Blair Family

First Generation

Most Blair genealogies state that this James Blair is the one who died in 1776 and is buried at Alamance Presbyterian Church in Guilford County, NC. I think there are good reasons to believe this is NOT true. Does anyone have hard evidence either for or against this assertion?

James "Blear" who died in March 1776 and is buried at Alamance Presbyterian church is almost certainly the James Blair whose will is recorded in Guilford County that year, naming wife Mary, and children John and Agnes. Agnes was under age, probably a young child, since she was still unmarried in 1796 (she is named in her grandmother Mary McConnell's will). Our James Blair, if that is in fact his name, has to be old enough to be the father of a son born before 1730, thus probably born before 1710 himself. While he might still be fathering children after 1760, the mother of those children must be a younger woman, i.e. she would have to be a second wife. I believe that the couple buried at Alamance are James Blair and Mary McConnell, and I am not convinced they have any connection to our family.

James Blair's wife's name is often given as Mary Eosentrice Colbert. Gene Blair has convinced me that this is a mis-reading of the words "wife Mary Executrix" in the aforementioned will. There is no other support for Eosentrice as a middle name.

James and Mary are said to be the parents of Colbert Blair, who is usually said to have been born about 1729-1730 in Bucks Co. PA, although proof for this is lacking. There is better documentation for the Blairs being part of the "Scotch-Irish" settlements of early Augusta Co. VA. Most likely they did immigrate through the port of Philadelphia, but I haven't found any record yet of any permanent residence there.

A James Colbert Blair is involved in land transactions in Amherst Co. VA in 1766, and both a James Blair and a Colbert Blair were testators in a land transfer there in 1770. Most Blair genealogies state that Colbert moved to Guilford Co. NC about this time. However, this rests on the assumption that James Blair of the 1776 will mentioned above is Colbert's father. I know of no evidence that Colbert himself ever resided in Guilford County.

Colbert seems to have settled about 1774 at Choate's Creek, then Rowan Co. NC. He and his son John moved from there to Cedar Valley, Caldwell (then Burke) Co. NC about 1799. Colbert is listed in the 1800 Burke Co. NC census. He died about 1805/1806 and is buried at Cedar Valley Methodist church, Caldwell Co. NC.

A purported will of "Colbard Blair" was posted on the web in 1998. There are good reasons to believe that this is a fake (thanks to Allan Poe for this analysis).

Tradition holds that Colbert's wife was Sarah Morgan, daughter of John Morgan and Sarah Lloyd, who moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia and were probably neighbors of the Blair family there. Stewart Baldwin has done extensive research on the Morgan family, and his work supports this conclusion. It is also consistent with a family tradition that I heard as a child, that the Blairs were somehow related to Daniel Boone, whose mother was John Morgan's sister Sarah. Our Sarah Morgan Blair would then be Daniel Boone's first cousin.

Second Generation

Mary Blair does not appear in all lists of Colbert Blair's children, nor does Isabel. Some sources make Isabel the daughter of James Blair II rather than Colbert.

Colbert II married in 1779 and died in 1780 at the Battle of King's Mountain. He left one known son, James Blair born about 1780.

The Blair DNA project has found that samples from two men who are descendants of Enos and John Blair, respectively, do not match each other, nor does either match two samples from Colbert's son James. [A look at the analysis on the Blair DNA project web site will make this clearer.]

This could mean that Colbert was the father of only one of these sons, that the paper genealogy for one or more of the DNA donors is wrong, and/or that there were one or more non-paternity events (e.g. adoption, birth out of wedlock) somewhere in the lines of these families.

We need more samples to confirm or disprove these results. If you are a male with surname Blair and a probable descent from one of the sons of Colbert Blair, please consider participating. I will help pay for a test for a descendant of Enos and Hannah's son John (b. 1800; see below.) Please contact me.

A sample from a descendant of James Blair of Guilford County would also be very valuable for settling the question raised above.

Third Generation

My hypothesis is that Enos came south with some of his Quaker cousins on his mother's side, the Morgans, Baldwins and others, and that he joined the Quaker community prior to marrying Hannah Millikan. I think it's doubtful that his father and brothers were in Guilford or Randolph county for any length of time. It seems more likely to me that they went straight from Virginia to settle in western NC, and that Enos came separately to Guilford/Randolph Co.

Children of Enos Blair and Hannah Millikan
Jesse Blair (1776-1864) m. Anna Smith (1786-1860)
Sarah Blair (1777-1849) m. William Hoggatt
Jane Blair (1778-1859) m. William Lowe (1770-1840), moved to Monroe Co. IN
Enos Blair (1780-1864) m. Rachael Hobson (1787-1860), went to Indiana [error in his death date corrected Feb. 20, 2005]
Hannah Blair (b. & d. 1782)
Abner Blair (1783-1867) m. 1) Abigail White (1786-1852), 2) Margaret Morris (1805-1894), moved to Hendricks Co. IN
Solomon Blair (1785-1853) m. Nancy Clark (1788-1874), moved to Hendricks Co. IN
Martha Blair (1787-1873) m. Josiah Tomlinson (1781-1843)
Hannah Blair (1790-1795)
Josiah Blair (ca. 1792-after 1850) m. Jane Tomlinson (1789-after 1850)
Ruth Blair (1794-?) m. David White, moved to Indiana
Nathan Blair (1797-after 1850) m. Sarah Kimes Tillery
John Blair (1800-1859) m. Elizabeth Tomlinson (1796-1862)

Fourth Generation

*I have conflicting birthdates for John and Hannah. Probably they were not twins, and one was born in a different year. John's information is supported by cemetery records, so it's probably Hannah's that is in error. There are also conflicts in the birthdates for Jesse Milton Blair and Levenia Edney Blair.

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Children of Abner Blair and Abigail White
Mary Blair (1809-1855) m. John Newman (1807-1881)
Enos Blair (1812-?) m. Elizabeth Woofendale
Marcus Blair (1814-?) m. Nancy Elliott
Jane Blair - did she marry Ira Hadley?
Hannah Blair (1818-1857)
Abner Blair m. Louisa Jane Hubbard
John H. Blair (1829-?) m. Jane Jessup

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Children of Solomon Blair and Nancy Clark
Lindsay Blair (1812-1854) m. Rachel Hodson (1810-1870)
Delilah Blair (1815-?) m. Michael Hodson
Jesse Blair (1813 or 1817?-?) m. Rebecca Farmer (1817-?)
John Blair (1818-?)
Hannah Blair (1823-1834)
Enos Blair (1824-?) m. Margaret Jane Morgan
Malinda Blair (b. & d. 1826)
Solomon Blair (1829-?) m. Sarah Harvey

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Children of Josiah Blair and Jane Tomlinson
Samuel Washngton Blair (1820-1892) m. Sarah Catherine Coltrane (1819-1890)
English Blair did not marry
Thomas Allen Blair (1826-1902) m. Sarah English (1827-1909)
Louzena Blair (1829-1899) m. Sabert Thompson (1828-1915)
Sallie Jane Blair (1832-1906) did not marry
J. Millikan Blair (ca. 1834-?) did not marry
Cynthia Blair m. Tom Burns
Anna McBride Blair m. Bartlett Hunt (1824-1880)
Elizabeth Blair m. Jacob Kennedy

I'm having problems reconciling the 1850 Randolph County NC census with information received from other sources. Can anyone help?

Josiah Blair age 58
Jane age 60
Robert E. age 32 - is this English Blair?
B. age 30 f
S. age 27 f
Thomas A. age 26
L. age 24 f - is this Louzena? age doesn't match birthdate from other sources
S.J. age 18 f [Sallie Jane Blair]
J.M. age 16 m laborer [J. Millikan Blair]
C. RIGGINS age 21 laborer

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Children of Nathan Blair and Sarah Kimes Tillery
Parker J. Blair (ca. 1820-?)
Hannah Lucinda Blair m. George White
Cynthia Blair
Mildred Blair m. Jacob Millikan (1833-1862), s/o Samuel Millikan and Martha Coltrane
Roswell Blair

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Children of John Blair and Elizabeth Tomlinson
Augustine Washington Blair (1820-?) m. Gabrella Evans, lived California
Anna Eliza Blair (1821-1898) m. Joash Reynolds (1815-1898)
Enos Tomlinson Blair (1822-1891) m. Priscilla Branson (1840-1919)
Samuel Clarkson Blair (1824-1905) m. Mary Millikan (1827-?)
Hannah Millikan Blair (1825-1886) m. Abner Gray (1817-1898)
Solomon Isaac Blair (1827-1896) m. Abigail Prudence Hunt (1829-1906)
Olive Jane Blair (1829-1906) m. Henry Harrison Beeson
Joseph Addison Blair (1830-1902) m. Martha White (1856-1938)
Benjamin Franklin Blair (1833-1901) m. Rachel Anderson (1841-1928)
William Allen Blair (1835-1842)
Martha Miranda Blair (1837-1919) m. David Hodgin (1829-1898)
Mary Elizabeth Blair (1839-1919) m. 1) Jesse Clinton Blair (1840-1866, s/o John Smith Blair and Eliza Johnson), 2) Lewis Starbuck (1822-1877)

See Charles Pugh's page for more information on this family. Charles Pugh has also sent me a picture of Olive Jane Blair and her husband.

Sources

Hinshaw, Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, vol. 1

Randolph County, 1779-1979, published by Randolph County Historical Society and the Randolph Arts Guild, Hunter Publishing Co., Winston-Salem NC 1980

Ragan, Elizabeth H. (1976). The Lineage of the Amos Ragan Family, Quaker Collection of Guilford College, Greensboro.

Shaw, Jesse Owen (1955). The Johnsons and Their Kin of Randolph.

Springfield Friends Cemetery 1780-1991, Guilford County, High Point NC, prepared for Springfield Memorial Association by Brenda Gray Haworth, Historian and Editor

Randolph County NC 1850 census

Thanks also to Gene Blair and to the Blair Society for Genealogical Research

Other Blair Resources

John A. Blair's page including the Blair DNA project

BLAIR-L list. Send a message to BLAIR-L-REQUEST@rootsweb.com with the one word 'subscribe' in the body of the message.

This page was extensively revised on February 22, 2005. A couple of errors were corrected on January 20, 2007, and some links revised on February 10, 2008.