As I search the records of my ancestors I notice that there are times I get quite frustrated. The records before 1750 are confusing and rarely are women even mention. Maryland genealogy is the most frustrating for everyone is fighting to be related to a certain group of people. Why even do the genealogy, I thought, since for hundreds of years no one yet has figured out the people of Colonial Maryland? So many people have researched Colonial Maryland so why should I give it a try?

I was reading a biography on Chaucer and then I realized that history, including family history is never dead.  The book is written by a Chaucer scholar and in the preface he explains that he thought all of the information on Chaucer was aready found and the biographies were already written by the 1960s. As the years went on, mistakes have been found, years were seen as incorrect and new discoveries just in the past 40 years have opened up new information on Chaucer. I also did some reading on the Pipe Rolls of England. Officially the records begin in 1130. Recently, however, more rolls were found back to 1124 opening up new information.

So that is why family history must continue. New items might be found, and common stories passed down through the generations will be seen as myths. Reading the biography of Chaucer gave me new hope. I plan to start back over with the Maryland genealogy with what I know as fact and research the gaps that currently have been filled with myth.

This is what I know

Alexander Magruder had a wife named Sarah. They were good friends with the Bealls, Clagetts, and Taylors among others. Alexander died in 1677. He had sons named James, John, and Samuel. Sons Alexander and Nathaniel and a daughter Elizabeth had a different mother named Elizabeth. He was a Magruder who lived on Drummond lands in Scotland not a MacGregor that we can see at this time.

Samuel also married a woman named Sarah. After Samuel’s death, Sarah was still active in her comunity and appears in court several times. There are business transactions (with slaves) between herself and several other prominent men in Prince George’s county. I just read one between Sarah and Thomas Clagett concerning the birth of an illegitimate child by one of her servants. Thomas Clagett received the child in his care. Sarah and Samuel Magruder’s  children married into the prominent families of Maryland and her daughter married the son of Col. Ninian Beall. Her grandchildren by this daughter were very dear to her. She also cared for another granddaughter, Sarah Clagett. I just found records showing that her mother Mary Magruder Clagett had died and her father, George Clagett was in prison. (for debt?) Sarah Clagett is mentioned in Sarah Magruder’s will.

Sarah and Samuel Magruder had a son named Ninian Magruder named after his family’s good friend, Ninian Beall. He married Elizabeth Brewer who is related to the Brewers, Ridgely’s, and possibly the Howard’s and the births of their children are well recorded. They had a son, Samuel. Samuel Magruder married Margaret Jackson and granddaughter of an Alexander Beall who so far I cannot connect to Col. Ninian Beall. This continued the Beall/Magruder friendship.

They had Joseph Magruder who name has passed down through my family. He married Catherine Fleming who was related to John Burgess. They had Catherine Magruder who married Thomas Watkins. They had Joseph Magruder Watkins who lived in Tennessee. Joseph Magruder Watkins married Margaret Linster whose mother was a Campbell. They had Annie Watkins who married William Tucker. They had Joseph Magruder Tucker who married Ida Majors. They had Frances Tucker who married Charles (Keith) Lee. They had Charles Lee Jr my father. He named one of his sons Joseph.

I also found other ways of connection. Joseph Belt married Ninian Beall’s daughter Hester who was the sister-in-law to Elizabeth Magruder daughter of Sarah and Samuel Magruder. Jospeh Belt’s mother was Elizabeth. This Elizabeth remarried a Lamb. Their daughter married Nicholas Watkins the grandfather of Thomas Watkins who married Catherine Magruder.

My grandfather Charles Lee might also have a connection to the Maryland families. There is a theory he might be related to the Keene family who later came to Virginia. Also, there is a theory that Moses Tucker was from Prince George’s County before moving to Virginia.  There might be another connection to a Maryland colonist John Neville, but I think that has been now disproved. Our Nevilles first show up in Virginia not Maryland. If there are anymore family in Maryland, I do not know. We haven’t gone back that far in all of our lines. (Moses Tucker being an example)

10. Joseph Magruder Tucker was born on June 14, 1883 and died on August 23, 1951. On November 29, 1906 he married Ida Pope Majors. He was the son of William Tucker and Annie Elizabeth Watkins.

I don’t know much about Joseph Tucker’s childhood. I know he attended school, but I don’t know if he went to college. He probably helped his father run his grocery store in Ripley, TN. I have seen this area before. I don’t know what it is like today. The Tucker grocery was nearby Berg and Shafer which might still be in business. The daughter of the owner was Betty Berg, my grandmother’s best friend. They were Jewish and are among the prominent familes of Ripley. I have stayed at Miss Betty’s house which is above the business. The Tucker’s lived in another home which we have a picture of. Joseph, who was known as Joe Tucker married Ida Pope Majors when he was 23. They quickly had 6 children. In 1910 he worked as a mail carrier according to the census. At some point they lived with his brother-in-law in Arkansas, probably to help with his business and then after the brother died, Joe and his small family returned to Ripley where he ran his own business. He either ran or helped run a Lumber Mill and later owned a car lot. My grandmother told me how her father gave her a car when she was only 14 years old. His wife became very ill around 1919 and had to be hospitalized. She gave birth to her youngest child, Frances in 1920. Ida Majors Tucker spent the rest of her life in a hospital. The newspapers of Lauderdale County record that Joe and family went to visit Ida often. He hired a Mrs. Harris to take care of the children in her absence. She died in 1925. Joe Tucker was said to have a great sense of humor. He did a lot of work in his community and became mayor of Ripley, TN. During WWII all five of his sons served in the war doing different kind of work. He died in 1951

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11. Ida Pope Majors was born in Ripley, TN on January 4, 1885. She died on April 11, 1925 in Bolivar, Hardeman, Tennessee. She is the daughter of Marshall Daniel Majors and Ida May Landrum.

Ida’s mother died when she was young and she was raised by her Aunt Minnie Bacon. I still have an original letter written by her to her Aunt in 1898. She wrote well and was well educated. I think she might have learned a little Latin. She lived on her father’s berry farm outside of Ripley, TN and would help pick the berries for supper. She had pets and loved her pet chicken Henry. She had quite an amazing sense of humor and was full of imagination. I don’t know much about her older teen years but I know she attended school. She married Joe Tucker when she was 21 and my family still has a copy of their wedding invitation. She was close to her family and had her brothers live with her or she and her husband would live with them. She had her six children quickly. By the sixth she became so ill that she was put in a hospital. As doctors were unfamiliar with women’s health, she was treated as insane. We still don’t know the full nature of her problem. Joe Tucker tried desperately to help her and probably on the advice of doctors she was put in an insane asylum which was a normal thing to do to women at the time. In the Lauderdale County paper there are reports of other women who were sent to “Bolivar” because they were “ill”. There she contracted tuberculosis and died at the age of 40.

My grandmother doesn’t remember her much, but kept a picture of her on her wall. Once when she thought she was dying she kept looking at the picture of her mother and saying first that she would soon meet her mother, and then to her dad’s picture she said, “I will see Daddy again!” Of course she was fine, but I have never seen someone so excited to die. She had a close family and she is the last one left. She can’t wait to see them on the other side and finally get to know her beautiful witty mother, Ida Majors.

The children of Joseph Magruder Tucker and Ida Pope Majors

1. Joseph Magruder Tucker Jr. 1907-1987 Married Agnes Foust

2. Landrum Sylvanus Tucker 1910- 1986 Married Helen Roberts

3. Marshall Majors Tucker 1912-1992 Married Justine Perkins

4. John Randolph Tucker 1915- 1989 Married Cornelia Helen Hill

5. Matthew Tucker 1919-1996 Married Jean Smith

6. Frances Tucker 1920- Married Lt Col Charles Henry Lee Sr.

1. My father was born in Ripley, TN in 1956. His name is Charles Henry Lee Jr. He was named after his father, Lt.Col. Charles Henry Lee Sr.His mother is Frances Tucker.

He has one older brother and two older sisters. His father was in the Army reserves and was a pilot who fought in WWII. When he was young they went to Kentucky and were stationed at Fort Knox. Then they lived in Jackson, TN where my father lived around the corner from his future wife. They moved to Memphis when my father was 6. A couple of his uncles lived in Memphis. His mother’s parents were passed away, his father’s parents lived in Chattanooga, TN. They loved to go on trips to Florida and would visit their grandparents in Chattanooga. He also had an uncle in Johnson City, TN and one in Florida. He went to Grandview Elementary, GEorgian Hills Junior High, East High, and then Trezevant High, which he hated. He loved speech class and drama and was supposed to be very good. He loves reciting poems to this day and is an excellent speaker. He grew up Presbyterian and also went to a Baptist church sometimes, but then he met my mother when he was 17. She was LDS. When he was 19 he was baptized into the LDS church. He also attended Memphis State University and studied Accounting. After my mother graduated from High School, they married. One year later, they traveled to Utah to get sealed in the temple. My father dropped out of university when my mother became pregnant with me. After a couple of years he started his own business. He had a glass company. He lived in my grandparent’s house in Memphis after they retired to Florida. He had to pay rent. He was real close to his brother and sisters and would visit them on the weekends. He was also very active in the LDS church and became a second counselor of our ward. When I was around 4, he went back to school and got an Associates degree in Computer Science. He still ran a business on his own at the time. He switched his business when I was older to Property Management and managed 180 properties throughout Memphis. After several years, he decided on a change. The business wasn’t go all well and he did not like the dishonesty of the property owners. He also believed that Memphis wasn’t the best environment for his children. He looked around for jobs, but the economy was bad at the time. He moved his family into his grandmother’s house in Chattanooga. My mother took care of her while my father did what he could to provide for his children. After 6 months, he finally found a job doing computer work. He is still with the company to this day. In Chattanooga, he and my mother took care of his grandmother until she died in 1992 and then they took care of his own parents when they became too ill. He stayed in Chattanooga to care for his parents until his father passed away in 2005. His sister MArsha took over the care of his mother and soon after he bought property in Alabama. He built his dream house. Now he is busy as the Branch President. He is a great example of faith and optimism and taught me to never give up n matter how difficult life becomes.

3. My mother is Patti Etheridge. She was named after a contestant in the Miss Tennessee pageant. She was born in Humboldt,TN in 1956 but was raised in Jackson, TN until she was 16. She is the daughter of James William Etheridge and Nancy Jane Johnson.

When she was two, her parents became members of the LDS church. Her favorite memories are of going to her father’s mother’s home, Lena Burns Etheridge. She was real close to her. She called them Mamaw and Papaw. Her great grandfather was still alive and she called him Papa Burns. They lived in Trenton, TN along with her Aunt Gerry. Her other grandmother lived in Dyer, TN. She wasn’t as close, but she still has wonderful memories of her and loved the way she talked. She also loved seeing her grandfather and staying at her Aunt Peggy’s farm. She loved farms and animals unlike her mother who hated them. My mother was a beautiful child with long black curly hair, white skin, and huge blue eyes. She entered a beauty contest but lost to the mayor’s daughter. My grandmother still kept my mother’s hair from when she was a child and showed it to us. My mother thought that was disgusting. She had two younger sisters and one younger brother. When she was a teen her parents adopted another brother. My mother went all over the United States. They went to Utah to go to the temple and be sealed together as a family. They visited my grandfather’s cousin in Chicago. They still have film of these adventures. When my mother was 16 her family moved to Memphis, where my grandfather had a sound equipment business with his brother. My mother went to Trezevent. There she was great in Biology class and History. She was put in an advanced level Biology class that was equal to a college course and excelled. She met my father at this time. When she was 18 she married my father. She had five children, one girl and four boys. Her dream was to have a comfortable home and this was promised to her in a blessing. She never seemed to have her home. We lived in her parents in law’s house, and then when she and my father bought a house, the neighborhood soon went bad and was unsafe. Then she had to live in her husband’s grandmother’s small 50 year old home with five children. She never gave up her faith that she would someday be blessed with her own home. She was faithful in church and became a great genealogist and helped many people with their genealogy in the Chattanooga Family History Center. She took care of her in-laws even when they weren’t so grateful. She took very good care of her children and protected them as much as she could. Her sons went on missions all over the world and all were married in the temple except the youngest who is too young at this time. He is preparing to go on a mission this year. She is a very intelligent detailed woman who loves to tell you stories about her family. She is an excellent grandmother and wants to be like her Mamaw Lena Burns was and follow her example. She is still very close to her parents who come to visit often. Finally, in 2005 she built her dream home and it is a place of comfort and love for the entire family to gather. The home she was promised was finally given to her.

Before I talk about the immigrants, which in family meant I will be talking about my family 8 to 10 generations back, I will start with the present and move backwards to the Fifth generation before I start at the beginning and move forward. That is the proper way to do genealogy I have learned. You start with the most present and move backwards. I am still a beginner at this! So I will start with myself, I am 1 and move back.

1. I will not give my full name for privacy purposes but my last name is Lee and I was born in Memphis, TN in 1977 two weeks before Elvis Presley died in the same city. I have no middle name as my parents thought that since I would eventually marry I could use Lee as my middle name. I am the daughter of Charles Henry Lee and Patti Etheridge.
I grew up in the LDS church which was difficult to be in the South. I have four brothers and in Memphis as a child most of my relatives lived nearby except for my father’s parents who lived in Florida. I would see my relatives every week and visit my grandparents in Florida in the summer. We lived in my father’s parents’ house until I was 7 years old. My mother has a sister in California and we would visit her every few years. We would go to my great grandmother’s house (Mildred Warren Johnson) in Dyer, TN for Thanksgiving. My great- grandmother would not cook turkey, but cooked chicken. There I would see all of my great grandmother’s relatives. On Friday’s we went to my Aunt Ida’s house (my father’s sister). She was married to Jimmy Hart who is an entertainer. They had lots of fun things to do at their house. Aunt Ida likes watching scary movies and we would drink coke, eat pizza and popcorn at her house. She would have the best Halloween parties. She moved to Florida by the 1990’s. My dad’s brother Irby moved to LA, California, and MArsha moved to Knoxville when I was very little. We soon started going to her house for Thanksgiving where we would play Nintendo games all day. We moved into our own house when I was 7. My mother’s family still all lived nearby. We would see my mother’s parents on a regular basis. I went to Grandview Elementary School and later went to Craigmont Junior High which I hated. Then when I was 14 we moved to Chattanooga, TN. We moved into my great grandmother’s house, Ruth Fowler Keith Lee. My father’s parents lived 10 minutes away. I went to Tyner High School which was a terrible school, my parents put me into a county school, East Ridge High. I did choir, but I loved history and language and would spend hours reading and studying language. I started University at UT Chattanooga. I started out in International Business. I did soem volunteer work in the ESOL department and decided to get into TESOL. I went to BYU Hawaii campus to study TESOL which has one of the best programs in the nation. I got married, ran out of money, and came back to TN after a year but took enough classes to teach ESOL. I did an internship at Walt Disney World and was in an International Exchange program where I studied at Yonsei University in South Korea. I work on my minor in International Studies there. I finished a degree in English at UTC in 1999. I got a divorce in 2000, and had no children. In 2001, I became an ESOL teacher for Hamilton County,TN. I had met my present husband during that time. He was in New York when 9/11 happened and soon went active duty military. After boot camp he was sent to Hawaii to Schofield Barracks. I joined him soon after and we were married in Hawaii. So, I was married twice in Hawaii. He went to Iraq. He is now in the reserves and we now live near DC. I am a housewife and proud of it and have three small children.

This is from my father’s line. My father’s great granparents were: John James Lee, Mattie Sheppard (adopted line), Charles Keith, Mary Patrick (biological line), William Fowler, Theodora Deaton, William Tucker, Annie Watkins, Marshall Majors, and Ida Landrum.

Lee

• Rubin Lee (1823-1910) was supposedly born in Virginia but was raised in South Carolina.

Sheppard

• Lunsford Hudson (1768- 1856) Chesterfield, VA (moved to SC)
• Abraham Hudson (1729-1806) Chesterfield, VA (moved to SC)
• Thomas Parks was born in 1750 in Amelia County, VA
• His Wife Anne Brockman (1766-1833) was born in Orange County, VA

Keith

• None. The Keith family began in PA, moved to TN and then to GA. (My grandfather was born in Atlanta.) They were a very religious family.

Patrick

• The Patricks were a Georgia family. We haven’t gone back enough to see if any lived in VA.  The Patricks did indeed come from Virginia. They later moved to North Carolina and then to Wilkes County, Georgia. Some of the Patrick ancestors settled in Prince William and Fairfax countied near where I live now. I found an ancestor with the last name of Keene and recently drove on Old Keene Mill Road in Fairfax County!

Fowler

• They are from North Carolina. We haven’t been able to go back too far on this line.

Deaton

• James Deaton died in 1806 and was born in Amelia County, VA
• Obedience Jackson (1745-1789) Amelia County, VA
• Thomas Deaton (1720-1763) Virginia
• Mary Corington was born in England and died in Amelia County, VA
• William Deaton was born in London, England and moved to VA. He died in 1712 in Amelia County, VA.
• Eliza Truhett (1632-1712) lived in Amelia County, VA

Tucker

• (Since he came from VA this is pretty much all a Virginia family. It was said he even spoke with a Virginian accent. He may be from the early Captain William Tucker of the first Virginia House of Burgesses but has since been unproven)

• William Tucker (1840-1921) (my father’s great grandfather) was born in Madison County, VA and moved to Ripley, TN.

• John Tucker (1800-1880) Culpepper County, VA
• Isabella Tatum (1810-1866) Madison/Culpepper VA
• William Tucker (1769-1861) Madison Co, VA
• Jemima Roberts (1776-1803) Culpepper Co, VA
• Nathaniel Tatum (1784-1803) Culpepper Co, VA
• Lucy Ford (1787-1831) Madison Co, VA
• Moses Tucker (1744-1814) Madison Co, VA
• Benjamin Roberts (1740-1781) Culpepper Co, VA
• Sarah James (1745-1803) Culpepper Co, VA
• Isham Tatum (1756-1850) Madison Co, VA
• Rachel Garrett (1754-1812) Madison Co, VA
• John Ford (1755-?) Stafford/Madison Co, VA
• Rosanna Newman (1770-1853) Madison Co, VA
• Benjamin Roberts (?-1782) Spotsylvania Co, VA
• Anne Dulaney (1725-1782) Culpepper Co, VA

Watkins

• Annie Watkins’ family primarily came from Maryland then to TN.
• Samuel Campbell (1763-1846) was born in Virginia.
• Anne Ayers (1635-1695) was born in Nansemond Co, VA but lived in MD
• Elizabeth Robins (1630-1658) was born in Va but lived in MD
• Samuel Chew was born in York Co, VA but moved to MD.
• Edward Robins (1602-1641) lived in Accomack Co, VA
• Archibald Campbell (1727-1802) was born in Fayette Co, VA and moved to Knox Co, TN
• Elizabeth Baker was his wife and was born in 1739 in Rockingham Co, VA and died in Knox Co, TN.
• Samuel Baker (1720-1782) died in Prince Edward, VA

Majors

• We don’t have a lot of information on the early Majors. If we compare them to the families they married into, they came to VA from England, moved to South Carolina, and then to Georgia after the Revolutionary War. It is possible that they could have been among those from Pennsylvania. One of the Majors married a Castleberry. The Castleberry family came from Pennsylvania, then North or South CArolina, and then to Wilkes County, Georgia. 

Landrum

• Her family was big in the beginning of Georgia after the Revolutionary War. Her great grandfather’s brother was the first governor of Georgia. Most of the families came to VA to NC and then to GA.

• William Landrum (1759-1833) Orange, VA (later moved to NC then to GA)
• Thomas Landrum (1727-1785) Dillingham PArish, Essex, VA moved to Orange County, NC (interesting story)
• Mary Hawkins (1730-1785) Essex CO, VA
• William Bledsoe (1761-1841) Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, VA (only 30 minute drive from where I live now!) He settled in GA
• Jean Bolling (1761-1838) Frederiscksburg, Spotsylvania, VA
• Moses Bledsoe (1720-1764) Spotsylvania, VA
• John Bolling (1739-1812) Albemarle Co, VA died in GA
• Ursela Bell born in 1736 in Orange Co, VA
• John Landrum (1700-1770) Essex Co, VA moved to NC
• Mary Buckner (1700-1755) Essex, VA
• John Landrum was born in Aberdeen, Scotland and died in 1708 in Essex Co, VA
• Sophronia Jane Evans (1670-1707) lived in Essex CO, VA
• John Evans (1640-1703) was born in Wales and lived in Essex CO, VA
• Marian Johnson died in Essex County Va. Her Father came from either Wales or England and settled in Essex Co, VA
• Martha Powell (1752-1825) was born in Va but her family moved to GA
• John Lumpkin (1762-1834) was born in Halifax Co, VA and died in GA
• Lucy Hopson (1764-1820) was born in St.James Parish, Goochland, VA and moved to Oglethorpe, GA

• George Lumpkin (1723-1799) was born in King and Queen County VA and moved to Wilkes County, GA
• Mary Cody (1729-1800) Halifax Co, VA and moved to GA
• Henry Hopson (1713-?) Henrico CO, VA
• Martha Neville (1720-1800) St Anne’s Parish, Albemarle, VA
• Abraham Hill (1732-1792) Nansemond, VA to Wilkes, GA
• Christian Walton (1739-1808) Virginia
• Robert Lumpkin (1688-1784) King and Queen Co Va and died in Pittsylvania, VA
• Joseph Hopson 1675-1767 Henrico co, VA
• Margaret Hatcher (1690-?) Henrico, VA
• James Neville (1686-1752) St. Anne Parish, Albemarle, VA
• Lucy Thomas (1696-1795) Albemarle/Amherst VA
• Jacob Lumpkin (1644-1708) England to Newington, King and Queen Co, VA
• John Neville (-1733) Northampton CO VA or Goochland
• Elizabeth Bohannon (1664-1696) Gloucester, VA
• Benjamin HAtcher 1644-1740 Henrico VA
• Elizabeth Greenhaugh (1645-1740) Henrico CO, VA
• William Hatcher (1613-1680) Leichestershire, England to Henrico Co, VA
• John Greenhaugh (1614-1696) England to Henrico Co, VA
• Mary Smith (1615-1646) England to Henrico, VA
• John Pope (1692-1745) Isle of Wight Co, VA to NC
• John Bradford (1704-1735) Jamestown, VA to NC
• Rebecca Pace (1706-1794) Jamestown, VA to NC
• Judith Hinton (1700-?) Nansemond VA to NC
• Sarah Roundtree (1715-1761) VA
• Thomas Walton (1713-1759) Va to NC
• Henry Pope (1663-1728) Isle of Wight, VA to NC
• Sarah WAtts (b. 1664) Pogon Point Creek, VA
• Barnaby McKinnie (1673-1740) Isle of Wight Va to NC
• Mary Exum (1678) Isle of Wight, VA
• Richard Bradford (1660-1725) London, England to Charles City, VA
• Richard Pace (1670) Charles City, VA
• Rebecca Poythress (1672) Charles City. VA
• Mary Bridges (1640) England to Virginia
• William Pope (1634-1700) Bristol, England to Isle of Wight, VA