Daniel Joseph, Augusta and Rockingham Counties,
Virginia
circa1755 – 1796
Today I would like to continue the discussion of Daniel
Joseph’s Jewish heritage. In an earlier post titled Daniel Joseph and Miss Hanger, I mentioned Daniel was identified as a “Jew” in the 1780 Augusta
County, VA Court Fee book[1].
Paul T. Gilliatt of
Prince George, Virginia wrote to me in 1995 about our mutual ancestor. Paul was a descendant of Daniel’s daughter,
Eve Joseph, who married John Gilliatt in 1809. Paul’s letter included the
following excerpt:
“I have not yet researched the Joseph
family however I have item of info you may be interested in.”
“When I was researching the deed books in
Staunton (Augusta Co.), I noted an unusual signature above Daniel Joseph’s
signature on two land deeds. As you know information documents etc. are copied
into the records by court personnel. This obviously was not copied by Court
personnel—different pen, different shade ink, etc. I knew it had to be Daniel
Joseph’s signature. For some reason after the court people copied the deed into
the record book, he made it official by signing his name. The deed book is so
old and brittle the court people had a rule—no copies would be made. I begged and
begged. They finally made me a copy of the 1785 deed from deed book 25. The
same signature is in deed book 27 page 105-107 deed dated in 1791. I made a
copy of the signature and sent it to a Synagogue. They told me the signature
was old Hebrew.”
.jpg) |
| Copy provided courtesy of Paul T. Gilliatt |
Augusta Co., VA Deed Book 25, page 34, May 20, 1875
Following is a copy I printed from microfilm belonging to
the Library of Virginia that I borrowed via interlibrary loan that Paul
referred to in his letter.
.jpg)
Augusta Co., VA Deed Book 27, page 107, February
20, 1791
While I never saw the original deed book in Staunton, I
found a similar and earlier signature for a deed dated Oct. 27, 1781. (This is
also from Library of Virginia microfilm.)
Augusta Co., VA Deed Book 23, page
440, Oct. 27, 1781
Shortly afterwards, I enlisted help from the Jewish Roots
mailing list to obtain a translation. Many scholarly members from the mailing list
responded and I learned Daniel’s signature meant
Natan [Nathan]
son of R. [Reb=Mister] Yosef [Joseph]
Our family had no idea we had Jewish ancestry. Augusta
County, Virginia was a rural community when Daniel and his wife, Eve, lived
there. Most likely there weren’t too many Jews nearby. The first Jewish
Congregation in Staunton wasn’t established until 1876—almost eighty years
after Daniel died. The Rockingham County Jewish Congregation was founded in
1859 sixty-three years after his passing.
Daniel didn’t have a Jewish wife. Eve’s father, Johann
Friederich Hanger, had been a member of two Lutheran Churches located at
Woodstock and Stony Creek in Shenandoah Co., Virginia prior to his move to
Augusta County.[2]
Each of Daniel’s children was married by a Minister. Daniel might have been a
practicing Jew but there were probably no opportunities for him to follow his
faith in any public forum. As far as I’ve been able to determine, none of
Daniel’s descendants observed Jewish beliefs or customs.
I located another ‘Jew’ in the 1803
Rockingham County Personal Property Tax list—Moses Joseph. Moses along with his wife, Ruth,
and his family migrated to Rockingham County from Orange County, Virginia by
1788. I'm very interested in compiling any
information about the Moses Joseph family as I suspect Moses was a relative of my
4th great grandfather Daniel Joseph.
If anyone would like to share information
or thoughts about Daniel and Moses Joseph,
please let me hear from you.
Note: Paul T. Gilliatt died in
1996. I consider myself very lucky to have received his ‘genealogical gift’.
Barb - my husband is a direct descendant of Moses Joseph of Rockingham, via his daughter, Sarah Elizabeth and her marriage to the Irish immigrant, John Sheridan. Jim has recently had his DNA done, and we have confirmation that he has no Jewish DNA. Moses, from my pretty deep research, was an immigrant indentured servant from England. Born in the Old Bailey in London (or near it.) He committed a crime/crimes and was sentenced, possibly to death! But his sentence was commuted to "transport" to the Americas as an indentured servant. He was only 14. I have pieced together some info and it appears his father died when he was an infant. Then a year or so later, his mother died as well....recently, I discovered a record that shows an infant sister (Elizabeth?) who died and I wonder if his mother died in childbirth. I have to work on that theory a bit with dates and such.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, my hubby's DNA would seem to answer that question as he is directly descended from John and Sarah E. Sheridan. Feel free to get with me on corrections I should make or to share info!
Thanks for letting me know. I must confess I'm a little disappointed. I had hoped your Moses was a brother to my Daniel. Great research!
DeleteYour husband wouldn't necessarily indicate Jewish DNA if you are descended through a daughter. I assume you must be talking about an autosomal test. Certain amount of relatedness can indicate positively that a relationship exists, but a lack of certain DNA doesn't mean that a known ancestor didn't carry that DNA, since not all ancestors contribute significant or noticeable levels of DNA to all of their descendants. I've read that, with respect to Native American ancestry, an autosomal test can only reliably rule out Native American ancestry within 5 generations. In other words, if you had a 3x great grandparent who was 100% Native American, the test would show it with high confidence. If you had a 100% Native 4x great grandparent, however, it couldn't guarantee he or she would be represented in your results.
DeleteSo if Moses Joseph was a 4x great grandparent or further back to your husband, his lack of discernible Jewish DNA would not rule out Moses being Jewish. Further, the testing company matters. 23andme shows me as 0.4% Ashkenazi, which is exactly the number you would expect, on average, from Daniel Joseph being my 6x great grandfather. However, AncestryDNA shows no Jewish DNA whatsoever. Back when 23andme had a "countries of origin" utility (why they got rid of it, I don't know), there was one particular segment on which I matched I think 3 different Jewish man, who had no known connection to each other outside ethnicity. Unfortunately, the feature was pulled before I could verify whether the segment was also shared with any known Gilliatt cousins.
Especially if Moses is specified as a Jew on the 1803 tax list as Barb seems to imply, that is a lot stronger evidence of his being Jewish than a lack of apparent Jewish DNA in a distant descendant would be for the other conclusion- especially if your husband, again, is more distant than a 3x great grandson, and even moreso if Ancestry and its less sensitive algorithm is the source.
Barb, can you confirm that he is specifically identified as a Jew? Certainly the names of him and his wife would indicate it as likely, even if not.