Person:John Tankersley (2)

Information on John Hughes Tankersley

From Genforum.com post:

Re: Tankersley, Guthrie, Barnes in TN and IL Posted by: Harriet Frye (ID *****7631) Date: February 27, 2003 at 15:13:26 In Reply to: Tankersley, Guthrie, Barnes in TN and IL by john kyle of 1207

John, in a nutshell, Marinda's parents were John Hughes Tankersley and Elizabeth Moore, who married on January 18, 1831, according to family records. John Hughes Tankersley was born in Virginia on December 17, 1806, the son of Reuben Tankersley and Cynthia Hughes, who was the daughter of John Hughes. Reuben Tankersley was born in Amherst County, Virginia on March 30, 1769, married Cynthia Hughes in Augusta County, Virginia on January 18, 1798, and died in Giles County, Tennessee sometime between 1840 and 1850. The family had come to Giles County in the early 1830's; before that, you'll find them in the 1810 and 1820 censuses of Botetourt County, Virginia and the 1830 census of Montgomery County, Virginia. Until he moved to Illinois in the 1860's, John Hughes Tankersley actually lived in neighboring Hardin County, Tennessee, where he seems to have been surrounded by a separate family of Tankersleys that we're still trying to sort out. They weren't his brothers and sisters, but they may have been his cousins.

Reuben Tankersley, John Hughes' father, was the son of Richard Tankersley III, born March 13, 1738 in Caroline County, Virginia, and Mary Wood (at least one source says this name was originally Learwood). Richard III was the son of Richard Tankersley Jr. of Caroline County, who came to Amherst County around 1760 with his wife Winnifred and a number of children. The mother of Richard III is traditionally thought to have been Elizabeth Fountain, but there's no documentation on this, and lots of other traditionally accepted "facts" about this family's lineage have turned out to be wrong. Richard Jr. is traditionally thought to have been the son of Richard Tankersley Sr. of Caroline County, and I've found no reason to doubt that connection.

I'd particularly caution you not to pay attention to any of the lineage information you find on the Internet that gives the name of Richard Sr.'s wife as Margaret Rowland and the date of their marriage as 1712. In fact, Margaret was the daughter of James Mathews and had already married Richard Sr. by 1707. The "Margaret Rowland" data is from an old genealogy that has proved to be seriously inaccurate about the early generations of this family. If you find a record that says Richard Sr.'s parents were somebody named Reuben Tankersley and Sarah Ann Beverley, then proceeds to trace the family back to the lords of Tankersley Parish in Yorkshire, I suggest you run screaming from the room. Believe me, it just didn't happen that way.

You'll also find Internet records claiming that Richard Jr., father of Richard III, died in 1748. This "fact" is from the same old genealogy, and it's wrong, too. We can now trace Richard Jr. all the way to South Carolina, where he was still alive and kicking in the late 1790's.

Source: http://genforum.genealogy.com/tankersley/messages/900.html