1790 Federal Census Records For Pardue And Various Other Spellings

1790 Census Records

The above images are the originals of the 1790 census' records for the sons of John Pardue who died in 1769 in Bute County, North Carolina. A click on the small rectangle in the lower left corner of the screen will bring up captions that designate the columns in which each name appears and each county and state, as well as the page number of the original census.

The slideshow can be downloaded to your computer. A click inside the frame will take you to the Picasa website where the pictures are located; click on the download  to send the pictures to your computer.

In 1790 in the first Federal Census of the new United States, all of John's sons who were alive were enumerated except two, Blackman, who may have not been recorded or recorded in another household, and Morris, who was shown in the 1790 Georgia tax records and who was most probably enumerated in the 1790 Georgia census which was lost. John's enumerated sons were William, Fields, Adams, Richard, Bevel, Liliston, and Joel. His eldest son, John, died in 1783, and his third son, Joseph, died sometime within the year previous to the August 1, 1790 date that began the enumeration of the census.

On the census page in Warren County, North Carolina showing the enumerations for William and Bevel, there also appear three other enumerations bearing the surname who were not John's sons - only one who can be identified - John's grandson, also named John, the son of Joseph, John's third eldest son.

The remaining two households in Warren County record enumerations for a Patram Pardieu and a Joseph Pardieu. Combining information for both Patram and Joseph from later census records show they each were born previous to the year 1765 and combined with tax records, they each were born prior to 1762.  Who was the father, or were the fathers, of Patram and Joseph has not been determined, but it appears from various other records, that William, born about 1731, the second of John's sons, is the more likely choice, though, another choice includes John's eldest son, John, who died in 1783, though, there is nothing that indicates that he had any wife or family.

John's third son, Joseph, had a son named, Joseph, also, who at the writing of the elder Joseph's will in 1789, was not yet nineteen years old and the younger Joseph was  very probably one of the males under sixteen enumerated in the household of his brother, John, who was appointed administrator of the elder Joseph's estate at the time the first census was being enumerated, thus making the younger Joseph born no earlier than 1774.

Because a legatee in a will was excluded from being a witness, the Joseph Pardue who witnessed the elder Joseph's will was most probably the Joseph Pardue who was enumerated in both the 1790 census and 1800 Warren County census records. After 1800 he moved to Chester County, South Carolina where he was enumerated in the 1810 census. He died in Chester County, SC in 1845.

Other possibilities of the father, or fathers, of Patram and Joseph in the 1790 census' include one, or the other, of those who held the P*rdue surname who remained in the Appomattox River area of Virginia of which DNA testing has shown descendants of those who remained there to have had a recent common ancestor with the John Pardue who moved to North Carolina in 1761. But, as noted in the post on the Perdue/Pardue DNA Project, while DNA can prove kinship, further documentation is needed to confirm the degree of kinship.


HAPPY NEW YEAR!


Genealogy is never done, it is always a Work in Progress!

1761 The Year of Change

 1751 Joshua Fry - Peter Jefferson Map of Amelia County, Virginia

 Amelia County, Virginia Deed Book 7, page 500.

On the above map, Beaverpond Branch is the unnamed tributary that empties into Deep Creek. At this juncture was located the 400 acres patented in 1733 by a John Adams, acquired by John Pardue prior to 1761, when on 24 August 1761 he and his wife, Sarah, sold to Henry Walthal that 400 acre patent.

The following is an abstract of the deed.  Note that John Pardue was called a planter. In the Colonial South was a man who owned and planted his own land.  A farmer in the Colonial South, unlike in New England, was a tenant.  In New England large landed estates were rare and a farmer usually lived in a village where he owned and farmed his own land at the edge of a village.  These cultural artifacts from that period in Colonial American history are more fully explained in historian David Hackett Fischer's book, "Albion's Seed", a history of the four major British cultural groups that migrated to Colonial America in the 1600s and early 1700s.


"...John Pardue of the County of Amelia, Planter... [to] Henry Walthall of the same county...said John Pardue and Sarah, his wife..400 A, excepting the graveyard...land granted to John Adams by Patent, dated 20 June 1733 and bounded by the lines of George Worsham, Seth Perkerson, & John Ford..."

Wit: Daniel Willson
Christopher Walthall
Robert Mann

At a court held for Amelia County on 27th August 1761.
Ack. by John Pardue and Sarah his wife.


1761 - Arriving in North Carolina

Owen's Creek was a tributary flowing into Great Fishing Creek from the Northeast in Granville County, later to become Bute County in 1764.

The following is an abstract of the 1761 deed of land on Owen's Creek conveyed to John Pardue one month after he sold his land in Amelia County, Virginia.

Deed to John Pardue from William Graves in Granville County, North Carolina 24 Sep 1761.

Granville County, North Carolina Deed Book E, page 95.

"...John Pardue, late of the County of Amelia in the Colony of Virginia and Raleigh Parish, from William Graves...land in Granville Co. on both sides of Owens Creek....386 acres...

Beginning at Hackney's corner, a red oak in Governor
Johnson's line, then running by the governor's line
South 45o East 90 poles to a hickory thence
East 194 poles by Ballard's line to a black jack, then
North 256 poles by Kimbal's line to a poplar on OwensCreek, thence
West 257 poles crossing the said creek to a white oak in Hackney's line,
thence by his line to the beginning."

Wit: William Ballard
Joseph ( H ) Hackney
Rubin (+) Ballard

At a court held for Granville County, North Carolina. 9 Feb 1761.

Genealogy is never done, it is always a Work in Progress!

Pardue Documents in Old Handwriting

 Pardue Documents In The Original Handwriting

The mark of John P*rdue is shown as he made it on 24 March 1768 less than a year before he died in 1769.  The will was presumably dictated by him to someone who spelled the name as Perdue throughout, while John, himself, signed with his mark, a mark which could also be viewed possibly as the abbreviation for the prefix of his surname when compared with the various renderings of the abbreviations for the prefix, "par","per", "pro", and "pre", etc. featured in the above picture.


Genealogy is never done, it is always a Work In Progress!

1758 Land From John Perdue To His Son William Perdue

1758 Deed of Gift to William Perdue.

The elder John Perdue gave his second son, William Perdue, the other 200 acres of the 400 land grant in Amelia County on 23 Feb 1758.

Amelia County, Virgina Deed Book 6, page 158.

Abstracted as follows:

"John Perdue, the Elder of Amelia Co... to William Perdue... the said
John Perdue, the father for love & affection to his son, William Perdue
hath granted...200 A lying & being in Amelia Co. on Winticomack Creek
being the Upper Half of a greater tract of 400 A, bounded:

Beginning at a corner on Tesdales line running
South 63 degrees West to a corner black jack, thence
North 5 degrees West to a corner pine on Munford's line, thence
North 18 degrees East to another corner in his line, thence
North 35 degrees East to another corner in Munford's line, thence
East  35 degrees  South to Coleman's line, thence
South 28 degrees West to the beginning."

At a court held for Amelia County on 23rd of Feb, 1758.
Ack. by John Perdue.

Genealogy is never done, it is always a Work in Progress!

1758 Land From John Pardue The Elder To His Son John The Younger

1758 Deed of Gift on Wintipomack Creek to John Pardue, the Younger.

The elder John Pardue gave his eldest son, John Pardue the Younger, 200 acres of the Amelia County land on 23 Feb 1758.

Amelia County, Virginia Deed Book 6, page 239.

"John Pardue, the Elder of Amelia Co... to John Pardue, the Younger, of
the said county, for L & A hath granted...200 A lying & being in
Amelia Co. on the head of Winticomack Creek, being the lower half of
a greater tract of 400 A, bounded:

Beginning a corner Tesdale's line
South 63degrees West to a corner black jack, thence
South 5o East to a corner shrub white oak, thence
East to a faced corner, thence
North 35o East to Tesdale's line, thence to beginning."

At a court held for Amelia County on 23rd of Feb, 1758.
Ack. by John Perdue.


Genealogy is never done, it is always a Work In Progress!

1746 John Perdue Receives Patent in Amelia County

.

Patent for 400 acres of land on Wintipomack Creek in Amelia County
                                           Issued 5 June 1746
                             Virginia Patent Book 24 page 233

The following is an abstract:

John Perdue Patent, Amelia County, Virginia. 400 Acres. VPB 24:233. 5 June 1746.

"..Lying and being in the county of Amelia on both sides of the head of Winticomack Creek, adjoining Tesdales, Colemans, and Munford's lines and bounded:

Beg. at corner shrub white oak in Munford's line thence,
East 252 poles to a faced corner, thence,
North 35o East 118 poles to Tesdale's lines, thence along his lines
West 35o North 116 poles to his corner, thence,
North 28o East 60 poles to Coleman's corner, thence along his line
West 35o North 161 poles to Munford's line, thence along his line
South 35o West 150 poles to his corner large forked pine, thence
South 18o West 113 poles to his corner pine, thence
South 5o East 81 poles to the beginning..."

In 1758 John deeded to his two eldest sons, John and William Pardue, two hundred acres each, of the original 400 acres. John, the Younger, sold his share in 1767 and joined his father in North Carolina and William sold his share in 1780 and joined his remaining brothers in North Carolina.

Genealogy is never done; it is always a Work In Progress!

1733 Patent to John Adams Later Conveyed To John Pardue

                                                      
                                         1733 Patent to John Adams

Virginia Patent Book 15, page 39.

Sometime prior to 1761 it was conveyed to John Pardue.

The location in Amelia County, Virginia where the patent was surveyed.

In the lower center of the map is a light colored area and bordering the northside of the area is Deep Creek.  Just northwest of the light colored area Beaverpond Creek empties into Deep Creek, and not visible on the map is the "small branch" where the survey for the patent begins on the Upper side of Deep Creek adjoining Abraham Burton's line and bounded as follows: 

"Beginning at a scaly bark hickory on beaverpond branch

at or near the mouth of a small branch thence
North 25 degrees East 132 poles to a corner lightwood stake or knot thence,

East 270 poles to a corner, thence,
South 82 poles to Abraham Burton's line, thence along the same line
West 16 degrees South 4 1/2 poles to said Burton's corner, thence,
North 117 poles along Burton's line to his upper corner upon Deep Creek as it meanders to the mouth of Beaverpond Branch, thence up Beaverpond Branch as it meanders to the 1st station."


This patent of 400 acres was  issued to the above John Adams and finalized in 1733 just prior to his death, after which at some point the land was conveyed to John Pardue who, with his wife, Sarah, sold it to Henry Walthall in August 1761.

In 1734 this area of Prince George County became part of Amelia County, where thereafter  the deed records for this part of Prince George County appear in the Amelia County Deed Records.


Genealogy is never done; it is always a Work In Progress! 

Huguenot Or Not?

HUGUENOT CROSS

Stories of French Huguenot ancestry have been handed down through the generations in many of the branches descending from the Pardue/Perdue families from the lower Appomattox River of Virginia, when, in the words of the English writer, Evelyn Waugh, "the unlettered had long memories".

Those stories have persisted down through those branches long separated by time and distance. While it is not conclusive, and no single source, or combination of sources, provides a precise account that can determine the earliest ancestor, the oral tradition of those stories combined with records of descendants separated by a single generation from the earliest documented generations, strongly suggests that there was a common P*rdue ancestor of French Huguenot ancestry who came to Colonial America. And, and most probably he was among the French Refugees who began to arrive in the Colony of Virginia in July 1700. The chaos and turmoil that prevailed in France during the century previous to the coming of the French Refugees to Virginia precluded any French immigrant not Huguenot as being highly unlikely.

The tantalizing clues of the earliest spellings, the signatures of the name in early documents, and those traditions of French Huguenot ancestry handed down by descendants of many of the sons of John Pardue who died in 1769 in Bute County, North Carolina, combined with the stories of French ancestry through lines of descent of the Perdue families who remained in the Appomattox River area, strongly suggests the probability that the earliest colonial ancestor of these families was, indeed, among those first French refugees.


John Pardue who died in Bute County, North Carolina moved there from Amelia County, Virginia in 1761. He left a will naming fourteen children, eleven of whom were sons. Through lines of descent of his documented sons and their progeny, in researching and compiling a history of this family through a period of almost forty years, the tradition of French Huguenot ancestry is the compelling common thread of original colonial ancestry.

In original records in which there is an actual signature of the individual, and not a clerk's rendering, the name, as signed by John's third son, Joseph, was clearly written "Pardue" two separate times on payroll receipts in records of his service in 1756 and 57 in the Seventh Virginia Militia Company in the French and Indian War, and, then, again, in 1789, when he signed his will Joseph Pardue.  

It appears that the records in jurisdictions where John and, or, his sons had become established as a presence in the community, the spelling of the name was more often rendered Pardue in the public records, depending, of course, on other circumstances, not the least being degree of literacy, or understanding the language.  Many of the early Huguenot records in Colonial Virginia were written in French for a number of decades after the arrival of the refugees.

The earliest records, combined with the oral traditions and the earliest references wherein the name was spelled Pardue, and in several early biographical sketches of descendants in which their French ancestry was explicitedly stated, each one sketched, born in the early decades of the nineteenth century, some less than a hundred years after the coming of the French Refugees to the James River, further adds credence to the tradition of French Huguenot ancestry. The sketches demonstrate that each had living relationships with parents and grandparents who lived in the days of John of Bute County, further augmenting the probability of French Huguenot ancestry.


The biographical sketch first noting French Huguenot association is found in a history of Baldwin County, Georgia of Samuel Medlock Singleton. He married Sarah Anne Christian, noted in the sketch as the daughter of "Elizabeth Pardue....the daughter of Lilliston Pardue, a Huguenot."  Lilliston Pardue was born in 1748 as documented by Revolutionary War Pension records by his wife, Sarah West, and was one of the middle sons of the eleven sons named in the will of John Pardue who died in 1769. 

“Samuel Medlock Singleton was born in Putnam County, Georgia, February 14, 1809, and when quite a young man became a citizen of Lexington, South Carolina. It was in that State that he married Sarah Anne Christian, of Edgefield, S. C., whose mother, Elizabeth Pardue, was the daughter of Lilliston Pardue, a Huguenot, and Sarah West (his wife)... In 1840, Samuel Singleton and wife located in Milledgeville and lived on the lower corner of Wilkinson Street…Later they lived in Midway, moving from there to Eatonton, in 1872, where he died, March 25, 1896. He was buried in the cemetery at Milledgeville. Samuel and Sarah Anne Singleton's children names were: John Chappell; and Earnest, who died in childhood; Samuel, died while a prisoner-of-war (Civil) at Elmira, N. Y.; Elizabeth; Ellen; Martha; Stewart; Charles; Laura; and Robert. All of this large family with the exception of three, have passed into another world. Ellen, (Mrs. Sam Pearson); Martha, (Mrs. A. B. Zachery); and Laura, (Mrs. J. L. Walker) who now live in Waycross, Georgia. ”Biographical Sketch: Cook, Anna Maria Green, History of Baldwin County, Georgia; Anderson, S.C.: Keys-Hearn Print. Co., 1925, 495 pgs. Page 448-449."

Sarah Anne Christian was born in 1820, the daughter of Elizabeth Pardue and Stephen Christian. Elizabeth was born in 1796, the daughter of Lilliston Pardue and his wife, Sarah West. Sarah (West) Pardue died in 1859 and her daughter, Elizabeth, died in 1886, both living long within the lifetime of Sarah Anne, and one, if not both, very probably were the ones from whom she obtained the knowledge of the Huguenot history of her grandfather, Lilliston Pardue. Sarah (West) Pardue was listed in the 1850 Cherokee County, Georgia Federal Census in the household of Thomas Hughes, her son-in-law.  Sarah Anne (Christian) Singleton was listed in the 1880 in Georgia Federal Census of her husband.

Of note, is that Sarah Anne (Christian) Singleton’s youngest daughter, Laura (Singleton) Walker, was a historian early active in historical projects in the Middle and South Georgia.  She also wrote an early history of Ware County, Georgia and became a member of DAR on the service of Lilliston Pardue.  She is also considered one of the first major conservationists and the Laura Walker State Park in South Georgia is named for her.  It was originally established as a national park and it was the first national park to be named for a woman. Later it was transferred to the state of Georgia which now has jurisdiction over it.


In unpublished family papers in possession of descendants of Joseph Pardue, the third son of John Pardue, it was recorded that Dr. George Madison Pardue, Joseph’s great-grandson, upon his coming to Montgomery County, Tennessee in 1849, reported to his cousins that the name was correctly spelled Pardue, that it was a French name and that it was originally spelled Pardieu. Dr. Pardue was the grandson of George Pardue, born ca 1758/9, the eldest son of Joseph Pardue who died in 1790 in Warren County, North Carolina. George Pardue married a Miss Sarah Rowland who was born in 1762.

When Dr. Pardue moved to Tennessee from Granville County, North Carolina he live for a while with his cousin, Littleton John Pardue, who was born in 1804, where also, lived Sarah (Rowland) Pardue, mother of Littleton John and grandmother of Dr. Pardue, where both were recorded in the household of Littleton John Perdew (sic) in the 1850 Montgomery County, Tennessee Federal Census. Previous to Dr. Pardue’s arrival to the home of his cousins the name was recorded in the Littleton John Pardue family Bible as Perdue, when, thereafter, the spelling was changed to Pardue.

In another unpublished manuscript, compiled from family papers of her father, Thomas Williams Pardue, Willie Mae Pardue, a granddaughter of Littleton John Pardue, wrote an overview of the ancestry of her Pardue family noting them as of Huguenot ancestry, a copy  of which is possession of this writer.  Both George Pardue - the father of Littleton John and grandfather of Dr. George Madison Pardue - and his wife Sarah (Rowland) Pardue were living within the lifetime of John Pardue who died in 1769. George Pardue was born circa 1758/59 and was about ten years old at the death of his grandfather.


In an 1889 history of Vandenburgh County, Indiana, a biographical sketch was published of Rachel H. Purdue, which appears to have been an oral interview of Rachel, in which it was noted that Richard, the father of Howel Gregory Purdue, her father-in-law,  was of French ancestry. Richard was one of the middle sons, also, of John Pardue who died in 1769 in Bute County, North Carolina. Howel Gregory Purdue, John's grandson, was born circa 1790 and Rachel had married his son, Richard Robeson Purdue, who died in 1858.

Unfortunately, the account in this history of Vandenburg County is somewhat garbled, either by editing or by confusion of the information which earlier had been told to Rachel, who, in trying to remember stories from the far distant past, and in the process of remembering may have interpolated many of the facts recounted even perhaps to her by her father-in-law previous to his death in 1850 and before the death of her husband in 1858.

This account also seems to be the source of the many accounts, by different researchers of this branch of the family, that Richard was the father of 22 sons and that his name was Richard Robeson Purdue. The only extant Federal Census record available for Richard is the 1790 Federal Census of Anson County, North Carolina, (posted elsewhere on this site) where, aside from himself, were enumerated four other males, all under age 16, born between 1774 and 1790, one of whom may have been his new son, Howel Gregory Purdue. Between 1790 and 1800 Richard moved to South Carolina, and by the time of the enumeration of the 1800 census he appears, then, to have moved into Georgia, and within three years had moved on to Montgomery County, Tennessee, where he died in 1811. Neither the 1800 Georgia census, nor 1810 Tennessee census records have been preserved.

“Rachel H. Purdue…was born in Butler County, Ky., and when four years of age she accompanied her parents to Warrick County, Ind. They settled in the vicinity of Boonville, in the fall of 1827....She was married in Warrick County to Richard Robeson Purdue, July 18, 1841. Prior to the Revolutionary War, Richard Robeson Purdue, Louis Gregory Purdue, and another brother emigrated from France and settled in South Carolina.

"When the war broke out one of the brothers went with Washington and the other with Marion, and both fought until the close of the war. Richard was married before he entered the army and had three children. In all, he was the father of twenty-two sons, when his wife died. He was married the second time and had one son, Howell Gregory Purdue. His second wife dying, he was married again and had another son, Jarrett Purdue. He then died, and his widow married a Frenchman, Gabriel Visor. Howell Gregory, Richard Purdue's only son by his second wife, was married August 25, 1814, to Miss Nancy Jane Dixon, whose mother was Ellen (Evans) Dixon. She and her husband were both natives of South Carolina, where he was born October 21, 1790, and she December 30, 1795. They were married in Kentucky, but made their home in Tennessee.

"They were the parents of eleven children, viz.:Richard Robeson, born February 3, 1816, Jarrett G., Ellen E., William D., Andrew V., Howell G., Basil B., Susan, Oliver L., Nancy J.  They were born in Montgomery County, Tenn., except the last four, natives of Warrick County. The parents emigrated from Tennessee to Kentucky in December, 1829, and the next fall reaching Warrick County. His death occurred July 5, 1850, and she passed away February 4, 1868.  After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Richard R.(obeson) Purdue resided in different parts of Warrick and Spencer counties until 1853, when they removed to Marion County, Ill, in which place they resided until his death, October 2, 1858. They were the parents of nine children: Jarrett G., born June 10, 1842, who enlisted in 1861 as a private in the Twenty-fifth Indiana volunteer infantry, and after participating in the battle of Shiloh, died near Corinth, Miss., June 10, 1862; Susan M., born September 5, 1843, died November 2, 1844; William H., born August 30, 1846; Orrin C, born June 24, 1848; Richard H., born April 9, 1853; Samuel D., born March 13, 1856, James B., born February 6, 1858. After her husband's death, she returned to Warrick County, where she was married to Rufus Roberts, the marriage taking place in April, 1859. Two sons resulted from this union: Rufus J., born October 12, 1860, died in infancy, and Union B., born April 14, 1862. When the latter was only a few weeks old, she and Mr. Roberts separated, since which time she has remained a widow, and made her home in Warrick County, until the summer of 1886, when she removed to the city of Evansville, where she still resides with her youngest child. ”Brant and Fuller. History of Vanderburgh County, Indiana. Madison, Wisc. 1889. Pages 617-618."

Howel Gregory Purdue was, as stated, Richard’s only son by Eleanor Gregory, his second wife, who died previous to the death of her father, Howel Gregory, who died in Columbia County, Georgia in 1813, and her share of her father’s estate accrued to her son, Howel Gregory Purdue. 

This account, stating that Richard Purdue had a brother named Louis Gregory Purdue, seems very probable an account given close to the time of it publication in 1889, and the considerable time lapse created confusion as to which sides were which in the family of Rachel's father-in-law, Howel Gregory Purdue.


From accounts of descendants of the Perdue families of Chesterfield County, Virginia, there is also a tradition of French Huguenot ancestry, the earliest one, found by this compiler, for William N. Perdue born ca 1810 in Chesterfield County, the father of Edgar N. Perdue, where the former was noted as having been born of “representatives of the fine French-Huguenot element that early found homes in Virginia” in History of Virginia, Volume 4; Page 78, Philip Alexander Bruce, Lyon Gardiner Page, Richard Lee Morton.  American Historical Society. 1924.

A later account in a history titled Chesterfield – An Old Virginia Colony; Page 80, Francis Earle Lutz. William Byrd Press, Richmond, Virginia. 1954, notes that “William Perdue, a French Huguenot, received a patent of 240 acres of Land”.  

Along with the above accounts, threads of French Huguenot ancestry also run strongly through a number of lines living later in the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century giving serious consideration for the need to attempt further research of the Huguenots in England just prior to 1700, when many sojourned there as refugees, after the Revocation Of The Edict of Nantes in 1685, many of them affiliated with the Huguenot churches in London and elsewhere as they waited out their fate.

Genealogy is never done; it is always a work in progress!  

 

Early Pardue References In The Watersheds Of The Appomattox River

FIRST PAGE of THE HENRICO PARISH REGISTER 1730 

The following is a short explanation by retired genealogist, Myra Vanderpool Gormley, showing that under Henry VIII, with the establishment of the Church of England, haphazardly, at first, began the keeping of vital records in the English Parish Registers.

"In 1538, the English Parliament passed a law that ordered the clerk in each parish to keep records of the birth, christening, death, and marriage of each person in the parish. Previous to the establishment of the Church of England by Henry VIII, only records of families of nobles and the wealthy had been kept, haphazardly, by monks, primarily to assist proving age and pedigrees for inheritances, but until 1538, no systematic record keeping for England's population occurred before that time when ".... all baptisms, marriages and deaths were to be written down in a book after service on Sunday evenings, in the presence of the churchwardens." However, in 1540, keeping the parish registers was abandoned in many areas, and it was not until 1558, when ordered by Queen Elizabeth I at the beginning of her reign, that the registers were kept once again.Some registers were kept on loose paper sheets, and in 1597, as Elizabeth's reign was nearing its end, she ordered that all existing registers to be copied into "fair parchment books." In large parishes, this was a monumental task and due to a loophole, some clergy simply started their copy task with the 1558 records, and ignored what had gone before. Others dutifully re-copied the earlier registers." Genealogist, Myra Vanderpool Gormley.

Parish registers were kept in register chests under lock and key and many of those early registers have survived and have been transcribed and posted to the LDS Church's website at: http://www.familysearch.org/

The earliest record referring to the P*rdue name living in watersheds of James and Appomattox Rivers is found in a 1730 entry in the Henrico Parish Register of Henrico Parish where the name was recorded PARDUE in a vestry held at Curls, or Curles, Church in October 1730.

One of two churches and a chapel (of ease) in Henrico Parish, Curls, or Curles Church was named for the Curls, or Curles, Plantation where the church building stood several miles east downstream on the north side of the James River from present day Richmond. It appears to have been the principal church located within the boundaries of the parish, as noted in a record in 1724, when the Bishop of London requested a report on the Church in Virginia. In that same report it was noted that size of the parish was 25 miles by 18 miles, with a total of about 400 families having a combined total of about 1100 tithables both white and negro males age 16 and over, and Indian women.

In 1730, the year when the first reference to the Pardue name is found, in a processioning, eg: walking the metes and bounds to determine the boundaries of land ownership within the parish, the western boundary of the Curles Church was positioned where Tuckahoe Creek entered into the James River. Proceeding west beyond the mouth of Tuckahoe Creek, the Henrico Parish boundary, itself, extended to Goochland County -- formed in 1727 -- running north to the Chickahominy River and south to the Appomattox River, and it was south of the James River in that area of Henrico County the second unnamed church was located.

In 1737, Dale Parish was formed in that western portion of Henrico County south of the James River and in 1749 that portion became Chesterfield County. It is probable the former unnamed church, then, became the principle church of Dale Parish. The smaller chapel (of ease) -- a term used to designate a place more easily accessible for worship -- may have stood where St. John's Church is located in present day Richmond.

The above conclusions were formed from information contained in The Annals and History of Henrico Parish, Diocese of Virginia, and St. John's P.E. Church; edited and compiled by J. Stauton Moore. 1904 (available online in Google Books) and from the foreward in Births from the Bristol Parish Register of Henrico, Prince George and Dinwiddie Counties, Virginia, 1720-1798, by Chamberlayne, C. G. (Churchill Gibson) , 1876-1939, and from quadrangle maps produced by the US Geological Survey.  In 1730 a small area of Bristol Parish was located in Henrico County.

At a Vestry held in October 1730 in Henrico Parish, the first record of any variant of the surname in the watersheds of the Appomattox and James Rivers is found in  Vestry proceedings when it was recorded that an unnamed son of an unknown individual named PARDUE received an unknown quantity of tobacco - the medium of exchange in the Virginia Colony at that time - from the Church Wardens for the Poor. Church Wardens were the leaders of the parishes of The Church of England, (of which all English citizens were members) and, among their other parish responsibilities, they were charged with undertaking the care of the poor and indigent in their congregations.

In the printed references I've encountered of the Henrico Parish Register, this entry has always been recorded as Pardue's sons, in the plural, all of which likely proceeds from the first transcription made by Virginia historian, R. A. Brock, published in 1874, which also appears in The Annals and History of Henrico Parish, Diocese of Virginia, and St. John's P.E. Church; edited and compiled by J. Stauton Moore. 1904.

As can be seen in the above headline image, that transcription was in error; that in the original parish register the entry was recorded in the manuscript as ______ Pardue's son, in the singular, of which only the microfilm version of the original is available for view. Church Records 1730-1860, 1785-1887 [Henrico County, Virginia;] Microfilm of original at the Virginia State Library, Richmond; Manuscript (On Film); FHL Film 31761.

This entry has prompted many researchers to conclude that  _________ Pardue's son was an orphan. While it is possible that he was an orphan, there is nothing in the record that implies such. Pardue's son could also have been an indigent in some way and had no means to adequately care for himself, which, as previously noted above, came under the jurisdiction of the Church Wardens of the parish.

If he were an orphan and had not reached the age of fourteen, the tobacco would have been paid to a gaurdian, since; upon reaching the age of fourteen, orphans were bound out and apprenticed by the Church Wardens to learn a trade, thus, were no longer eligible to receive church assistance. If, however, an orphan were indigent and had no means of care and support  church assistance would have been available after the age of fourteen.

Another possibility exists judging from other entries in the register, that ______ Pardue's son was being paid to provide care for an unnamed indigent family member, or a parish member. If so, he would then have been an adult; but, from the information shown, it cannot be concluded the circumstances surrounding this entry, nor can it be assumed that _______ Pardue was a male.  ______ Pardue could have been a woman.

Also, in the same Henrico Parish Register in 1732, a William Pardue was recorded receiving 600 pounds of tobacco from the Church Wardens for the Poor. It is possible that William was the same person as ________ Pardue's son in the 1730 record and the 1732 record now records his name. However, he could have also been the father of the unknown son in the 1730 record, or neither; but, again, the qualifications for church assistance would apply in both the 1730 and 1732 instances. Whether from those two records there was one or two males or perhaps even three with the surname Pardue, the remaining early Henrico Parish records make no further mention of the name.

In 1736 in the Account Book of Sheriff John Nash transcribed by Beverly Fleet in Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Vol. XXI of Henrico County, appear the names of a William, Richard and John Perdue.

In 1744, in Henrico County, a patent of 240 acres of land on Sapony Creek in the watersheds of the Appomattox River and Swift Creek was issued to William Perdue, most probably the William in the account book of John Nash.

On 5 June 1746 also in Henrico County, a patent of 400 acres of land was recorded to a John Perdue on Sapony Road. And, yet, still another patent of 400 acres was recorded, also on June 5, 1746, to a John Perdue across the Appomattox River in Amelia County on Winitpomack Creek, who was the John P*rdue who died in 1769 in Bute County, North Carolina.

The John who received the Henrico patent was very probably the same John Perdue, who, on 2 February 1750/51, served on a jury in Chesterfield County (Chesterfield County, Virginia Court Orders 1749-1752, page 88 in original order book, compiled and published by Mrs. J. Franklin Thompson, Genealogist in Columbia, Missouri) and given that only landowners could serve on juries at that time in Virginia history, and given that John Pardue who died in Bute County, NC in 1769 was already living according to tithable (tax) records in Amelia County, then living in proximity to one another, there were two men with the same name.

John Perdue who patented the land in Henrico County - of which the process for obtaining the patent was at least one year and more probably three years prior to the patent being recorded - had to have been at least twenty one years old when  the patent processing was begun, thus putting his birth year no later than 1724 and likely very much earlier. The land for the 1746 Henrico patent, unless the records have been overlooked, misplaced, or lost, or never recorded, cannot be accounted for in any subsequent deed records prior to 1749 in the Henrico deeds - though there are some missing deeds for that period - or in the records in Chesterfield County, formed in 1749 out of Henrico, up until 1770 the last year this researcher reviewed the records, of which the deeds in Chesterfield County are substantially intact.

Two court records appear in the court record books of Henrico County in the area from which Chesterfield County was formed:  one for a John Perdue, who, with a John Belsher and a John Ferguson, witnessed the will of Gilbert Gee in 1734; the second one, a record where a John Perdue presented to court on 20 February 1734 the inventory of the estate of Ann Powell appraised in the amount of 8/4/6, (8 pounds, 4 shillings, 6 pence), the inventory having been conducted by John Bowman, Samuel Hancock, and John Nuby. Colonial Wills of Henrico County, Virginia Part One, 1667-1737. Abstracted and Compiled by Benjamin B. Weisiger III. Page 143.

It cannot be determined if the two records represent the same man, or if they were two separate men, since as previously noted there appears to have been two men named John Perdue living in close proximity of one another in the watersheds of the Appomattox River during this time.  Not knowing the difference in the ages of the two men, it simply cannot be determined if the records are of one, or of two, individuals of the same name. Please note that the age to witness a will was seventeen for males, so the John Perdue who witnessed Gilbert Gee's will in 1734 would have been born no later than the year 1717.

It is very probable that the John Perdue who presented the inventory of the estate of Ann Powell to court had been appointed administrator of her estate by the court, being related, either by blood, or by marriage to her, and his appointment as administrator was not recorded, if not lost, having at present not having found a record of that appointment.  As administrator, he would have been at least twenty one years old, born no later than 1712/13.  

No doubt she was Ann Powell, the wife, appointed administrator of the estate of John Powell who died several years earlier in 1727 also in Henrico County. She could have been married previous to her marriage to John Powell and in the previous marriage she may have been married to the father of the John Perdue and John was her son. John could also have been married to her daughter, or she could have been John's sister, or she could have been the sister of an unknown wife of John, or another close kinship relation. From the limited number records it is impossible to know the reason the court appointed him administrator as returning the inventory of Ann Powell's estate.. The John Powell inventory and appraisal source appear at: http://tinyurl.com/25myo4   It seems highly probable that he was also the John Perdue who later appeared in the Sheriff Account Book of John Nash in 1736.

The sheriff, as noted previously, was charged with collecting tithables for the parish. And in 1736, John Nash was charged with collecting the tithables in Henrico Parish. According to Beverly Fleet, who abstracted John Nash's account book, it measured three and half inches by five and half inches, written in an exquisite hand, and was a kind of tax record, or a partial tithables record for Henrico County.

From the beginning of the plantation system in the South, the acquistion of cash was a never ending challenge, and most planters, now the farmers, even up to the present day, made credit arrangements to plant the next seasons crop(s) and the accounts were paid at harvest by the owner of the debt or by someone else to whom the debtor had bargained his labor or other collateral for credit. In Virginia and Colonial America of that period, persons with the designator of planter owned the land on which they planted, while farmers, except in New England, were tenants who worked on land owned by others for which the farmer received a portion of his living from the land's owner. That sharecropping system existed in the South from the beginning with the settlement at Jamestown, having been imported by the English system of land tenure, especially by the immigrants to Virginia from the South and Southwestern parts of England.

There is a gap in the available records from 1736, where no record has yet been found by this compiler containing any reference to any variation of the surname, until 21 October 1743, when a charge was made by the court in Amelia County, to, among other hands,  John Perdue, under Abraham Green, to clear the road from Deep Creek to the river (Appomattox).  Amelia County Court Book I. 

This record indicates that by that date in 1743, John Pardue was in possession of the land on which he lived on Deep Creek, only landowners having responsibility to see that the roads were built and/or maintained.  The persons responsible could hire the work done, have their slaves do it, or other family members, or they themselves could to do it, but the persons charged would have to answer in court for the work.

With this record begins documentation that establishes the confirmable history of John Pardue who died in 1769, leaving a will naming fourteen children, eleven of them sons.

Genealogy is never done; it is always a work in progress!

A Name! A Name! What's In A Name?

Two Joseph Pardue Signatures In The George Washington Papers In The Library of Congress *

Until the advent of dictionaries creating more uniform rules for spelling, those who could write often wrote a word as they heard it sounded, and it was especially true with proper names, and such was the case with the Pardue surname as well.

Over the years researchers have found a number of variations on the Pardue surname from a variety of genealogical sources and their research has shown that those different variations have long been in use in Britain, in France, in Italy, Spain, and elsewhere. Until the advent of the DNA testing for use in genealogy and the Perdue/Pardue DNA Project was created, it was never completely certain if they did not all fit together somehow, given that the name historically was not a particularly common one. The Perdue/Pardue DNA Project conclusively demonstrates that they don't all fit together somehow.

The Perdue/Pardue DNA Project consists of two major groups of participants, one group whose predominate origins in America is from Maryland's Eastern Shore whose descendants mostly spell their name "Perdue", and the other, a group whose descendants mostly spell their names "Perdue" and "Pardue" whose earliest known origin was in the watersheds of the Appomattox and James Rivers of Virginia. The Project demonstrates that those two major groups of participants share no recent common ancestor and neither group shares a recent common ancestor with the several other participants in the Project with none of those several participants sharing a recent common ancestor with each other.

The Colonial Virginia families living in the watersheds of the lower Appomattox River with the surnames Perdue and Pardue, and sometimes Purdue, and other spellings documented to be associated with this family are the the focus of this narrative.

As shown from the DNA testing there were at least two variants - Perdue and Pardue - in the Lower Appomattox River watersheds who shared a common ancestor within the previous 15 generations, but at this present time in 2017 no records have been found confirming their relationships to one another and the degree of kinship they shared, or whether they were brothers or cousins, or even if one may have been the father, or grandfather, or uncle, or a more distant relation of the others. The currently known documents are simply too few to correctly sort out their kinship.

These families appear to have arrived in the watersheds of the Appomattox River at the beginning of the eighteenth century.  Early Virginia records bearing any variant of the Pardue and Perdue surnames are limited, as has been shown in a previous post, and none of those few earliest documents, singlely or collectively, can be shown to conclusively refer to the predecessor of these families. Variations in the records of the name include Pardoe, Pardue, Perdue, Purdue, and Pardieu. Research is compounded with so many variations of the spelling of the name, though the "Perdue" variation was the predominate spelling in the records until the middle of the eighteenth century in the colonial period.

Known descendants of a William and possibly a Richard Perdue who lived and continued to live in what became Chesterfield County in 1749 appear to have mostly continued the Perdue spelling down to the present day.  Just across the Appomattox River in Amelia County beginning in 1743 with records of a John Pardue who moved to Granville County, North Carolina in 1761 and died in 1769 in Bute County formed from Granville in 1764, his name and the names of his sons had mostly come to be spelled Pardue in the public records and most of his descendants appear to have generally continued the "Pardue" spelling down to the present. His son, Joseph, in 1757 as shown in the pictures clearly writes his name as Pardue.

While descendants of William Perdue of Chesterfield County, VA appear in the DNA project, no participant purported to descend from Richard has yet joined the DNA project so it remains unknown his relationship, if any, to the William who lived in close proximity to him in Chesterfield County or to the John who lived across the Appomattox River in Amelia County. As previously noted in the DNA post, without documents that confirm descent, DNA confirms only if they were, or were not kin, and not the degree of kinship.

*In the first image, Joseph signed that he received his pay for his service, and in image two, he was a witness to a note and his signature appears in the lower right hand edge of the page.

The papers also include the Muster Roll for Seventh Regiment of the Virginia Company (not shown) in the French and Indian War which spells Joseph's name Purdue.

Genealogy is never done, it is always a Work in Progress!

Early Variants of the P*rdue Name in Colonial Virginia

THE JOSHUA FRY and PETER JEFFERSON MAP OF 1751 COLONIAL VIRGINIA

The following several references are the major records found of the variants of the P*rdue name in the last half of the seventeenth century in Colonial Virginia. For many years Pardue researchers sought to find a record that would link the variant of the surname found in the Appomattox and James Rivers area to the Philip Pardoe variant in Isle of Wight County, Virginia.

A pedigree submitted to LDS Family History Library Archives maintains he was the father of John Pardue of Amelia County who died in 1769 in Bute County, North Carolina. The information submitted was in error as explained in the following paragraphs.

Phillip Pardoe was indentured by the agent, or factor, John Scott, for a period of four years on October 9, 1665, probably in Bristol England, his destination Virginia. Where in Virginia and to whom he was to serve out the indenture was not shown and nothing further is known of him until 1673 when he bought land in Isle of Wight County, Virginia. http://tinyurl.com/3cubbn   He married, probably about the same time he bought the land in Isle of Wight County, a widow, Rebecca Lewis, nee George, the daughter of John George, a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and before Philip's death in Isle of Wight County, their union produced two children named in the will of Rebecca's father, John George, written on 2 August 1678, when he left them as "the children of Philip Pardoe.....one heifer of two years old to run in a joint stock betwixt them and the survivors of them to be paid to my said grandchildren's account.." Isle of Wight County, Virginia Deeds and Will Book 2, page 170.

Rebecca Pardoe was surely "ye poor widow Perdue" named in the will of Sir John Lear in Nansemond County in 1695. Henrico County Miscellaneous Records 1650-1807, page 96. John Lear had earlier married Rebecca Pardoe's step-mother, Ann ( ) George, the widow of Rebecca's father, John George. 

When Phillip Pardue, the grandson mentioned in John George's will, the only son of the immigrant, Phillip Pardoe, died in 1720/21, the bloodline possessing Phillip Pardoe's surname died, also. The son, like his father, died intestate and the land that had descended to him from his father, by the intestate law of primogeniture, would have descended by the same law to his son, also named Phillip, who had died as a child, ending Philip's surname bloodline.  Thus, the land descended to the next heir of closest degree of blood kinship, a William Homes or Holmes, who, upon receipt of the land, sold it in 1722 to Mathew Wills.

William Homes (Holmes) may have been a grandson of Phillip Pardoe, the immigrant, which, if William Homes (Holmes) sold it outright with no guardian or trustee involved, he would have then had to have been at least 21 years old in 1722 suggesting by the generational math that he was probably either the son of a possible unknown daughter of the second Phillip who had died, or he was the son of his sister, Elizabeth, who had also died.

If Phillip had no daughter and if his sister had no children, then the heir and next of kin would have been a kinsman of a lesser degree. The intestate law of primogeniture dictated that land was inherited linearly by a descendant of the closest degree of kinship from the original owner. Isle of Wight County Wills and Administrations (1628-1800) Note p. 156-157. Inv. rec. 9 Apr. 1678 p. 162. Inv. & Appr. rec. 9 Aug. 1678. Record of Wills, Deeds, Etc., Vol. 2, 1661-1719 (Reel 23) and Isle of Wight County Wills and Administrations (1628-1800) Note p. 71. 2nd pagination Inv. 4 Appr. rec. 27 Mar. 1721. Deeds, Wills, Great Book, Vol. 2, 1715-1726 (Reel 3) http://tinyurl.com/2hma52I

It is probable that the immigrant, Philip Pardoe, was from the family of that name found in Worcester County, England in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries  http://tinyurl.com/4004 and he may have been the Phillip Pardoe born in 1643 in the parish of Holt in Worcester County, which seems to be the best fit of the names located in the available English parish registers. The earliest parish records of Worcester County begin in the early 1570s. The spellings of the name Pardoe and Pardo in the early English parish registers, with several exceptions, and with the given name of Philip, or Phillip, only appear in the West Midlands, and with several exceptions, mostly in the county of Worcester, and within that county predominately in the town of Omsberley.  In 1987 I visited this very charming and picturesque town with sheep grazing in the parish church yard to see what, if anything, I might find to possibly establish a connection to our Pardue forebears who came to Colonial Virginia. In the end, the best information was already posted in the family history archives of the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, now available online at http://www.familysearch.org/. as posted above.

Testing of DNA of male descendants of this early Pardoe family in England compared with the DNA of participants in the Perdue/Pardue DNA Surname Project would determine if this variant of the surname shares the same DNA with any participants in the Perdue/Pardue DNA Surname Project. Perhaps in the future some descendant of those West Midlands families might join the project to see if there might be a shared kinship with the Perdue/Pardue surname dna project. The phone directories in the West Midlands area in the counties of Worcester and Shropshire and Hereford area also showed the Pardue spelling, as well.


In 1681 in York County, Virginia another document records a suit involving a debt owed to a Mr. John Cotton by a Mr. James Pardoe in which a deposition of a Mr. John Heyward states the following verbatim account as published in Tyler's Quarterly Vol. XIV, page 61.

"John Heyward, aged thirty-five years or thereabouts, sayeth That yr Depont, in November last was two years, at the house of James Pardoe, and there did meet with Mr John Cotton who did come to demand tobacco and yr said Depont & Mr Cotton did fall to drinking very hard by ye request of the sd James Pardoe & did continue drinking all day till at night we went to cards, and at cards yr Depont & Mr Cotton had some words & soe broke off from play and did goe each of them to there rest, but yr depont was ordered for to sleep along with the said Pardoe & his wife in the same roome where all the Drink was, soe yt yr Depont & ye said Pardoe did fall to drinking again, and after some discourse the said Pardoe did tell yr Depont yt Mr Cotton was come for to demand Tobo of him upon the accts of Thos. Bevins but the said Pardoe did desire yr depont for to look over Tho. Bevins' papers & to see if his bill was not there among ye papers & the said Pardoe did depart for some time out of the roome & did bring some papers in his hand for your Deponent to looke over. Yr Depont in looking over ye papers did find ye said Bevins' his bill uncanselled and did give it to the said Pardoe and yr depont will swear & further saith not."

John Heyward. Sworn before me the 21 June, 1681--Wm Booth 28th of July 1681 And is recorded -- Pr. E. Jennings, Cl. Cur. Ebor. (Clerk of York County)."

E. Jennings was Edmund Jennings, newly arrived as a young man from England, the son of Sir Edmund Jennings of Ripon, Yorkshire, England, member of Parliament. The young immigrant, Edmund Jennings, almost immediately became a customs agent in York County with increasing rises in position in the Colonial Virginia government over his lifetime: from Deputy Secretary of State in 1696 to Secretary of State for the Colony in 1702 and by 1708 was President of the Council. http://tinyurl.com/2hwnwy

In 1689 using the headrights of 131 immigrants, which included the name of a John Pardoe, Edmund Jennings obtained a grant of 6513 acres of land in Henrico County at Westham in present day Richmond, of which "sd Jennings hath the Governor's grant"... "beg. at Tuckahoe Cr, where it forks into the (James) river...". Virginia Land Patents No. 8, 1689-1695, p.2 (Reel 8).  http://tinyurl.com/346yok

Headrights gave 50 acres of land to each person who paid his own way "for his own personale adventure", or 50 acres to the person who paid the fare of the person transported. This headright system was the means by which the London Company and later, the English Crown, in 1624, when Virginia became a Crown Colony, proposed to populate and permanently settle the colony.

Sir William Berkeley, the Colonial governor from his arrival in Virginia in 1641, used his family's influence and connections in England to attract younger sons of England's gentry to lands and wealth in the Virginia Colony, who were previously unable to inherit landed estates, as determined by England's inheritence laws of entail leaving the landed estates to the first born son. Most of the wealthy first families of Colonial Virginia were those younger sons. Before the English colonization, their options were the clergy, the law or the military, becoming sons of leisure, and increasingly, merchants, when under Henry the VIII the building of the modern English Navy began and merchant shipping increased.

Advertisements were published, not only to attract the younger sons, but, often published to attract others who had no land or hopes for land, who would indenture themselves for a requisite number of years for eventual access to land. Even so, it was not always easy to induce enough people with the desire to "adventure" to Virginia.

The headright system was subject to many instances of misuse and corruption and the instances increased continually through the years. By 1680 there was large scale misuse with duplicate claims, importation of the same person more than once, ship's captains claiming the crews amounting to temporary importations (remember the idea was permanent settlement), using fictitious names and reuse of names sold by clerks, and ultimately, land speculation. Periodic hearings and depositions took place seeking to correct the issues arising out of misuse of the system and in 1699 Sir Francis Nicholson, Lt. Governor of the colony, told, in a deposition to the Board of Trade, that the selling of headrights by his clerks was a common practice.

Headrights, upon the presentation of a receipt of transportation, or upon an oath, were changed into certificates for the warrants necessary to have a survey made of the land for which a patent could be issued. And the certificates could be legally bought and sold and had no time limits. In 1699 the means to acquire a patent of the King's land changed, and while the headrights were still used up to the American Revolution, a patent could be obtained for payment of 5 shillings for each 50 acres of land by any English male citizen willing and able to pay the costs of acquiring and improving the land and paying the quit rents (tax) to the King. It then seems almost without any doubt that Edmund Jennings, as a customs official, would have known from whom and how to obtain certificates necessary to obtain a patent for land, and it is improbable that he imported all of the 131 headrights, if any of them, to obtain the certificates for the 6513 acres of land he received upriver on the James at Tuckahoe Creek.

As a Colonial official almost from the beginning of his arrival in Virginia he lived in the vicinity of Jamestown, as required by the leaders of the colony, so it is almost certain that he never lived on the Henrico land. Six years after receiving the patent, in 1695, he sold half of it to William Randolph indicating the likelihood he was speculating in land. If he bought the certificates used for the patent, or even any of them, then the only thing certain about the John Pardoe, who appeared as a headright in the 1689 patent record, is that a headright bearing his name was issued for a certificate to obtain the 50 acres accounted to his name.

Who imported John Pardoe, when he was imported, or even if he ever arrived in Virginia - headrights were often claimed for persons who died enroute, especially by ship's captains who commanded the ships on which the person was transported - cannot be known from the limited facts presently available. No record links him presently in 2024 to any record that can be construed as being progenitor of the Pardue family a generation later who appear in the watersheds of the Appomattox River. If he indeed arrived in Virginia, it is probable that he was from the same West Midlands, England Pardo/Pardoe families as was the Phillip Pardoe who came to Isle of Wight County.

In the late spring of 1700 a ship, Mary and Ann, commissioned by the leaders of a group of French refugees sailed to Jamestown, Virginia from the English port of Gravesend on England's southern coast. On the ship's manifest, early transcribed and first published probably about 1905 from which the published transcription has been replicated innumerable times, was a passenger transcribed as Jean Tardieu.

Land had been given by England's King William III to the French refugees, not only to provide them a home and to seat a colony in Norfolk County in Virginia, but to relieve England of the influx of those French refugees fleeing persecution in France when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes. The edict issued almost a hundred years before had provided for the French refugees limited rights to practice their Calvinist religious beliefs. Altogether there were five ships of French refugees that sailed to Virginia.

The record of the passenger list of the Mary and Ann appears to be the only complete passenger manifest of the five ships of French refugees that sailed to Virginia in that period. A partial list exists of the ship, Peter and Anthony; and some of the names of the third ship, Nassau, are extant. Unfortunately, the passenger records for the other two ships have been lost and it was only recently has it been learned that there was the fifth ship.

The French refugees were called Huguenots in France and a tradition of French Huguenot ancestry has been handed down, as this author has noted previously, through a number of lines of descent of the Appomattox River Pardue/Perdue families.  To determine if the first letter of the surname of Jean Tardieu was possibly incorrectly transcribed as "T" when it was really a "P" in the original manifest, this compiler obtained a microfilmed copy of the original handwritten manifest in the attempt to see if might have been incorrectly transcribed, the capitalization of both of those letters being written similarly in the handwriting of the time. But the microfilm copy of the original manifest was completely faded where the name appeared in the original list and I was unable to read it, so that matter is still unresolved. 

Whether the man whose named has been transcribed as Jean Tardieu was the ancestor of the Pardue families who first appeared in the watersheds of the Appomattox and James Rivers of Virginia cannot be determined from the information available heretofore, but neither can the possibility be discounted, even should the original manuscript show the capital of the surname rendered unmistakenly as a "T".

It is the opinion of this compiler from the number of the various accounts of Huguenot ancestry, that the paternal ancestor of the Pardue families in Henrico, Amelia, and Chesterfield counties of Virginia was among those French Refugees, but, at present, it cannot be determined from the information presently found.  More on the probable French refugees connection will be presented in the post, Huguenot Or Not.

Genealogy is never done; it is always a work in progress!