New Wild Goose Chase Part V

Will of John Parker
Hampshire County, Colony of Virginia, 11 November 1760, John Parker's will was proven.  Written 28 September 1760, the will stipulated one third of his estate be left to his wife, Elizabeth.  The remainder of the estate was to be divided equally among all his living children and one grandchild, Thomas Parker.  In the probate record sale, Robert, Nathaniel and "Widow" Parker purchased many items.  Robert Parker was executor.  I am assuming grandson Thomas Parker was named because his father had already died by this time.

Of John Parker's male children, all but one were known to be living at the time - John Parker, who was born in 1700.  Nathaniel, Robert, Aaron, and Richard were all alive in 1760, not dying until the last decade of the 18th century or within the first two decades of the 19th.  John Parker's daughter, Elizabeth, born in Spotsylvania, married a John Hall, while younger daughter, Catherine (born 1735), married a William Forman, ruling out one of their children being the Thomas Parker mentioned in the will.  (Clearly, the Thomas Parker mentioned in the John Parker Will is not Thomas D. Parker - the latter had yet to be born in 1760.)

Spotsylvania brings us back to the 1880 U.S. census mentioned in Wild Goose Chase Part I.  What if the informant stated Mary Ann Belle's father had been born in Spotsylvania (or even Pittsylvania) and the enumerator heard Pennsylvania?  Or, perhaps, the informant remembered hearing family members mention Wilson Parker's birth place and heard or wrongly remembered Pennsylvania rather than Pittsylvania or Spotsylvania (both in the Colony of Virginia)?

In my opinion, the DNA evidence hints to such a situation being a very real possibility...