other two. That's why I'm spending what is for me a lavish amount of time in an area I would normally ignore.

Warned the managers of Rice II weeks ago that we are coming with our indentured NA cousin-ness when we proove it and we have.

The problem with the atDNA matches you're seeing is that this type of matching becomes unreliable this far back. It's not a problem of finding groups of people who match a few others in the same group, but of isolating their possible common ancestor.

At the heart of the problem is that very few people living today know every single ancestor who was living say circa 1650. So, it's always possible pieces are missing from the puzzle. And this becomes an even greater possibility when there is thought to be a Native American background or when peoples' ancestors lived for a long time in the same general area.

Another problem is that many times the atDNA matches are very small. If they are less than 7 cM they are almost certainly worthless. And even in the range 7 to say 10 cM there is a high chance the matches are coincidental.

Taking these two problems into account -- absence of a complete ancestry and the small size of the actual matches -- it's more accurate to characterize these as "population matches" rather than "family matches". In other words, these people probably all belong to a large interrelated group of people who actual relationships are likely to be more complex than simple descent from a certain ancestral couple.

As an example of what I'm describing, Ancestry.com is able to assign me to two different populations -- Utah Mormons and early settlers of the Ohio River Valley. I have so many matches into these groups even with no known common ancestors it's virtually certain the reason for our matches is that we all descend from the same population.

In other, so far unpublished studies, it's also clear I belong to population groups from Colonial New England, Manchester England, and southern Sweden.

All true based on my own paper genealogy. The DNA supports the paper genealogy, but is not specific enough or firm enough to show particular descents. Even when there are possible shared descents that could be the source, there is always the possibility the match really comes through another line in the same population.

True except that there is an x16 haploblock of segment cousin-ness and all the ones claiming a Harrison have it.

Making Tabitha Harrison Hooe's mom or grandmother the likely MRCA.

> x16 haploblock of segment cousin-ness

What does that mean? That's not a standard notation.

I'm not a pro. Just reporting in my phrasiology.

The DNA Dectives people and the King Connect NA can explain it better. I'm moving on to more studies of algokian linquistics and the Piskotoway issue with the Berry's of Occupacia and their doc trail to the MD Berry who have a Burr Harrison story to tell with the whole of all of these neighbors. Just going to be popping in the primary sources if I find any.

Not a problem, but I hope you will take some time to explain the shorthand you are using.

Some of it is easy to guess what you might mean. Other parts are completely opaque.

What I think you might mean is that there is a group (not really a haploblock, which isn't a "thing") of 16 people where all have a paper trail back to Tabitha Harrison Hooe, and where each person has an autosomal match to at least one other person in the group.

That's a "thing". If you're thinking of that, it would usually be the case that people in the group don't match other people in the group at the exact same location as everyone else. What's significant for this kind of cluster is just that they all match each other somehow.

That would be enough for a commercial outfit like Ancestry.com to put them all in the same shared group as "likely" descendants of Tabitha.

An expert would warn that this far back it's very likely that a couple of the people in the group don't really belong there, at least not technically. Their matches to each other might actually come from a different ancestral couple.

And, it's possible that they all appear to be getting the DNA from Tabitha when in fact it might be "population" DNA. For example, they might be descendants of say the Catawba tribe on other lines.

So. Significant but not proof.

What you said....

One of our Hughes deals in haploblocks. www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(15)01389-8/pdf
data analysis revealed familial haploblock inheritance. Monosomies showed ...
E. Czuprenski, K. McWilliams, M. Hughes. Genesis Genetics, Plymouth, MI

This is what makes the terminology confusing. He is using haploblock as a synonym for segment. There is an idea that is seeming to test out that certain segments are resistant to recombination. If so, these segments might endure longer in a population than other segments.

For example, I can look at a matrix of all my matches and see various places this seems to be happening. There is a segment about 9 cM on my chromosome 1 where every match I have is a Swede. I don't have a known common ancestor with any of them. The size of the segment is just barely enough to be a reliable indicator of genetic relatedness. What appears to be happening is that this segment is resisting recombination, so is floating around in a wider population. Maybe we all share an unknown 16th or 17th ancestor, or maybe it goes back much further.

There is a software program called HaploBlockFinder that looks for possible segments like this.

When you say "x16 haploblock of segment cousin-ness" it's an odd way of phrasing the idea. I think you mean 16 people in a group who share segments with at least one other person in the group.

But it's possible you mean there are 16 segments that are shared among a group that might be very large or very small. And, if that's the case then the significant information is missing -- how large are those segments, how many people have them, do they appear outside the group of claimed descendants, etc.

By coincidence DNA Testing Advisor re-posted an old article today:

Saturday, February 19, 2011
Genetic Genealogy and the Single Segment
http://ongenetics.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/genetic-genealogy-and-sing...

The math is enough to make your heart sing, but you should love this even if you hate math:

* Distant relatives often share no genetic material at all.
* It is possible to share a segment with very distant relatives.
* Sometimes, more distant relationships are more likely.
* Most of your relatives may be descended from a small fraction of your ancestors.

This is meaningful here because it is actually impossible to date small segments.