The Dorsey/Darsey/Darcy/Dawsey/Dossey/D'Arcy

Surname Project

    Using DNA Analysis 

 To Define and Verify Family Lines and Connections 

Established 2002
This project is organized, administered, and paid for by family members
for the purpose of linking ourselves to the past.

While we have no commercial interest in any DNA testing company
we highly recommend testing at Family Tree DNA

Who Was Andrew Dorsey?

MD > NC 1766

Review of Early Research and Dorsey Lineage III DNA Testing

In 2001, in the early days of DNA testing for genealogy,  descendants of Harvey A. Kelley of Cumberland County, Tennessee were able to use that exciting new tool to confirm a vague family tradition that Harvey Kelley actually began life near Walhalla, South Carolina with the surname Dorsey, not Kelley.1   

In genealogy, new discoveries inevitably lead to new questions.  As the euphoria wore off, we naturally wanted to know about the origins of our new Dorsey family.  Joining with a group of Dorsey researchers from the western Carolinas, we again used DNA comparisons along with traditional genealogical records to confirm and define our Dorsey relationships.   For an extensive report of that undertaking see www.contexo.info/DorseyDNA/LineageIII.htm.  Briefly, 12 Dorsey men with records linking them to the western Carolinas were found to share a Y chromosome signature so unusual that until recently, they have had no significant matches to anyone with another surname.

The earliest North Carolina record of any Dorseys who have been connected biologically to that group was an entry in the 1768 Rowan County tax list for Andrew Dorsey and his son Endymion.2  By 1777, both Andrew and Endymion were dead and their wives, Patience and Ann respectively were administering their estates in Rowan County.3,4  In addition to the proven son Endymion, probable sons of Andrew and Patience Dorsey were Bassell, Benjamin, and John H. Dorsey.  Y chromosome DNA from descendants of Endymion, Bassell, and John H. Dorsey closely match each other.  (As yet, we have found no descendants of Benjamin Dorsey.)  Together, these descendants of Andrew and Patience Dorsey make up Lineage III of the Dorsey DNA Project. 

Of course, once these relationships were defined, next on the agenda was to find the origins of our patrilineal group.  There has always been a tradition among the descendants of Bassell Dorsey that he was born in Maryland.5  In fact, in the 1880 Hall County Georgia US Census, the youngest son of Bassell Dorsey, John Dorsey (then age 79), reported his father's birthplace as Maryland.6  There is a record of the sale of property by an Andrew Dorsey in Maryland in 1766 just two years before our Andrew first appeared in Rowan County.7  At the end of that record is a notation that Patience "the wife of the within Andrew" appeared in court to relinquish her Dower rights in the property. 

With these arrows pointing toward colonial Maryland, it was perhaps natural to predict this little group were descendants of the Immigrant Edward Darcy/Dorsey who had wandered away and lost track of their roots.  We began to examine the complex trail of records and descendancy charts for this Edward Darcy/Dorsey who was first recorded in Virginia in 1642 and in Maryland by 1650. Those records and charts have been extensively reported and summarized by Maxwell Dorsey, et al8 and Joshua Dorsey Warfield9 and many others.  We also set out to recruit some well documented descendants of Edward Darcy/Dorsey to provide DNA samples to compare with DNA of proven descendants of Andrew Dorsey.

The name Andrew was not popular among early Maryland Dorseys. There are only a handful of records for the name Andrew Dorsey in Maryland in the early to mid 1700's. All of those records are consistent in date, location, and content with the hypothesis that they refer to the same individual who is also the Andrew Dorsey who appeared later in Rowan County, North Carolina.

The first record of an Andrew Dorsey is in the Baltimore County Tax list of 1737 where he is listed between Moris Gosnell and Thos Porter.10  Other names also traditionally associated with the family of Edward Dorsey are nearby.  With no records of birth or christening for Andrew in Maryland, it is possible that he was a recent arrival from England or Ireland or some other area of the US. Nevertheless it is tempting to speculate that Andrew was born in Maryland and that his first appearance on this list represents his arrival at the taxable age of 16--placing his birth date around 1721.

Andrew Dorsey is next found in the allowances for the Baltimore County Levy Papers of 1739.11  Interestingly, he is located on the same page (p. 59) as Comfort DORSEY (estranged wife of ³John DORSEY of ²Joshua/ ¹Edward Dorsey).   As I have not seen the originals of these records, I do not know if this is the result of actual geographical proximity or the work of a zealous clerk who alphabetized the list in a misguided attempt at efficiency. In September of 1748, Andrew Dorsey patented a 50 acre land parcel in Baltimore County called Dorsey’s Prospect.12  He is listed, with Dorsey’s Prospect, in the 1754 Baltimore County Debt Book.13  This is the same parcel that he sold in the record of 1766.14

Andrew Dorsey is also found on the list of "Taxables in St. Thomas Parish, 1763, Delaware Hundred". ¹⁵  Unfortunately accessible copies of this list have been alphabetized so it is not possible to determine proximities of various other residents. Other Dorseys on the same list include Charles, Edward, John, Lanslot, Nicholas, Jr., Nicholas, Sr., and Vachel. 

A brief 1994 article by Kathleen Field, "A Record of Tevis Births" in the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin reports some loose pages from an old Bible that record some Tevis family births along with a page that contains records of the family of Orlando Griffith Dorsey a great-great grandson of Edward Darcy/Dorsey.16  Orlando Dorsey was the son of Nicholas and Sarah Griffith Dorsey.17  Nicholas Dorsey was named in the September, 1717 will of his father, also Nicholas Dorsey.18

Most exciting for those of us interested in the origins of Andrew and Patience Dorsey, is the following entry amongst the reports of the children of Orlando G. Dorsey: "(Unreadable--possibly Charles) Dorsey son of Andres Dorsey and Patience his wife was born ye 30th day of November in the year of our Lord 1748." ¹⁹     

However, in spite of the fact that these early to mid 18th century records show Andrew Dorsey living in Maryland in the midst of many descendents of Edward Darcy/Dorsey and a Dorsey family Bible records his child’s birth, there are no parents of record for him. More conclusively, the Y chromosome DNA haplotype of Andrew's descendents does not begin to match that of documented descendents of Edward Darcy/Dorsey.20  These circumstances suggest that Andrew Dorsey was a child adopted or raised by a Dorsey family or perhaps the illegitimate son of a Dorsey woman who was raised as a Dorsey.  

The inclusion of Andrew and Patience’s child on a Bible page with descendents of Nicholas Dorsey begs for closer attention to possible connections with that line. As mentioned above, other Dorseys reported on the 1763 Delaware Hundreds tax list included Nicholas, Sr., Nicholas, Jr., and Charles —father and brothers to Orlando Griffith Dorsey whose children’s records appear on the Bible page with Andrew and Patience’s child.

Of considerable interest, Frances Hughes Dorsey, widow of Nicholas Dorsey, who died September 1717, and mother of Nicholas Dorsey (father of Orlando) was charged with bastardy at the August Court of 1721.21 She did not name the father, nor was there any indication of the gender or name of the child or what happened to him/her. The possibility that this child was our Andrew Dorsey is intriguing! With a mother and half brothers with the name Dorsey and no named father, what other surname could he have been given? A child born in 1721 would have arrived at the taxable age of 16 in 1737, the date of Andrew Dorsey’s first appearance on the Baltimore County Tax List.

Food for further speculation, Frances Dorsey, executrix of the will of Nicholas Dorsey, posted administrative bond 27 Feb 1717/1718 with Samuel Dorsey (Nicholas’ brother) and Andrew Norwood.²² Where did Andrew Norwood fit into this picture? Was he a close friend? Is our Andrew his namesake? 

In 2006, I wrote,

Hopefully his Andrew’s descendant’s unique Y chromosome will eventually find a match with a yet undiscovered Dorsey ancestor or with someone of another surname who traces his line back to Baltimore County, Maryland in the early 1700’s and that name will suggest a direction to search for the patrilineal line of Andrew Dorsey.  Of course, the chances of this happening serendipitously are meager. Based only on some fanciful hunches generated by a few records, we are actively recruiting individuals from early Baltimore families of Gosnell, Norwood, Porter, Frizzle, Gaither, and Gillis to provide a DNA sample on the slim chance his father was from one of those lines.23

 As time passed, not much came of these recruitment efforts though I did keep a close eye on DNA surname projects for the above names.   With Lineage III’s very unusual Y-DNA, there were few matches and those did not hold up to the scrutiny of 67 marker comparisons.  The Norwood DNA Project, in fact, had a participant whose line had been traced back to Baltimore but whose DNA did not match our Lineage III line at all. 

A Norwood Connection for Dorsey Lineage III

A few years ago, we did find a match with a young man searching for the identity of his biological father.   We immediately extended the number of markers tested for two of our members to 67 markers as did our new match.  Though encouraged by the resulting 60/67 marker match, neither that young man nor Lineage III Dorseys were able to advance the other’s search. 

Then, in the space of a month or so in late summer of 2008, several new pieces of the puzzle fell in place.  First our matching young man discovered (using traditional records) that his biological father’s name was Nored (a variant of Norwood).  The father’s line was traced back to Baltimore with good evidence that he is a direct male line descendant of John Norwood (b. c. 1672) and Sarah Dorsey. 24  Sarah Dorsey was the daughter of Edward Dorsey and Sarah Wyatt and the sister of Nicholas Dorsey, husband of Frances Dorsey.  

      This Norwood line traces back to Captain John Norwood who is said to have been born in 1605 in Lincolnshire, England.25,26  John Norwood’s name is found in conjunction with Edward Dorsey in many records both in Virginia and Maryland.  I have not personally searched the early colonial records for John Norwood (yet).  However, Dorsey, Dorsey, and Ball include a section on the Norwood family in their review of Maryland records for the Dorsey family in The Dorsey family: descendants of Edward Darcy-Dorsey of Virginia and Maryland for five generations, and allied families.27  Documented information about John Norwood and his line is also available in The Founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland: A Genealogical and Biographical Review from Wills, Deeds and Church Records by Joshua Dorsey Warfield.  This book is available and searchable (free) from Google Books.28  Among other things, Captain John Norwood served as the first sheriff of Anne Arundel County Maryland and, in fact, owned land there in partnership with Edward Darcy/Dorsey.29

      Shortly after the discovery of the Nored connection above, we also found a match with a Norwood participant in the Ancestry DNA program at www.ancestry.com.  A quick comparison of records showed that the Ancestry participant’s line tied in with that of the young man who had recently learned his biological father was a “Nored” who is believed to share a Baltimore County origin with Dorsey Lineage III.30    The Dorsey ancestral haplotype matches this Mr. Norwood at 26/27 of markers tested in common by Ancestry and Family Tree DNA.

      Very soon after that discovery, we were notified by Family Tree DNA of a match with a gentleman named Norwood in England whose well documented ancestry traces back to Richard Norwood who was born c1420 on the Isle of Thanet, Kent.31  The match prevailed with 62 of 67 markers matching our Dorsey Lineage III ancestral haplotype.  Tables 2-1 through 2-6 report and compare the marker values of the Norwood lines from Maryland and England and Dorsey Lineage III. 

The English researcher, G. Marion Norwood Callam has published research on the Norwood line of our English match.32  According to Ms Callam, as reported by Richard Norwood and James Dempsey, administrators of the Norwood DNA Project, these Norwoods are believed to have originated in the county of Kent, England, where Sir Stephen de Northwode (bef  1177-1231), son of Jordan of Sheppey, first adopted the Norman-style surname, descriptive of the north woods of his estate on the "Island of Sheep."33  A descendancy chart for Captain John Norwood of Maryland that references the work of Ms Callam is available at http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/4805/captj001.htm.34

Though Callam apparently outlines the connection between the lines of our English match from Kent and that of Captain John Norwood of colonial Virginia and Maryland who is said to have been born in Lincolnshire, England, I do not know how that connection is documented.  DNA results predict that a connection exists but cannot tell us where or when.  (I gather that the Norwoods, like the Dorseys, have been somewhat surprised to find a number of different biologically defined lines among those who previously believed they shared a common, extensively researched, ancestor.) 

DNA results along with the known close associations of the Dorsey and Norwood families in colonial Maryland tell us that it is highly probable that Andrew Dorsey was a Norwood child raised as a Dorsey.  However, DNA cannot tell us which (if any) of the Norwoods of early Maryland was his father nor who was his mother.   
Some Possible Fathers for Andrew Dorsey

Kitty Crowley, a long time researcher of Maryland Norwoods, very generously prepared us a survey from her database of possible Norwood candidates for a father for Andrew Dorsey.   Below, in blue font, is her response to my inquiry to the Norwood email list at Rootsweb.com, my comments in black font in brackets :

I did a search of my Maryland Norwood database using the search parameters of male Norwood b. between 1670 and 1720.  I assumed this would be the Norwood male who might have fathered Nancy's Andrew Dorsey.  [More likely the father of a child born in 1721 would have been born before 1700.]

Now there is only one record of bastardy associated with these early Maryland Norwoods.

*CASE OF MARY ODLE 1754

Mary Odle (an orphan of William Odle or Odell who had died by 24 Dec

1748) was a bastardizing convict by confession in November Court, 1754.

She was fined 30 shillings and her mother Elizabeth Odle was her security. Philip Norwood, the father of her child, was also fined 30 shillings and Lyde Goodwin was his security. Ref: Court Proceedings Liber BB No. A, pp. 448-449, 453; Baltimore County Families, 1659-1759, p. 478

There is virtually no information on this Phillip so I have no idea who his parents were but he does fit into this time frame.  If he is fathering a child in 1754 he was probably born somewhere between 1700 and 1720.  

There is Andrew Norwood (1684-bef 1734), s/o Andrew Norwood and Elizabeth Howard.  He married Eliza Wellplay, and according to Callam he died in 1722. He definitely fits the bill.... but did he?  Don't know.  [See comments about him below..]

Then there is Edward Norwood (1689-bef1729), s/o of Edward. He married Ruth Owings in 1718 and had several children right about the same time as your Andrew.  But he seems to have been mostly in Baltimore County, not where your Andrew is from in Anne Arundel Co.  [Andrew Dorsey WAS from Baltimore County.]  He and Ruth had high profile children and the lines are well-known.

Next is Phillip Norwood (1694-1733), probable s/o John Norwood and Sarah Dorsey. He married Comfort LNU in 1719 in Anne Arundel Co. and then died there in 1733.  No known children.

Then there is Samuel Norwood (1699-1773), s/o John Norwood and Sarah Dorsey.  He married Mary Mullikin in 1730 in Anne Arundel Co. and had several children. [The two Norwoods from the US who match Dorsey Lineage III are descendants of this couple.  Samuel Norwood’s mother Sarah Dorsey was the sister-in-law of Frances Hughes Dorsey.]

There is a Samuel Norwood (1708-XXX), possible s/o Samuel Norwood and Sarah Dorsey. He married Ann/Mary Belt in 1731.  No known children.

And last of all is John Norwood (1692-bef 1737), s/o John Norwood and Sarah Dorsey. He married Rachel Marriarte in 1726 in Baltimore Co. 

Callam  English Norwood researchers states:

 *"He lived beyond his means, had white servants, and ran into debt. 

His brother Samuel helped him, but he was put into debtor's prison."

*I have seen several records from the Maryland State Archives which mention him as prisoner.

/*Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, May, 1730-August, 1732 */Vol 37, pg 298 Assembly Proceedings, August 19-September 6, 1731.

/.....Richard Roper John Norwood & Richard Sympson languishing Prisoners in Ann Arundell County Goal.....

All this list can do is tell you who was alive at the time to possibly father a child.  I am still working the early Norwoods and therefore cannot promise that these are the only Norwoods who were around at the time.  But it is the best info I have for right now.35

Another tidbit that seems to be asking for a place in this puzzle of Andrew’s parents is a mysterious burial entry in the St. Anne's Parish records dated April 5, 1722, reports "Buried Andrew Norwood  a mock Funeral"36

This, of course, could have been a funeral for someone whose body had not been recovered--say from a drowning.  However, such events may have also been held by a person trying to escape debts or perhaps by a wife who has been deserted and wishes to remarry.  A first guess is that this is the Andrew who was married to Elizabeth Wellplay (see Crowley’s email above).    This Andrew Norwood was reportedly dead by 1724 when his sisters, Elizabeth, Anne and Hannah inherited property that was to have gone to him as a beneficiary of his father-in-law Andrew Wellplay.37  It does seem odd that if the mock funeral was for a nefarious reason (such as escape from debt) that it would have been recorded by the minister (or that he would have performed it at all--perhaps a large donation to the vestry fund?).

Another bizarre possibility is that the mock burial was for an infant named Andrew Norwood who did not actually die but was "adopted" into a Dorsey family.  A fellow researcher has suggested a mock burial for an infant might have been to block later claims on an inheritance.  There was no note, however that the burial was of an infant.

Frances Dorsey did not name the father of her child.  In spite of that, she was dealt with quite gently--paying a fine of thirty shillings (I have no idea how much that represents.  I spent some time Googling around for equivalents but still am not sure).  The next case after Frances Dorsey in the court proceedings of the same day is for a woman named Elizabeth Joes (or Jones).  She named the father of her child.  After which,

"the court proceed to award her such punishment as the law of this Province inflicts on such offenders which was that she be committed to the custody of the sheriff and that he take her hence to the whipping post her body stripped from the waist upwards her hands to the post tied and that he give her ten sec lashes on the bare back well laid on which accordingly was executed and she was discharged giving fee for the payment of the due to the officer of this court which Gideon Howard on her behalf undertook to pay."38 

Did someone intercede on behalf of Frances Dorsey in order to keep the circumstances of her predicament hidden?  Somehow, the widow Frances Dorsey got favorable treatment.  Was it because the father of her child had some position of influence?

A few other bits and pieces from Maryland records shed some interesting if dim light on Frances Dorsey, the daughter of Thomas and Lydia Hughes, born 18 May 1692.39    She married Nicholas Dorsey 20 December 1709 at the age of eighteen.40  By age 25, Frances Dorsey was a widow with four small children.41  By the terms of her husband’s will, she was the executer of his estate which was inventoried in February of the following year by John Israel and Edward Norwood.  (The inventory included a Bible, testament, spelling book, psalter, money scales, pock book, 2 small deal boxes, chest, lock and key, negroes, Tom, Hagar, Jenney & child, Isaac, Esther, Maria.  The estate was valued at £347.14.9½.)42

      A series of records in the Maryland State Archives suggest Frances was not a savvy money manager and the settlement of her husband’s estate appears to have lagged on for a number of years.43  Even more telling, Frances Dorsey, Widow, was included in a petition presented to the General Assembly of Maryland, in early October 1724 on behalf of “languishing Prisoners in the County Goal at Annapolis praying that a Bill may be brought in to relieve them from Confinement they delivering upon Oath all their Effects for the Use of their Creditors”.  The Petitions of John Cornelius and of Frances Dorsey languishing Prisoners were read and it appeared that as their Creditors had had due notice Leave was given to bring in a Bill for their relief.  The bill, “An Act for the Relief of sundry languishing Prisoners”, therein mentioned was passed in November 1724.44  Interestingly, among the other names included in the same petition for relief was that of Edward Norwood.  Though his name was next to that of Frances Dorsey in the list of names, there is no indication that they were there as a result of a shared plight of their joint making or by a coincidental financial misfortune.

The widow Frances Hughes Dorsey appears on a 1729 list of debts to the estate of Amos Garret in Baltimore County.45  And finally, Frances Dorsey in 1730 was named as the “Drawer” of a bill of exchange that was the center of a suit in the Perogative Court .46 

These last bits and pieces may or may not provide clues or direction for further efforts to identify parents for Andrew Dorsey.  Most clearly, however, DNA results indicate his father provided him with a Y chromosome that matches that of a well-documented line of English Norwoods.  

DNA Data and Discussion

Tables 2-1 through 2-6 report and compare the 67 marker allele values for two Norwood lines and the line of Andrew Dorsey who moved from Baltimore, Maryland to Rowan County, North Carolina about 1766.  The first row of data is from a well documented descendant of Richard Norwood who was born c1420 on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, England.  The second row of data represents the marker values of a probable descendant of Captain John Norwood who was first recorded in Virginia in the 1640’s and later moved to Maryland where he and his descendants were closely associated with the family of the Immigrant Edward Dorsey.  The third row of data represents the proposed ancestral haplotype of Andrew Dorsey derived from the comparison of results from his proven descendants. 

The final row of data, in dark red italics, contains the modal values of the first three rows of data and is presented as a proposed modal haplotype for a proposed common ancestor of the first three.  The DYS# 464 series has been identified by Family Tree DNA and the lab of Mike Hammer at the University of Arizona as a particularly fast moving marker (along with other markers also denoted in red font).  All three haplotypes present different values for DYS# 464c making it impossible to predict an ancestral value for this marker from this data.  Cells shaded in light blue point out apparent mutations from the ancestral value of the remaining markers.

The haplotype of the descendant of Richard Norwood differs from the remainder of the proposed ancestral haplotype by one step at both DYS# 534 and DYS# 446.  The haplotype of the descendant of Captain John Norwood differs from the proposed ancestral haplotype by one step at DYS#’s 459b, 576, 570, and CDYa, the last three of those markers, labeled in red font, are also especially prone to mutation.  The proposed haplotype for Andrew Dorsey differs from the ancestral haplotype of this group by one step at DYS# 458 and one step at DYS# 537.

Conclusion

The purpose of this project was to identify a patrilineal line for Lineage III of the Dorsey DNA Project.  All members are descendants of Andrew Dorsey who moved from Baltimore County, Maryland to Rowan County, North Carolina about 1766.  No records of Andrew Dorsey’s parents have been found in either state.  A small collection of records and DNA comparisons with two Norwood lines with proven origins in Maryland and in Kent England respectively strongly support the hypothesis that Andrew Dorsey was a Norwood child raised as a Dorsey.  Traditional genealogical records are cited to support the hypothesis that Andrew Dorsey was the illegitimate child of Frances Dorsey, the widow of Nicholas Dorsey who died in Maryland in 1717.  Unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of DNA analysis to confirm this hypothesis or to identify which Norwood was the father of Andrew Dorsey.  Some candidates are suggested but much work remains to determine which, if any, of the Norwood men of early eighteenth century Maryland was the direct male line ancestor of the Dorseys of Lineage III.
 

Table III   Y-STR Haplotype Comparison for Dorsey Lineage III and Two Norwood Lines

Table III-1

Table III-2

Table III-3 

Table III-4 

Table III-5 

Table III-6
Table III   Source: Family Tree DNA and Ancestry.com, September 2001 - March 2009                               
 

Endnotes

30 June 2009

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