Genealogy of Jefferson DAVIS, President CSA (2024)

Many have claimed relationship to Jefferson DAVIS through descent fromsiblings of his grandfather, Evan DAVIS, Jr., yet of Evan Jr.'s five siblings,three have been proven not to have had any children (no childrenare named in their wills), and there is no evidence that the other twoever married or had children. To quote the leading authority on thegenealogy of Jefferson DAVIS:

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"The outstanding characteristic of the Davis familyseems to be that its members were as short lived as they were unprolific."

(Barb 1971: 499)

• JosephEmory DAVIS, who had three surviving children (all daughters).
• SamuelA. DAVIS, who had three surviving children (two sons, one daughter).
• AnnaEliza DAVIS, who married a SMITH and had six surviving children.
• IsaacWilliams DAVIS, who had one surviving son, but no surviving grandsons.
• LucindaFarrar DAVIS, who married a DAVIS, by whom she had one surviving sonand at least one surviving grandson; and a STAMPS, by whom she had threesurviving children.
• AmandaJane DAVIS, who married a BRADFORD and had four surviving children.
• Matilda DAVIS,who married a VAUGHN.
• MaryEllen DAVIS, who married a DAVIS and had two surviving children (bothdaughters).

The genealogy of the DAVIS wives, Jane COOK and Mary EMORY, remainsvirtually unknown. Uncovering their ancestry would certainly providemany more people with a connection to Jefferson DAVIS. Ditto thedescendants of Mary EMORY's two sons, Isaac WILLIAMS and Daniel WILLIAMS,who were "half uncles" to Jefferson. And while there is noevidence that JosephDAVIS or BenjaminDAVIS, brothers of Evan DAVIS, Jr., ever married and had children,neither is there conclusive proof that they did not, which matters I discusson their web pages. These avenues are certainly worthy of furtherresearch.

At long last, genealogists have a scientifically objective tool withwhich to measure the degree of relatedness between men: by comparinggenetic markers on their male Y-chromosomes. The male Y-chromosomeis handed on intact and unchanged from father to son down through the generations(except for rare mutations). The more closely two men are related,the more their Y-chromosomes will resemble each other, which means we cannot only prove whether or not two men had a common ancestor, we can estimatehow many generations back that ancestor was.

The problem we face with claims of relationship with Jefferson DAVISis finding a male DAVIS relative of Jefferson's whose relationshipto Jefferson is undisputed to use as the standard to match.I urge anyone surnamed DAVIS to participate in the project, but most especially,I would implore any DAVIS male who is descended from Jefferson's brother,Samuel A. DAVIS, to participate in the testing. Why Samuel?

SamuelA. DAVIS (1788/9-c1830) is the only brother of Jefferson DAVIS whois proven to have had surviving male offspring. There may be otherDAVIS'es who connect to Jefferson further up his ancestral line, but Samuelis the closest and least questionable. We cannot use a descendantof Jefferson DAVIS, himself, because he had no surviving male offspring;and we cannot use a descendant of Jefferson's sister, Lucinda Farrar (DAVIS)DAVIS, because her male descendants carry the Y-chromosome of her husband,Hugh DAVIS, not of her brother, Jefferson DAVIS.

So please, if you are a male DAVIS, jointhe DAVIS Y-chromosome DNA Surname Project at FTDNA and get tested.And if you are a descendant of Samuel A. DAVIS, I beg you on bendedknee to get tested and put an end to the disputed claims of relationshipto Jefferson DAVIS! If you will come forward and can satisfy methat you've a solid paper connection to Samuel, Iam willing to pay for your testing!

Please Note: the administrator ofthe DAVIS project at FamilyTreeDNA is not challenging the pedigrees submittedby project participants, so do not automatically accept the "paper"genealogies there as proven. For example, test subject #23060 isclaiming a "proven" connection to Jefferson DAVIS on a line that has alreadybeen proven untrue.