I don't see your name on this file or a way to contact you. So I'll just start a discussion.
Much of the early generations of this lineage were guesses made by early family historians determined to link the Todds of Philadelphia County to early generations in Ireland and Scotland. But there is no documentary evidence to support any of it.
The 1905 publisher of the manuscript of EMily Todd Helm, the half sister of Mary Todd Lincoln, changed the location assumed by Emily Todd Helm as the ancestral homeland of the Todds. She thought her Todds were related to the James Todd d 1704 Aghaderg, County Down But the publisher looked at the wills of Ireland and concluded that the will that had children most closely resembling the Todds of Philadelphia County was that of John Todd d 1719 in Tynan, County Armagh. He noted that this John was an Anglican but the Todds of Mary todd Lincoln were Presbyterian. But he was not dissuaded from his assertion. He never considered that the Todds might have come from a farming father that left no will.
DNA evidence shows that the Todds of Toddstown, County Down, Ireland are not related to the Todds of Mary Todd Lincoln.
So what is documented is that Robert Todd 1697-1775 is the earliest ancestor of the Mary Todd Lincoln family along with his half brother Andrew d 1791 Louisa County Virginia. We simply do not have any real evidnece of his parentage.
We know that Robert's grandson John Todd (son of Rev John Todd) married a granddaughter of William Todd who arrived in Augusta County Virginia in 1750. This suggests kinship of some sort between William and Robert. DNA from William's descendants reveals he was close kin to Robert but we can not determine if he was a brother or close cousin.
William had a son John Todd who in 1770 or 1772 sold half of the land on Turnip Creek that his father William had bought in Bedford County VA in 1761 after leaving Augusta County. . This John Todd settled in 1780 in Lincoln Co (the part that became Mercer County KY) not far from where John McMurtry, settled. John Mcmurtry was married to a granddaughter of William Todd of Augusta Co and Bedford Co VA.
Richard McMurtry
