Blog Some Genealogy

I have just finished the “Revised and Updated” Second Edition of my genealogy book of the PEYTON family of Virginia, - PEYTONs Along the Aquia Genealogy. It is now available as a “keepsake” edition in hardcover.

PEYTONs Along the Aquia Genealogy

HELP - Please from PEYTON Researchers. I have looked everywhere and I cannot find these parish records that are continually cited in PEYTON-PAYTON pedigree charts. I have searched all of the Bisley Parish records I could get my hands on - NOTHING. I searched all of the Horsely Parish records available - NOTHING! Then I searched all of Gloucestershire - NOTHING. Can somebody please tell me where these parish records that are so often cited are hiding. THANKS!

Payton Family Pedigree

• (Gen 1) Thomas PAYTON, Sr, died/buried 17 Feb 1648, Bisley, Gloucester, married 19 Jul 1606, Bisley, Gloucester, to Anne Gree.
• (Gen 2) Philip PAYTON, bapt 15 Mar 1612/13, Bisley, Gloucester; married 13 Sep 1638, Cirencester, Gloucester, to Elizabeth Gibbs.
• (Gen 3) Philip PAYTON born May 1644, Bisley, Gloucester;

Reverend Horace Edwin HAYDEN, continues to be the leading genealogist of the PEYTON family of Virginia. His celebrated book, “Virginia Genealogies,” published in 1891, included a chapter on the PEYTON family: “PEYTON, ‘of Iselham,’ Cambridgeshire, England, Gloucester, and Westmoreland Counties, Virginia.” The author closely followed the English PEYTON lines in the 1878 book “Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley,” by Robert E. Chester WATERS.

One hundred seventeen years ago, when Reverend HAYDEN published the lineage and history of the PEYTON family of Virginia, his work was the most comprehensive and accurate in data, scope and material ever received. Since then, his extensive “Peyton” chapter in “Virginia Genealogies” has formed the basis of all succeeding published genealogies of the Peyton family. This scanned reprint will be a welcome and necessary resource for those studying the PEYTON family of Virginia. His acclaimed essay “Descent” is included.

Photograph from Flickr.

Reverend Edgar Woods’ celebrated history, “Albemarle County of Virginia”, published in 1901, on page 296, mentions the following about the brother of my PEYTON ancestress, Lucy PEYTON.

“Henry PEYTON became the owner of Park Hill, the old Drury Wood place near Stony Point, where he resided until his death. His wife was a sister of William P. Farish, and his sons were William, Benjamin, George L., Dr. E.O., Bernard and Eugene, all of whom exhibited a marked degree of enterprise, some in conducting lines of Stages and some in hotel keeping. They removed for the most part to West Virginia.”

The genealogical lineage and descendants of Henry PEYTON of Park Hill in Albemarle County, Virginia are contained in my genealogy book published in 2004, available at Amazon and Lulu: “PEYTONs Along the Aquia”.

The eight children of Valentine PEYTON (1749-1831) were enumerated in his will, extant in Lincoln County, Kentucky, and also in a bounty land claim. They seem to be Randolph PEYTON, Buford PEYTON, Lucy PEYTON (married William HILL), Simeon PEYTON, Delila PEYTON, Vincent PEYTON, and Rhoda PEYTON (married Fleming GOODE). More than a few of his children married into the SPEED family. Many grandchildren are also mentioned in these documents, which are a wealth of information for genealogists. Valentine PEYTON and his lineage is on pages 130-132 of “PEYTONs Along the Aquia.”

When I wrote the genealogy book in 2004, “Peytons Along the Aquia”, I published the ancestry (page 71) but not the descendants of the William PEYTON, born 1753, who married Mary ROSS on 22 February 1796. William PEYTON had removed to Hartford County, Kentucky, sometime before 1780.

Under “Shelby County TN Biographies” are the details and stories of the illustrious descendants from his son Craven PEYTON: Presley Ross PEYTON, Dr. William Peyton (born 1817), Dr. Craven Peyton (born 1821), and Dr. Thomas Fleming Peyton (10 May 1823 Mount Vernon, Kentucky - 14 February 1878 Shelby County, Tennessee).

William PEYTON served as a private during the American Revolution in the 5th Virginia Regiment on the Continental Line. Although I have found no pension for him, William PEYTON has been proven as a DAR patriot by descendants of his son Samuel Oldham PEYTON. Samuel was born on 8 January 1804, at Bullitt County, Kentucky and died at Hartford, Ohio County Kentucky on 18 January 1870. On 12 November 1829, he married Mary Worthington KINCHELOE who was born in 1810, at Muhlenberg County, Kentucky and who died in Kentucky in 1888.

All women who descend from William PEYTON through his son Craven PEYTON are also eligible for membership in the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.

AKA Henry PAYTON
Henry PAYTON served as a private in the Revolution with the Amherst County Riflemen. The “Cabell County Annals and Families” by George Selden Wallace of 1935, credited the service of Henry PAYTON as “first as a substitute at $20.00 a month, was on garrison duty at Point Pleasant, was at Guilford Court House and at Yorktown, later at Winchester guarding prisoners, a privater in the Virginia Militia.”

Henry PAYTON made application for a pension on 28 October 1833, when he was seventy-three years of age and a resident of Cabell County, Virginia. His pension was approved, but then, as often happened with these honorable patriots, for some reason his statement of service was declared fraudulent, resulting in his name being removed from the Revolutionary Pension Rolls.

I have encountered this same sequence of events with one of my own ancestors who was impressed as a teenager to carry a message from southeastern Virginia to Fort Pittsburg and who afterwards enlisted in the Continental Army, yet was never able to document his service to the government’s satisfaction. Another of my ancestors did qualify for his pension, but his exact-named cousin in the adjoining county was declared a “fraud” because the government considered it was already paying him a pension. I have sympathized with them at having given such invaluable service to their new nation, and then be declared dishonest and frauds as old soldiers in their waning years.

During his lifetime, Henry PAYTON petitioned several times to restore his good name, and finally on 16 February 1839, an act of the U.S. Congress reinstated his pension and made it retroactive to 1831. To add further insult to the soldier’s memory, the death date of 1836, on his grave marker that was placed by a Revolutionary War lineage society, was wrong. Henry PAYTON was alive in 1839, and still writing letters to Washington as late as 1842.

As of today, even though a number of descendants of three different children of Henry PAYTON had joined the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) under his Revolutionary War Service, his line has been closed, as the statement of fraud has been “rediscovered” in his pension record. Once again as genealogists, we see how difficult it is to correct errors of many years ago that were put in “official” writings. It will now be necessary for a descendant of patriot Henry PAYTON to join the DAR under his lineage and include a copy of H.R. Bill 1150 as proof of his service, or for a descendant who is already a DAR member to make a supplemental application proving his Revolutionary War service. Hopefully, someone will be able to once again, reinstate the good “Patriot” name of Henry PAYTON (Henry Lindsay PEYTON) of Amherst and Cabell Counties, Virginia.

When I published “PEYTONS Along the Aquia Genealogy” in 2004, I included on page 140, a photocopy of H.R. 1150 of the United States Congress, dated February 16, 1839, “For the relief of Henry PEYTON.” Page 141 onward contains some of the descendants of Henry PAYTON – one of the ‘PEYTONs Along the Aquia’ descendants.

Henry PEYTON served as a soldier of the American Revolution with the Virginia Militia. The following is from "Cabell County Annals and Families" by George Selden Wallace, 1935, page 71:

"Henry Peyton, (Payton). Born 1760 in Culpeper County, Virginia. Died 1836. Served first as a substitute at $20.00 a month, was on garrison duty at Point Pleasant, was at Guilford Court House and at Yorktown, later at Winchester guarding prisoners, a privater in the Virginia Militia. Lived about one mile west of Tom’s Creek beyond Martha where John Hash now lives. Was great-grandfather of Home Peyton and Mrs. L.L. Wilson."

More recent research has discovered that the death date given in the 1935 publication was wrong, as he was still writing letters as late as 1842. Henry Lindsey PEYTON (1760-post 1842) is a descendant of the PEYTONs Along the Aquia. He is a son of Henry PEYTON, whose lineage begins on pages 98, 99 of my Peyton book. Henry Lindsey PEYTON’s descendants begin on page 141.

The Peyton Genealogy Book that I published, "PEYTONs Along the Aquia", is available for purchase at all the major on-line retailers such as Amazon, and for ordering at local bookstores. I strongly recommend ordering it online from the printer, Lulu.com, as there it is produced with higher quality paper and cover. Here is the