I return to the second paragraph of Note 1432 , in which one of the chain carriers was Peter Cree. Did that name cause you to think twice? It should have. The conventional histories do not name a Peter Cree. Assuming he did exist, and there is no reason to doubt his existence, he would probably have been a son of Lawrence Cree and his wife.
The origins of Lawrence Cree were found by Johni Cerny and Gary Zimmerman. In Germany his name was Greys, and he had married Maria Euphrosina Schott in 1709. One daughter is known in Germany, but she has no record in Virginia. There was another daughter born in Virginia, Rebecca, who married Timothy Swindell. It has been assumed that she was the only child in the family, since Lawrence Cree left all of his land to her and her husband.
It would appear from the Warrant and Survey cited above, that there was a son, Peter. Peter could have been a man of almost 40 at the time of the survey for Theobald Crisler (it is more likely that he was younger). Therefore, he might have been a father by then. And, he might have left heirs; however, the most likely event is that he did not leave any children, since we would expect that they would have shared in the land distribution that Lawrence Crees made. There could have been other explanations for the lack of any land distribution to him or his heirs.
I think that one of the main points to be noted by this is that we can never have too many facts or evidence. It has always been assumed that the descendants of Lawrence Crees have been through his daughter Rebecca. There is at least a "possibility" that there could be other Cree descendants.
Returning again to the Warrant & Survey mentioned above, the man for whom the survey was being made was Theobald Crisler, who married Rosina Garr. The origins of the Garr family are in Mittelfranken, as are the origins of the Crees family. Was there some connection between the families much earlier that led to the emigration of the Crees and Garr families to the Robinson River Valley?
That John Rector, the eldest son of John Jacob Rector, had two wives was not even considered. All of his children were said to be by the original wife. Until John Gott found the preliminary work in a Fauquier County lawsuit in the loose papers, it was not even questioned. It was considered a certainty that he had only one wife. One of the points that I made in my talk at the Germanna Seminar was that "facts" are only probabilities. Returning to Lawrence Cree, it is only a probability that all of his descendants were through his daughter. This has always been true, but the discovery of this Warrant & Survey has changed the probability. This is the way research goes. New evidence changes the probabilities.
(23 Jul 02)
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.