Watson Roots

My grandmothers:  Vennie and Vivian

My grandmother Vennie was always a bit of a mystery having been raised in foster care.  She was 14 when she married my grandfather and the marriage license says she was an orphan which wasn’t quite true.  Her father had died from a horse accident but her mother was living in Farmington in an insane asylum. 

She had no known family since her brother had died young.  In 1976, I started researching genealogy to find more information about Vennie.  But, it wasn’t until the past two years that I’ve discovered her heritage through DNA.

Her maiden name was Watson, a Scottish surname.  When I asked what Grandma’s heritage was, Mother just shrugged her shoulders and said, “Scottish and Indian”.  Knowing the family was from Appalachia, I assumed Cherokee.  I had unravelled the mystery of Grandma’s mother, but her father, G. W.,  remained a mystery until a year or two ago.  With DNA on Ancestry.com, I could search surnames but Watson was a name on Grandma’s AND Grandpa’s side. I had hundreds of people to contact and didn’t have much information about G. W.

Finally it occurred to me to consult those who shared the most DNA and had the Watson family name (Grandpa’s Watson was several generations further back).  I found a woman, Cheryl, whose ancestor was from Cape  Girardeau, Missouri which was promising.  Cheryl’s ancestor was Melvinia “Vinnie” Watson and her parents were Arthur and Manurva Watson. I’d known that Grandma’s name was originally Louvenia Minerva Watson or “Vennie”.   I had found Grandma’s grandparents since Cheryl’s ancestor was Grandma's aunt. 

That information allowed me to trace my ancestry back to David Solomon Collins and Thompsy Posen who lived in Virginia in the late 1700’s.  I decided to google them.   What I found answered a lot of questions my DNA had raised:  where did the Native American and African come in? My DNA showed that I descended from at least one slave but it was in such a small amount, it had to have been from Colonial America.

David Solomon Collins was Melungeon:  a derogatory name for people who were tri-racial (African, Native American and European) living in Virginia and North Carolina.  Often Melungeons lived in their own communities since they didn’t really “fit in”.  But, it’s important to emphasize they were not slaves although descended from slaves.  My family, early on, passed for white—I cannot find any reference to any of them being “mulatto”.

This is where some knowledge of Colonial American history is important. 

"Interracial relationships, common-law marriages and marriages occurred since the earliest colonial years, especially before slavery hardened as a racial caste associated with people of African descent in the British colonies. Virginia and other English colonies passed laws in the 17th century that gave children the social status of their mother, according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, regardless of the father's race or citizenship”.   

While the mixed race children of an African mother were slaves, the mixed race children of a European mother were free.  So, I descend from a European mother who was probably an Indentured Servant who lived with the household slaves.  I may never know who David Solomon Collins parents or grandparents were—records with names for indentured servants and slaves are not good.  And, some think that the family name Collins was adopted by David and his siblings.

I do know the names of some of my Native American ancestors from my grandmother Vivian's family because they were considered “royalty”, but I don’t know who the Watson-Collins Native Americans were.  With the label “Melungeon” I know they were partly Native American.  David Solomon Collins lived in eastern Virginia which is not Cherokee, but has several other Native tribes including Pamunkey.

One interesting side-note.  David Solomon Collins had 10 children.

Aaron William Collins d. 1855 Twin Bridges, Douglas County, Missouri

Elvira Collins Lawson d. 1855 Hawkins, Tennessee

Eleanor Collins Bull d. 1870, Douglas County, Missouri

Margaret Collins Dodson d. 1870, White County, Tennessee (my 4 great grandmother)

David Collins d. 1844 North Carolina

Nancy Collins Collins d.1850, Grainger Co. Tennessee

Levi Collins d. 1860 Falling Springs, Oregon County, Missouri

Isaiah Cuppy Collins d. 1888 Dora, Ozark County, Missouri

Solomon “old Sol” Collins d. 1882, Douglas Count , Missouri

Hiram John Collins d. 1857 Morgan County, Indiana

Five out of 10 settled in the Ozark area of Missouri with 50 children among them. Today, there are 60.000 people that live in the region (3 counties)  they settled in—I’m probably related to many  of them. . . .