Ancestors of CARR WALLER PRITCHETT Jr. 24 Generations of Ancestors COLLECTED BY HENRY PRITCHETT COTTEN ATLANTA, GEORGIA FOR THE FAMILY, 2016 Introduction Many, many years ago, I asked my mother about my ancestors. She drew out a simple, small genealogy chart with only a few generations. As time marched on, both of my parents, along with all my grandparents, aunts and uncles, passed away. One day, I realized that there was no one that I could ask questions about ‘who’, ‘what’, or ‘where’ when it came to past history and earlier generations. My brother, Lee, had generated a genealogy of the Pritchett and Lundeen families in November, 1986. From this beginning, I am deeply indebted to him. I took what he had started and expounded on it. Fast forward to the present, almost 30 years later, with the advent of the computer and the internet, genealogical information is much easier to find! Henry Pritchett Cotten’s First Genealogy Tree [as drawn by his Mother, Judith Chandler Pritchett Cotten, ca. 1963.] Since my mother’s maiden name was Judith Chandler Pritchett, it seemed only natural that I should concentrate on my Pritchett lineage. However, this document not only includes the PRITCHETTs - but many, many, many more families that were responsible for my heritage; the Woodsons, Carrs, Wallers, Cousins, Chiles, Martins, Lygons, and Smiths - just to mention a few. ii Another early source of information was a single page of genealogy that was done for my mother, entitled “Woodson Story for Judy”. iii An underlying and exciting part about studying family history, is trying to picture what is happening during the times that our ancestors lived. Without exception, all of the early families came to the ‘New World’ by boat. For whatever reason, they left Europe to start a new life in America. There were distinct locations where they landed, settled, and spread out as generations multiplied. All during that time, there were struggles both political and economic. Against a background of various wars (French and Indian, the Revolutionary War of 1776, the War of 1812, and the Civil War), our ancestors survived and multiplied. When I was collecting genealogical data, there was a natural inclination to include as much information about parents and the children of related individuals as I could. After all, not only are all of these people my great-grandparents, but they also include my great uncles, great aunts, and cousins, albeit, many, many, many times removed. This volume, hopefully, will help you learn the various individuals that represent a composite of the families that eventually were responsible for Carr Waller Pritchett, Jr.. I will apologize in advance as the included notes for various individuals are, at times, disjointed, and do not follow a narrative. Some family members have page after page of interesting tid-bits while others have little or no information. Family history can be exciting as discovering a new planet or as boring as watching grass grow. It all depends on your perspective. There is also the issue of what to leave in and what to leave out? I have accumulated a plethora of information in the form of books, papers, notes, and photographs. My intent is to inform the reader of the history of our ancestors. When does too much information become less interesting and boring? Now, here is some scientific information. How many ancestors are in 24 generations? Each generation is a power of 2. That is, generation 1 is yourself. Generation 2 is your iv mother and father or 21 or 2 people. Generation 3 is your mother’s mother and father and your father’s mother and father or 22 which equals 4. So, for each generation: Generation Count/Generation Total Count 1 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 7 4 8 15 5 16 31 6 32 63 7 64 127 8 128 255 9 256 511 10 512 1,023 11 1,024 2,047 12 2,048 4,095 13 4,096 8,191 14 8,192 16,383 15 16,384 32,767 16 32,768 65,535 17 65,536 131,071 18 131,072 262,143 19 262,144 524,287 20 524,288 1,048,575 21 1,048,576 2,097,151 22 2,097,152 4,194,303 23 4,194,304 8,388,607 24 8,388,608 16,777,215 25 16,777,216 33,554,431 Unfortunately, this collection contains about 1,500 people, plus or minus a few hundred. So, I hope you are not disappointed! How This Document Is Formatted In the ancestry, each generation is a step back in time. The first generation has Carr Waller Pritchett, Jr. The second generation has only two people, his father and mother, Carr Waller Pritchett, Sr. and Elizabeth "Bettie" Susan Smith. The third generation has the four grandparents, etc. Normally, the numbering would follow the great-grandparents by generation; i.e., ancestors of generation 2 are numbered 2 & 3; generation 3 are numbered from 4 to 7, generation 4 is numbered from 8 to 15, generation 5 is numbered v from 16 to 31, etc. However, in this document, you will find that there are gaps in the numbering. Generation 7 should start with number 64 but starts with 46. This occurs whenever there was a duplication of ancestors because of intermarriage between cousins. Cousins Marrying Cousins Early in my ancestry line, Henry Smith Pritchett married his cousin, Ida Pritchett Williams. This meant, that in the genealogy numbering, you would find that the common grandparents for Henry Smith Pritchett and Ida Pritchett Williams were Henry Pritchett and Martha Waller. This meant that the ancestry Pritchett line “collapsed” at this point as the normal expansion for Ida Pritchett Williams ancestors are the same as Henry Smith Pritchett’s beginning with their grandparents. This was not the first time that cousins had married cousins in my history. It also happened on my mother's side of the family with the Morrills, Abbots, Farnums, and Chandlers. In early America, it was somewhat common place to marry cousins, as there were fewer people from which to choose, as well as the fact that many people did not live as long and remarried several times. It reminds me of that joke about going to an Alabama family reunion to find a date!! As you go through this document, I usually placed more information about an individual’s family at the beginning of that family line, rather than the first time that you see the name. So, it may be several generations back in time before you get to more information about a particular family line. Good examples are the Woodsons and Wallers. Be forewarned, the document that you have in your hand is only as good as the sources that I used to generate the data. When I first started, I was a novice in the ‘Art of Genealogy’! I still am! Many times, I found information and would enter it into the computer data base without putting down references of where it came from or who provided it. For this, I apologize to those people in advance. I am sure that I have directly copied information from websites and published books without giving the author his or her just recognition or getting his or her permission. However, I have tried to vi document as much of the information by showing websites and published information for the records that I did have. If I missed giving credit to someone, it was not done on purpose or for personal gain! If any of those that would like credit for their efforts would contact me, I will be sure to give them their just recognition. In closing, I would like to thank several people by name for the help with this reference; my brother, Lee (Wallace A., Jr.) for doing the initial ground-breaking work; and, in particular, Jan Pritchett-Litvin for sending me a lot of useful family information and the genealogy tree back to King Edward III. This book is a work in progress. There is still a lot to add, like information about the lineage to King Edward III. However, most of the really, old family information can be found in many history books and even on line, e.g. Wikipedia. I also invite, you, the reader to help me with this. If you have any changes, additions, criticism, photos, etc., please let me know. I will do my best to incorporate them into the next revision. Henry Pritchett Cotten, August 2016 [email protected] vii PRITCHETT Coat of Arms I would hate to mislead the reader by thinking that there was a ‘Coat of Arms’ for the Pritchetts. There are several business that will sell you one – such as in the illustrations below. How genuine are they? I really do not know. Spelling variations of this family name include: Pritchard, Prichard, Prickard and others. First found in Glamorganshire (Welsh: Sir Forgannwg), a region of South Wales, anciently part of the Welsh kingdom of Glywysing, where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D. Some of the first settlers of this family name or some of its variants were: Charles Pritchard who settled in Virginia in 1663; along with Daniel, Thomas and Pallardary; William Pritchard settled in Maryland in 1734; Thomas Pritchard settled in New England in 1679. viii Woodson Coat of Arms from – Historical Genealogy of the Woodsons and Their Connections Compiled by Henry Morton Woodson, 1915 ix Ancestors of Carr Waller PRITCHETT Jr.