About the time that I and others had made the observation that John Thomas (Jr.) had planned on making a five-fold distribution of a major part of his land, I received a letter from a Thomas man, JET, in North Carolina, which stated that he had an ancestor by the name of Michael Thomas who had a strong tradition that he was born in Culpeper County (or perhaps an earlier county) and that he had moved to North Carolina. The tradition also said that he was "German".
I was very much inclined to believe JET and that he was essentially correct. I would assign this Michael Thomas as the fifth child of John Thomas and his first wife Mary. It was Michael that was to get the fifth parcel but he preferred the money. (Michael was the name of John Thomas' brother.)
The person, JET, who is a male descendant of Michael Thomas, had more to his history than just this. He observed that Michael Thomas had land in North Carolina and that adjacent to this land a John Thomas also had land. One way of interpreting this John Thomas is that he is the John Thomas of Culpeper County, Virginia, and that he was the father of Michael.
The story has even more parts to it. There were four more Thomas men who seem to be associated with John Thomas of Virginia and North Carolina, namely William, Lewis, Jesse, and Joel. William was in the Revolutionary War and he applied for a pension. In his application, he stated he was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1763.
Without reviewing all of the evidence, the following seems to be the story. By his first wife Mary, John Thomas, was the father of the four girls who have been named in recent notes, and of Michael. John planned on distributing land to these children. By then he was married to Sarah, his second wife by whom he had children, including but not limited to the William, Lewis, Jesse, and Joel just mentioned. For some reason, perhaps because Sarah’s family was moving to North Carolina, John Thomas moved to North Carolina. Before leaving Virginia, John wanted to distribute land to his heirs who planned on remaining there.
The tracing of ancestors in lines with names such as Thomas is difficult, especially because the name Thomas is international. Many people have preconceived notions of the nationality of their ancestors and the history becomes all mixed up and difficult to sort out. This is an excellent time to resort to genetic studies to see which nationality people should be assigned. These studies are underway at the present time for this family, and preliminary results seem to be roughly consistent with the history that I have just presented.
(05 Apr 06)
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.