Recent communications from Sherri Flemming who is looking for the daughter of Lutitia Medor illustrated that she married Armstead Burgess Sr. (born 1810), on March 16, 1866. “Lettie” is shown living with Armstead in the 1870 census along with other Medors. She is listed with Mary A. Burgess, daughter of Armstead and Millie Burgess as “Keeping House.” I, as others must have, assumed that Lettie was another daughter Lucy, but the ages are 3 or 4 years apart.

A daughter, Louellen was born to Lutitia just three days following the wedding, she is four years old on the 1870 census. William, 15, and Octavia 7 are also listed. Lutitia married a Thomas Meador in 1853, family records indicate the he may have died in 1858. So is Armstead the father of another daughter? Seems probable.

Lutitia Meador died on July 4 1880, but the tombstone lists her as “wife of Thomas Meador.”  Does this indicate a marriage ofconvenience only? Armstead certainly had two interesting marriages, one his senior by 12 years, the other his junior 25 years.

One of the additional features of genetic DNA testing is an ancient journey into the past. This is called the Haplotype Group. The Haplotype Group is measured in the thousands of years. While the Armstead branch paternal line came through England in the recent past (500 to 100) years. In pre-historical times even before the last ice age 12,000 years ago we had other roots. This is an interesting quote from the
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2004-05/1085960546 site by Dennis Garvy. Our Haplotype Group is I1b.

“I1b is the most frequent “I” sub-clade in eastern Europe and the Balkans. Its highest incidence was seen in Croatia (31%) and Bosnia (40%). While I1b is seen at low frequencies in western Europe, it is about the only sub-group of “I” seen east of the Adriatic. I1b is virtually absent among Italians, Germans, French, and Swiss. This may mean that I1b also expanded out from a LGM refugium - but this one located in eastern Europe or the Balkans. The highest diversity of I1b STRs was seen among Bosnians, Croats, Czechs, and Slovaks, and the lowest diversity was seen among the Turks and Moldavians.

The sub-clade I1b2 (M26) is usually seen at very low frequency in western Europe, but occurs at higher frequencies in several isolated spots: Sardinia (41%), Castile (19%), Bearnais (8%) and Basques (6%). The differing distributions of I1b2 and I1b indicate that those two groups probably separated before the LGM. The authors feel that the high concentration of I1b2 in Sardinia may not necessarily mean that the haplogroup originated there. The unusually high Sardinian frequency could also be explained by I1b2 being present among the first humans who colonized that island about 9000 years ago, which was subsequently amplified by genetic drift. The study did not test for P41b, or M161, the mutations that define, respectively,
I1b1 and I1b2a.”

More about the complete “I” group is available at Mr. Garvey’s site.

Armstead and Lucy Mitchell Burgess were married in Glasgow Ky, and photographed by A. Rapp. Lucy was the daughter of Eldred Mitchell and Mitchell N. Burgess’ namesake.

Below is the steam engine owned by Joe Neal Gentry, brother of Maude Gentry Burgess. Husband Dory Burgess is next to Joe Neal at the wheel. Joe Neal’s Logging team is behind.