This is a followup to my last blog regarding Nicholas Gibson and his DNA. That blog drew a response from Jack Goins on the Melungeon Rootsweb list as well as his blog, I'd like to address it here.
Basically what I wrote was there are numerous online trees that claim Thomas Gibson who died 1734 in Hanover Co., Virginia, the father of Valentine Gibson, was the son of Nicholas Gibson and Deanna Martin. I don't know the source for this, I have not been able to find one in 27 years.
There are though 3,196 trees at ancestry.com that claim Nicholas is the grandfather of Valentine Gibson. What I posted was the administrators of the Core Melungeon DNA Project have apparently approved someone who claims to descend from Nicholas Gibson. Valentine's DNA does not match the Melungeon Gibsons. Now I do not know who Valentine's grandfather was but I do know that there is no document that says Thomas Gibson was his son.
Of these 3,196 trees listing Thomas Gibson as the son of Nicholas almost half of them, 1,411, have Thomas' birthdate as 1691. Thomas was not born in 1691, he is found in the records of St. Peter's parish in 1695-1696 raising a bastard child. Pretty neat trick for a four-year old.
octob’r ye 10, 1695. ST. PETER’S PARISH, Dr., to ye following Charge To Mary Gibson upon acc’t drawn by ye Church wardens 208
To Tho. Gibson for keeping a Bastard Child 10 months & a half
To Thomas Gibson for keeping a bastard child a year and a half 1500 16th day of November, 1696.Here is a typical Family Group Sheet showing Nicholas as Thomas' father.
John Gibson born in England? Eunice born 1729? (In 1734 Eunice's son Valentine Gibson Nicks was witnessing a deed.) Mary C born in 1720? Mary, daughter of Thomas, also had grown children in 1734, according to her father's will, she married to Richard Brooks, but this tree has her married to someone else.
Another Nicholas Gibson Typical Tree from ancestry;
Here we have one tree that shows Thomas born about 1661 with a son Thomas Gibson Jr., born in 1718, This is suppose to connect Nicholas to the Melungeon Gibson but are there any sources? No, but they have added this note;
It is very confusing for the beginner trying to find their family. One would find something like this that says DNA PROVES Nicholas is the ancestor of these men and they believe it. I can understand beginners copy and pasting this but those of us who call ourselves genealogists, who write books, blogs, etc, should know better and spreading this misinformation, especially lending credence though DNA to a pedigree not backed up by documentation is irresponsible.
If anyone connected to the Core Melungeon DNA project had checked ancestry.com (search STORIES for Nicholas Gibson) they would have found not one document naming his descendants in those 3000+ trees.
Jack Goins writes on his blog;
"kit # 319509 most distant ancestor is Nicholas Gibson. The problem is non-family members like Pezzullo wants to be the source for all the Core Melungeons genealogy.
Joanne genealogy on Nicholas is the real confusion and does not match his Y-DNA results. The 4 listed below who match him on the 25 marker core Y-DNA meaning at some point in history they had the same male common ancestor, their genealogy by Kathy James.
kit # 319509 Nicholas Gibson is a very close match to almost all the core Gibson Melungeons
This puts doubt on this entire project. How many other results have they accepted at face value? Jack Goins can post all the core Gibson Melungeons but it still isn't going to prove Nicholas Gibson left any descendants.And this is suppose to prove Nicholas Gibson is an ancestor of the Melungeons? Do the Adminstrators of this Core DNA project not ask for proof of your earliest ancestor? Do they not check your pedigree for accuaracy ? We can clearly see the numbers these administrators have entered for these five people match. The question is where are the documents that link them together? A bunch of numbers on a page is meaningless.
P.S. Joanne Pezzullo wants nothing at all to do with this Core Melungeon Project, I would not want my name associated with this in anyway.
