Adam Ivey, of Charles City County

MyHeritage family trees

  Parents of Adam Ivey: Thomas Ivey, Anne Ivey (born Argent)   

Siblings: Anne Ivey, George W. Ivey, William Ivey, Thomas Vicesumus Ivey

http://www.jlivey.com/Groups/GR-A1/Chapter%201-Adam.pdf

Elizabeth (?) Ivey, wife and widow of Adam Ivey made her will on April 26, 1718. Eliza Foster and Mary Poythress witnessed the will. This will was probated at a court held at Merchant's Hope Courthouse next to Merchant's Hope Church in Martin's Brandon Parish of Prince George County Virginia, on the second Tuesday of March (8 March) 1719. Adam Ivey, son of Elizabeth (?) Ivey, was declared in the will to be sole executor.

In her will Elizabeth (?) Ivey gave her children:

• I. George - 20 shillings
• II. Gilbert - 20 shillings
• III. Henry - a gold ring
• IV. John - a feather bed
• V. Susan Hays, her daughter - a gold ring
• VI. Adam Ivey and his daughter, Elizabeth - the remainder of the estate.

The children named in her will are not listed in the order of their births.

Robert W. Baird, The Line of Adam Ivey of Charles City County (Revised February 2005) retrieved from http://www.genfiles.com/ivey-files/adam-ivey.pdf

Adam Ivey (c1640s – by1710?)

Adam Ivey appears to have immigrated into Charles City County, Virginia in the early or mid 1670s. Whether he is related in any way to the earlier Ivey immigrants to Lower Norfolk County is uncertain, but there is certainly no evidence of any connection. It appears that Adam Ivey immigrated independently of other Iveys. I could find no mention of any Adam Ivey in English records, nor are there any Adam Iveys mentioned in the Virginia patent books as a headright.

Excursus: At least two publications have suggested that Adam Ivey was related in some way to a John Ivey who supposedly appears in the records of neighboring Surry County in the mid-1650s and who died there by 1663. A close inspection of Surry records discloses that this “John Ivey” was a misidentification in a secondary source, and that this person’s name was actually “John Troy”, who appears several times in Surry records.1

Practically all colonial records of Charles City County were destroyed, with only a few court orders and a handful other records surviving. There exists an order book covering the period 1655-1658, and a deed book covering 1655-1665, neither of which mentions anyone named Ivey. The next available records are a fragmentary order book for 1672-3, in which no Ivey appears, followed by an order book for 1677-79 in which we find the first mention of Adam Ivey.

By the time Adam Ivey first appears in the records, he was married and most of his children had been born. If he immigrated as an indentured servant it must have been many years prior, as he would have had to serve out his term before marrying, and women were scarce enough that men typically married relatively late in life, if at all. The first record of him is as a plaintiff against Richard Warthen for the theft of a hog on 21 November 1677.2

A suit against him by William Wilkins was dismissed on 16 April 1678.3 He was apparently farming on leased land at the time.

On October 15, 1679, when Adam Ivey was sued for trespass by Robert Netherland, the court found "that 50 acres rented by Ivey from John Ludwell belonged to the plaintiff Robert Netherland, having been bought by Netherland's father from Thomas Maddox.” Adam Ivey was ordered removed from the land. He evidently relocated nearby, for within a few weeks he is mentioned as a tenant on the land of Robert Maddox.4

These citations tell us that Adam Ivey was a small-scale tenant farmer, almost certainly growing tobacco. Fifty acres was a small landholding, but a single field worker was capable of managing only three or four acres of tobacco in those days. Fifty acres was a typical holding for a planter with only himself to work the fields.5

His location can be approximated, since nearly all the persons mentioned in these records lived south of the James River in the neck of land bounded by Upper Chippoakes Creek and Wards Creek. This neck included what was later the parish of Martins Brandon, in which Adam Ivey apparently lived at his death, in what would later become Prince George County. It was quite close to Surry County, Upper Chippoakes Creek being the later boundary between Prince George and Surry.

There is a loose file in the Virginia Archives containing six unnumbered pages from the court order book for 1681.6

On one of these pages, Adam Ivey appears as a defendant in a suit by Henry Harman, who sued for 840 pounds of tobacco. This very brief entry concludes “…to which the wife and atty for the def. conf judgment for 800 lb which is allowed.” From context, this entry seems to have been dated in early 1681. 800 pounds of tobacco was a considerable fine in those days – the average annual production per field hand was barely 1,600 pounds. The next available records for Charles City County are a book of court orders covering 1687-95, in which Adam Ivey appears in 1691 being paid for court attendance as a witness.7

Around this time he somehow acquired 200 acres of land in what would later be Prince George County. There are no patents recorded for him, so it must have been acquired by deed, none of which are preserved in the county records. If this 200 acres is the same land later sold by George Ivey, then Adam Ivey was living on part of a patent originally granted to Benjamin Foster in 1686.8

Excursus: Every effort has been made to locate patents and deeds as precisely as possible. In the case of Prince George County, its loss of records makes this quite difficult. The 1683 patent to Benjamin Foster, part of which George Ivey sold in 1720, was for 883 acres in Weyanoke parish.9

By plotting this patent and several patents to surrounding landowners, we can locate it roughly on the southern reaches of Ward’s Creek just north of the Blackwater, perhaps three miles or so from the border with Surry County. At the time of the patent, it was in Charles City County, but fell into eastern Prince George County when it was formed in 1703. Adam Ivey appears on the 1704 quit roll in Prince George with 200 acres. His son Henry Ivey appears on the same roll with 450 acres.

Unfortunately, there are no records of any kind for the first several years of Prince George’s existence. The early county records include only an order book for 1713-20 and a book of wills and deeds covering the period 1710-28. (No further records survive until 1787, except for less than two years of deeds and wills recorded in 1759-60.) Adam Ivey does not appear in any of these records, though his son Adam Ivey does. Since all will and estate records are destroyed for the years 1703-1710, it appears that Adam Ivey died sometime during that period.

Excursus: Among the few available records, Adam Ivey is never referred to as “Sr.” or “Jr.”, thus we cannot be absolutely certain which man appeared among the Prince George quit rents of 1704. Surely it was the father referred to in the 1691 court record. The next record of an Adam Ivey is the 1704 quit rents, which might refer to either the father or the son. The next available record of an Adam Ivey is a 1715 court record in Prince George County, which surely applies to the son. Although I have assumed that it was the father who held land in 1704, it is possible that it was actually the son, and that Adam Ivey Sr. had died sometime in the period 1691-1704.

Although his wife was unnamed in the 1681 court record, she was clearly the Elizabeth Ivey of Prince George County and Weyanoke Parish whose will was dated 26 April 1718, and proved on 8 March 1720 by her son Adam Ivey.10 The will makes the following bequests: “…I give and bequeath unto my son George Ivie, twenty shillings, or the worth of twenty in some commodity, as my executor shall see fitt… I give and bequeath unto my son Henry Ivie, a gold ring…I give and bequeath unto my son John Ivie, my bed & what belongs to it…I give and bequeath unto my son Gilbert Ivie, twenty shillings, or the worth of twenty… I give and bequeath unto my daughter Susan Hays, a gold ring…I give and bequeath unto my son Adam Ivie and his daughter Elizabeth Ivie, all the remaining part of my household goods, to be equally divided between them as he shall see fitt, and I do hereby appoint my son Adam Ivie my sole executor.” The will was signed by Elizabeth Ivey with her mark and witnessed by Eliza. Foster and Mary Poythress. (See 11 for a discussion of the Poythress connection.) Adam Ivey qualified as executor with Edward Prince his security.12 The household goods distributed by the will didn’t amount to much, as the inventory returned by Adam Ivey a year later on 14 February 1721 valued the estate at five pounds.13

Excursus: This Elizabeth Ivey was mistakenly identified in a 1927 journal article as the widow of George Ivey Jr. of Lower Norfolk County.14 Although both women were named Elizabeth Ivey, they can easily be proven to be different people. Lower Norfolk probate and guardianship records show that George Ivey Jr. was survived by four minor children named William, James, Joseph, and Margaret, and that his widow Elizabeth remained in Lower Norfolk. [See paper on descendants of Thomas Ivey and Ann Argent for more detail.] The Elizabeth Ivey of Prince George County was a generation older, with a completely different set of children, and surely the widow of Adam Ivey Sr.

There were five sons named in Elizabeth Ivey’s 1718 will. A later record allows us to estimate the birth of one, John Ivey, as about 1675. It seems likely that all the sons were middle-aged by the time their mother died. Four of the five sons, Gilbert, George, Adam and Henry, all patented land adjoining one another in what is now northeastern Greensville County, just southeast of the present town of Emporia, in the years 1718-1724. None of them appear to have lived on those lands for more than a few years. They later drifted in different directions, at least one of them apparently remaining in Prince George County. The fifth son, John, remained in Surry, later Sussex County, living a few miles from the Prince George border.

Although just a theory, it is possible that Adam Ivey’s father’s name was “Henry”.15 It is also likely that Adam and Elizabeth Ivey had more children than the six named in the will, though probably those six represent all those still living in 1718. Mortality rates were quite high in those days. Nearly one-third of all babies died in infancy and barely half survived to reach the age of majority. The point is that caution should be exercised in drawing conclusions from the names of the children who did survive. However, I can’t resist noting that “Gilbert” was a relatively unusual name in 17th century Virginia and therefore might be a clue to Elizabeth Ivey’s own father.

1 A secondary source (Boddie) abstracted the name as “John Ivey” in a 1655 sale of land. However, this person appears several times in Surry records, and an examination of these original records reveals that the name was actually John Troy. In addition, the 1655 deed was a sale of a 1648 patent which is referred to in the patent records as John Troy’s. See Surry County Deed & Order Book 1 (1652-1672), pp 49, 67, 83, 119, and 213 for other mentions of this man.

2 Charles City County Order Book 1677-9, p242

3 Ibid., p292

4 Ibid., p418

5 This and other demographic comments are extracted from Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800, Allan Kulikoff (University of North Carolina Press, 1986).

6 Charles City County Court Orders 1681 (fragments on Reel 13, Virginia Archives)

7 Charles City County Order Book 1687-95, p377

8 Patent to Foster in Virginia Patent Book 7, p332.

9 Virginia Patent Book 7, p332.

10 Prince George County Deeds, Etc. 1713-1728, part 2, p392.

11 It is worth mentioning some interesting connections with the Poythress family, which lived not far from Ward’s Creek. A Mary Poythress witnessed Elizabeth Ivey’s 1718 will. There were at least two Mary Poythresses in Prince George at the time, both wives of different people named John Poythress. It is likely that the Mary Poythress who witnessed the will was Mary Batte, the wife of John Poythress Jr., who lived adjoining the land Adam Ivey Jr. sold in 1721 and 1723. This John Poythress was the brother of the Peter Poythress to whom Adam Ivey Jr. sold his land in 1721. Both of them were named in the 1712 will of John Poythress Sr., whose wife can be proven to be Christian Peebles. That 1712 will also names a daughter Christian, who may have married John Ivey. Another son of John Poythress Sr. was Joshua, who received a patent in 1722 for (probably a much earlier) importation of Edward Prince, possibly Adam Ivey Jr.’s son-in-law.

12 Prince George County Court Orders 1714-1720, p309. Elizabeth Foster, one of the witnesses, proved the will.

13 Prince George County Deeds, Etc. 1713-1728, part 2, p443.

14 “The Ivey Family”, by W. Mac Jones, William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 7, Series 2 (April 1927), pp92

Benjamin Ivey of Randolph County, NC (c 1760 - 1802) was the son of John Ivey (c 1725 ? - 1789) & Mary, daughter of David Adams. John Ivey was the son of Henry Ivey (1695 - 1774) & Rebecca Sledge. Henry was the son of George Ivey (1670 - after 1737) & Ruth. George was the son of Adam Ivey ( 1640s - bef 1710) & Elizabeth.

comments

From http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=rebelpj&i...

From Jerry Lee Ivey

"The original connection made between a James and an ancestor Joseph Ivey was an error made by several researchers who attempted to connect a James of SE Mississippi (thought to be a son of James of Marlboro Co, SC) to a Charles who was from a line of a Joseph Ivey. This Charles and Joseph are referenced in the Robert Allison Ivey document but not connected.I have seen several speculations that the James of Marlboro Co might have been a brother of the Charles who wound up in Clarke Co, AL 1820. While this remains a possibility, there's never been any proof presented.To my knowledge, it's also never been proven that the pension claim mentioned was for the specific James Ivey of Marlboro Co from whom we claim to be descended, nor that this Mourning was the one from Marlboro. I haven't seen any documents, but I could be convinced if someone actually presented such documents. There was a Mourning Ivey who was the wife of a John Ivey, to which this record may have referred. For this reason, some have attempted to assume that the James of Marlboro was actually a John James Ivey.It's also never been proven that Mourning was a Driggers. There was another person named Mourning Driggers in the approximate area of NC/SC but she was of the wrong age. I suspect these two persons were assumed by some to be the same person. There does appear to be a closer connection between the Joseph Ivey of Marlboro Co and the Driggers than with James. The Driggers line of Marlboro also traces back to the earliest Virginia mixed-race Driggers. It's fairly certain that both the James and Joseph of Marlboro Co had a relatively recent African Y-DNA in their paternal line. We have test results from a descendent of Joseph, as well as of James, and Isaiah which all indicate this. The Y-DNA results show that these lines were closely related, most likely at the level of brothers, fathers, first cousins, etc.From test results of several other participants, we are also coming to a "working hypothesis" that the first Adam Ivie of Charles City/Prince George Co, VA, also had this same African Y-DNA even though he appeared in all records to have functioned as and been accepted as White. It's a suspicion that this Adam of CC/PG was likely from the lighter side of a mixed-race family. The younger Adam and others clearly identified as mixed-race who showed up in the counties around Edgecombe, NC, before migrating down to SC and across to TN, were from the darker side of a mixed-race family. Further research will be required to ever identify this origin.There is a website at <http://www.jlivey.com> and <http://www.jlivey.com/dna> which can furnish a great deal of information on this family line. On that site I have discussed several possible scenarios for how Adam of CC/PG County might have inherited this Y-DNA. It could not have originated from a "White, European male" and an African woman, as the Y-DNA is passed only down the male line.I also have created an Ancestry.Com family file which attempts to show several family lines connected through a hypothetical common ancestor who had the same Y-DNA. I can make this available to anyone if they wish to see it and perhaps collaborate.

• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Nov 26 2022, 19:48:43 UTC