Re: Ann M. Chinn
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In reply to:
Re: Ann M. Chinn
Lavinia Bell 1/19/06
I am sorry that it has taken so long to get back on this question.
Joseph Tapscott and Ann Mitchell Chinn were second cousins. They both had the same great grandparents-the unhappily married Raleigh Chinn Sr. and Esther Ball. Joseph is believed to have died before 20 March 1801 because an entry for a sale of his estate appears with that date in the transcribed account book of Ann Mitchell Chinn (Account of Ann, executor of Joseph Tapscott's estate, Lancaster County, Virginia, Estate Book 1796-1806, pp. 334-335) Of course, transcriptions can be in error.
Joseph Sr. and Ann are known to have had two sons Robert H. and Joseph Jr., both of whom are mentioned in at least two records: Court of 21 November 1808, Lancaster County, Virginia, Minute Book 23B, 1808-1812, p. 4; Division of Estate of Martin Tapscott, Reported 14 April 1845, Westmoreland County, Virginia, Loose Chancery Papers, File #30.
We know very little about Robert, who married twice (Mary E. Wright and Sally Claughton).
On the other hand, we know a lot about Joseph Jr., who appears, with his third wife, Margaret Doggett, and many of their children in the 1850 and 1860 Lancaster County Censuses and all of whose children are shown with birth dates and, often death dates in the Joseph Tapscott Family Bible, Transcribed December 1968, Northumberland County Historical Society, Heathsville, Virginia. There is, however, a lot of confusion about both Joseph Jr.'s age and even his parentage.
The Joseph Tapscott Family Bible states that the father and mother of the person we know as Joseph Jr., were Robert and Elizabeth Tapscott. The same information is also presented as a note in Margaret Lester Hill and Clyde H. Ratcliff, In Remembrance, Gravestone Inscriptions and Burials of Lancaster County, Virginia, White Stone, Virginia, 2002, p. 34. No evidence, however, exists for a Robert and Elizabeth Tapscott who could possibly have served as Joseph’s parents, and all available information indicates that Joseph was the son of Joseph Henry and Ann Chinn. The comment about Robert and Elizabeth in the book In Remembrance was a notation by a Rev. Ralph C. Jones, who copied the stones of Joseph Tapscott Jr., Margaret Doggett Tapscott, and their son Robert C., which made up the Tapscott Cemetery. It is likely that Rev. Jones’s information came from the Joseph Tapscott Family Bible. Also confusing is that the ages given for Joseph Jr. in the 1860 and 1870 Lancaster County Censuses correspond to a birth year of 1804 to 1805 even though his father, Joseph Sr., appears to have died no later than 1801. The ages given in early Virginia Censuses are, however, notoriously unreliable. The birth date of 1790 (three years before the marriage of Joseph Sr. and Ann Mitchell Chinn) transcribed from Joseph Jr.’s cemetery marker in the book In Remembrance is almost certainly incorrect. In his notes filed at the Northumberland County Historical Society, Joseph Daniel Tapscott stated that he had seen the marker of Joseph Jr. and that the date of 1790 appeared to have been engraved more recently than the rest of the marker engravings. Unfortunately, the three stones in the Tapscott Cemetery can no longer be located.
At best, I can only say that Joseph Jr. probably had a birth date somewhere between 1794 and 1805, or between 1794 and 1801 if his father really did die before 20 March 1801. Joseph Jr. was likely very young when his mother remarried, but it is impossible to give a reliable age.