Zachariah’s ancestry

The Ancestry of Zachariah Dutton: How He Fits Into the Duttons of Charles County, Maryland

(Revised and updated July 2024)

Our progenitor Zachariah Dutton () first appeared in records in Charles County, Maryland, in the 1770s. The earliest record I have identified in which he appeared is a 1772 court appearance. There had been a Dutton family living in Charles County since 1680, when Thomas Dutton immigrated. Thomas Dutton married Elizabeth Hill, and descendants of their family continue to live in Charles County today.

Since the beginning of my research, we assumed that Zachariah Dutton was somehow connected to Thomas Dutton. Over the years, I put out various speculations as to how, and at some point nearly twenty years ago, one speculation stuck, and has become dominant in online family trees and especially Ancestry “hints”: that Zachariah Dutton was the son of Gerrard Dutton (born about 1732), son of Matthew Dutton, son of Thomas. This speculation is provably not the case. We have written documentation that definitively proves that Zachariah Dutton was not the son of Gerrard Dutton. In addition, Y-DNA research definitively shows that Zachariah Dutton’s paternal line was not the line of the Duttons of Charles County, Maryland. Zachariah Dutton’s father was not a Dutton.

We have written documentation that definitively proves that Zachariah Dutton was not the son of Gerrard Dutton.

Y-DNA research shows that Zachariah Dutton’s father was not a Dutton at all.

I’ve been trying to correct this error ever since. But sadly, the sense of community and collaboration I once felt we shared as Zachariah Dutton researchers broke down a long time ago. I have been hoping to rebuild that in our online community on Facebook.

In this article, I will try to correct this mistaken conclusion and clear up confusion. I will lay out exactly what we know about Zachariah Dutton and his relation to the Duttons of Charles County, Maryland, from primary sources, and then detail what we have learned from DNA research.

The Ancestry of Zachariah Dutton: How He Fits Into the Duttons of Charles County, Maryland

(A newer, up-to-date version of this article is here.)

Our progenitor Zachariah Dutton (Ancestry Tree) first appears in records in Charles County, Maryland, in 1778. There had been a Dutton family living in Charles County since 1680, the descendants of Thomas Dutton and Elizabeth Hill, and we have always believed that Zachariah Dutton is connected to them somehow.

There has been a lot of speculation about Zachariah’s ancestral connections, some of which has become quite pervasive in public family trees on Ancestry.com. On Ancestry, it appears that if many people list something, it tends to be accepted as true — but often, misinformation is repeated by almost everybody as fact simply because it is repeated by almost everybody. In the case of Zachariah Dutton, we have documentation that disproves the apparent common consensus — that Zachariah was the son of Gerrard Dutton of Charles County, Maryland — and DNA that indicates he is not a patrilineal descendant of these Duttons at all.

In this article, I would like to do my best to clear up some of this confusion, first by summarizing what we know of Zachariah Dutton, then by examining the possible points where Zachariah could connect to the family of Thomas Dutton of Charles County, and finally by examining the DNA evidence.

A Breakthrough in Zachariah Dutton’s Paternal Ancestry

DNA Cousins, there’s been a breakthrough in DNA research toward identifying Zachariah Dutton’s paternal ancestry. Y-DNA research has uncovered evidence that Zachariah’s father may have been an O’Caine, of the same family as Judith O’Caine who married Matthew Dutton of Charles County, Maryland. This is still a speculation and not proof, but it is a significant advance over what we knew before. Here is an account of how we’ve come to this conclusion. Let me begin by giving a brief overview of the science involved in this discovery, and then the background of the research leading up to it. Finally, I will relate the recent developments that brought us to this discovery.

Continue reading “A Breakthrough in Zachariah Dutton’s Paternal Ancestry”

Who Is Zachariah Dutton?

Generally the first questions anybody asks about Zachariah Dutton are, who is he? Where does he come from? Who does he connect to? What we know is limited and fragmentary, but with the extant sources, we can construct a fair picture of Zachariah’s life.

Charles County, Maryland

We believe he was born in Charles County, Maryland. There had been a Dutton family living in Charles County since 1680, the descendants of Thomas Dutton and Elizabeth Hill, that we have presumed from the start Zachariah was connected to. Based on the 1800 census on Granville County, North Carolina, in which Zachariah states he is 45 years of age or older, we believe he was born before 1755. Because he died in 1829, and began having children ca. 1775-77, we believe he was born not long before 1750. An earlier date is possible, but ca. 1750-55 seems reasonable. We have very little idea who Zachariah’s first wife, our ancestor, was.

Zachariah appears on a 1778 census and a 1783 tax assessment of Charles County, Maryland, living in the East Newport Hundred, apart from the rest of the Duttons, who were living in the Upper William and Mary Hundred. His name appears on a roster of the Maryland Militia during the Revolution, serving in Captain John Parnham’s Company of Militia, 12th Battalion, out of Charles County. He appears on the first census of the United States in 1790 in Charles County, at that time apparently having five sons, a wife, and a daughter.

Granville County, North Carolina

Will of Zachariah Dutton (front) — Will of Zachariah Dutton

We believe Zachariah moved to North Carolina probably around 1795. His son Edmond was born in 1793 in Maryland; his son Samuel was born ca. 1797 in North Carolina. Zachariah’s first wife probably died shortly after Samuel’s birth in ca. 1797, if not in childbirth. On 23 November 1798 in Granville County, North Carolina, he married Judith Parrish, the widow of Claiborne Parrish. Zachariah had no children by this union.

He appears on the 1800, 1810, and 1820 censuses in Granville County. His will was signed 10 November 1828 and proven in court in August 1829. We presume that he died in 1829.

From the beginning of our research, Zachariah Dutton’s ancestry has been enigmatic. As far as anyone has found, he appears in no court records in Charles County, Maryland, neither witnessing or named in any will by any Dutton or anyone else. This is in contrast to the family of Thomas Dutton of Charles County, Maryland, and his son Matthew Dutton, who appear to have been landed and well-to-do and who appear in will records. Why are we insistent, then, that Zachariah is connected to these people? The one firm thread that has held Zachariah to this family, in my mind, has been his naming of a son Gerrard: Matthew Dutton’s father-in-law was Gerrard O’Caine.

When we began our DNA research, we were at first disheartened to learn that Zachariah Dutton does not match the patrilineal line of Thomas Dutton: it appears that his father was not a Dutton. This was not, however, a huge surprise. His lack of presence in the records and apparent disconnection from the other Dutton families already suggested the possibility that he was illegitimate.

Autosomal DNA research, however, has uncovered matches between Zachariah Dutton descendants and confirmed descendants of Thomas Dutton in Charles County, Maryland. So it appears that Zachariah Dutton is connected to this family after all. I believe his mother was likely a Dutton, possibly a daughter of Matthew Dutton. (Matthew’s will names only sons.)

In other posts, I will discuss at greater length the family of Thomas Dutton of Charles County, Maryland, where Zachariah Dutton might fit in, and possibilities for who his father might have been, as the DNA reveals.