Person:Mary Unknown (8287)

Mary Dugger, widow appeared on the 1774 tax list in Surry Co., NC. The area she lived in later became Wilkes Co., NC and she appeared there in 1785. By 1787 she was over in the Watauga River area of what is now Carter Co., TN.

Those three records are all we have for Mary Dugger, widow. She was indeed a widow for she was referred to as such on one of the records. None of the records say who her husband had been though.

Someone in the early 20th century made the assumption that Mary was the widow of the the supposed pioneer Julius Caesar Dugger. He obviously had to have a wife, and Mary was a widow, so therefore putting two and two together, they came up with him as her husband. A natural assumption of course. Though based on faulty information. There was no person named Julius C. Dugger, nor had their ever been. (See the article Julius Caesar Dugger - a myth for commentary on that subject.)

The next assumption they made was based on the first. Julius C. Dugger was said to have come to Tennessee in 1766 with Andrew Greer. Somehow or another they assumed they were brothers-in-law, and therefore married to sisters. Mr. Greer's wife was a Kincaid. Therefore Mary Dugger must be also. Thus we have Mary Kincaid, wife of Julius C. Dugger.

Genealogist must work from source documentation. It is okay to make assumptions when there is circumstantial evidence to back it up, but making assumptions on top of other assumptions just compounds problems.

The facts:

1. There was a widow Mary Dugger
2. There is no evidence for her maiden name, there is no evidence the Dugger and Kincaid families ever lived in the same places until much later
3. There is no evidence that she was widow of Julius C. Dugger, but there is circumstantial evidence that she is widow of William Dugger (c1720-1773)
4. There is no primary or secondary evidence that Julius C. Dugger ever existed
5. There is no evidence that Andrew Greer was related, even by marriage, to the Dugger family

Robert T. Nave had this to say on this subject

The late Mrs. Elizabeth Carriger Vaught, a Dugger family historian, speculated that Greer and Dugger were brothers-in-law, having married sisters named Kincaid. Her sister, the late, Miss Lula Carriger, published this as fact in her Dugger booklet after her sister's death. Greer did marry a Kincaid, but they were both from the Valley of Virginia while Dugger was from south-side Virginia and western North Carolina. The likelihood of them marrying sisters seems very remote. Both men were married with families, long before 1766 and there is nothing to indicate they were ever partners. (Who Was Julius C. Dugger? by Robert T. Nave, from The Dugger Family by Frances Dugger Rowan, p. 295)