| Two quarters were the start of some
interesting connections and expansion in the
A&E Family Forest Saturday. That's how much a
used book, "The Pattons, A Personal History
of an American Family" by Robert H. Patton,
cost at a yard sale. The Pattons had been the
focus of a Captain's Log in May (see Benjamin
Davis "Don Benito" Wilson) ) after I had
come across "Patton, A Genius For War"
by Carlo D'Este during a housesitting assignment
this Spring.
I had not found the parents of one of General
Patton's great-grandmothers, Peggy French
Williams, in that book. On the chart at the
beginning of the new book, Peggy was shown to be
the daughter of Lucy Slaughter and Isaac Hite
Williams, and the granddaughter of Eleanor Hite
and John Williams.
Switching to my "Directory of Maryland
State Society Daughters of the American
Revolution and Their Revolutionary Ancestors
1892-1965", I found that John Williams is
recognized as a Patriot ancestor by the DAR. He
was shown with his wife Eleanor Hite, three
children, and their spouses. The name of his
descendant who became a DAR member, Dora A.
Kearney, was also shown, along with her DAR
number.
Eleanor Hite's father, Isaac Hite, was a lucky
man. His father had acquired 140,000 acres in the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Isaac's father
gave him three miles of land along the Shenandoah
River to build his Long Meadow plantation. Isaac
and Eleanor's son married the sister of President
Madison.
Isaac's wife Eleanor was the granddaughter of
Sara DuBois and Joost Jans Van Metre. Switching
to my "A Genealogy of the Duke-Shepard-Van
Metre Family, from Civil, Military, Church and
Family Records and Documents" by Samuel
Gordon Smyth, I found that the Huguenot DuBois
family and the Dutch Van Metre family were
prominent families of early New York. Thousands
of descendants of Sara DuBois and Joost Jans Van
Metre are shown to have relatively quickly
scattered along most of the Eastern Seaboard, and
many migrated west from there.
The DuBois line is shown unbroken for eight
more generations in Europe, and includes details
of several parts of their ancestry leading back
to Guelph, Prince of the Scyrii (A.D. 476).
It's amazing how far 50˘ can still take one
these days.
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