To summarize what was stated in the Introduction, we learned from a history of Chester, Vermont, that John Jacobs came orginially from Pennsylvania, was either German or Dutch, and originally had the surname "Hover". Early speculation that he was related to Nicholas Jacob of Hingham was proven false through Y-DNA data; unfortunately many people took this speculation as fact and recorded it in their pedigrees.
In the course of our research on John's wife Huldah (see the post "The Maiden Name"), another biographical sketch (this one from Rutland Co. Vermont) revealed more information relating to John. That sketch stated:
"John B. Griffith's mother, Betsey (Jacob) Griffith, was a daughter of Daniel and Abigail (Lawrence) Jacobs; was born on May 29, 1798. Daniel was a son of John and Huldah (Harwood) Jacobs. John Jacobs was a German and at the age of ten years was captured while tending cattle; he was captured by Northmen, and take away with his cattle; later the English captured him from his keepers and he was held by them until he was twenty-four years, when he escaped and came to Boston, where he met Huldah Harwood, who recognized him as her lover of whom she had been informed in her dreams. They were married at once." [1]
At this point, we have Y-DNA data from two descendants of John Jacobs through his son John Jr. and from one descendant through Daniel Jacobs, who is mentioned in the above bio; this data is consistent with paper-trail research establishing their relationships. The closest matches we have are two with the Hoover surname, connected to Solomon Hoover of Lincoln, Co., North Carolina, who moved to NC from York Co., PA. Hover is a known variation of the names Hoover and Huber. The original land record in the move to Lincoln Co., NC had Solomon's name spelled as Hover. The Y-DNA data can be found in the Family Tree DNA Hoover Y-DNA project.
The Chester, VT information came from a great granddaughter of John Jacobs and had some clear errors. The information above seems more reputable and less like a story told to entertain children. This story is not totally inconsistent with the Chester bio and has no glaring errors. It fills in part of the gap in John's timeline, suggesting that he was in captivity (with the English who rescued him) from about 1741 to 1755 and puts him in Boston, MA sometime in the range of 1755 to 1759, where he met and married Huldah. The Chester, VT information had him going directly to Chester from PA, however we have records showing him in Merrimack, Hillsborough, NH in 1760, a time before Chester even existed. Land records show that the Jacobs family moved to Chester about 1783. The Rutland county narrative also provides a possible explanation for his name change (to evade recapture by the British) and an alternative explanation for where he acquired his skills as a blacksmith (working for British soldiers).
Autosomal DNA data has provided further substantiation of the Y-DNA result connecting John to the line of Solomon Hoover. Sifting through the shared DNA segments of descendants of the John Jr. and Daniel Jacobs lines, we've found a few that seemed likely to be connected to John Jacobs, Sr. One of these is on Chr#10, from a match I'll name as WB, whose pedigree includes a daughter of Solomon Hoover (Sarah Ann). The segments associated with Huldah have many matches with U.S. citizens, consistent with a deep history in colonial New England, whereas the segment matching WB has relatively few, as one would expect for a more recent immigrant. The Chr#10 segment triangulates with DG, a Daniel Jacobs descendant, and four descendants of John Jacobs, Jr. In addition, WB has five other smaller matching segments (as yet with no triangulation) with seven of the John Jacobs, Jr. descendants we have test results for.
The Y-DNA match with the Solomon Hoover descendants suggests our John Jacob(s) Hover came from the same line, but the common ancestor could be in Europe and not an immigrant. Since the original test results and matching of our Y-DNA we've seen no further matches, suggesting that there may be relatively few Hover/Hoover descendants of our line in the U.S. We continue to hope for new Y-DNA matches that could provide more clues. We also need to focus research on tracing Solomon Hoover's line back to Europe since it will, at some point, tie into our own line. At his time, this research is, and has been for some time, slowed by a focus upon research of Huldah's ancestry.
References:
[1] History of Rutland County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, by Smith, H.P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925. Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., D. Mason & co., 1886
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