After Barbara Vines Little showed that it was necessary to find a slot for another John Rector, John Alcock reexamined his research. He summarized the problem as follows (with paraphrasing):
John Rector, son of the 1734 immigrant, John Rector who died in 1742, had married Rebecca and moved to Culpeper Co. in 1761.Later they moved to North Carolina.
Previous researchers had thought that this John, married to Rebecca, had remained in Fauquier County, where Rebecca had died and he had remarried a Mary.
The evidence for this was that John and Mary had sold land in Fauquier Co. in 1795, and John died in 1815.
Now it was evident that the Fauquier John, with wife Mary, was not the son of the 1734 immigrant.
Fauquier John needed parents.
John Alcock found evidence that this John Rector was the son of Harman Rector, Sr., the son of the 1714 immigrant, Hans Jacob Richter. This was not an easy thing to do. Harman, Sr., in his will, had not named more than one of his sons, a Harman, Jr., but did refer to three sons. One problem was that too many names had been put forward as sons of Harman, Sr. B.C. Holtzclaw even distorted a straightforward reading of the will, and said that there were three sons besides Harman, Jr. And none of the candidates included a John.
John Alcock's evidence was the tithe lists and the land records. He found that a 1759 tithe list for Fauquier contained Harman Rictor with three other tithes, John Rictor, Harman Rictor (Jr.), and a slave. Among the lists which remain, John Rector is present down to 1810. He was joined by his son in 1799 and they were the only Rectors in that part of Fauquier Co. He is identified once as from Germantown, at some distance from the land which John and Rebecca sold.
This John Rector was probably born about 1740, since his first appearance in the tithe list was in 1759, under his father Harman, Sr., and above his brother Harman, Jr. He first purchased land in 1765 which was probably about the time of his marriage. He had six sons and three daughters and it can't be told whether Mary was their mother, since she did not appear until land sales were made in 1795 and 1796. This entire family had previously been assigned to John Rector who came in 1734 and died in 1742, but they belong instead among the descendants of the 1714 Hans Jacob Richter.
Prior to finding that Harman, Sr., had a son John, he (Harman, Sr.) had been assigned three, four, or even five sons not including John. Harman, Sr.'s will made it clear that he had one son by the name of Harman. John Alcock found another son, John. And by a strict reading of the will there were only three sons. Some of the previous assignments needed to be kicked out of the nest and this leads to another research problem and solution.
[Tomorrow is another day of showing visitors around the Hans Herr House. I do not know now whether there will be a note for the day.]
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.