About This Website

I created the first version of this website in 1999, as a way to present a little bit about the family of Zachariah Dutton and to reach out to cousins. I have not kept it very up-to-date, since I’ve been busy with school for a long time and the way I built it didn’t lend itself to easy updates. Now, in January 2017, I’m posting a complete rebuild of the site under WordPress, and I hope to keep it much better maintained. I also hope to keep a blog with regular updates about the family and its research.

This Site Is For You

The primary purpose of this site is to make as many connections with descendants of Zachariah Dutton as possible, by providing researchers basic information about the first few generations of Zachariah’s family and giving them a place to link up. If your family is connected to Zachariah Dutton, please let me know! Feel free to comment here or to email me.

I also want this site to be a place to share your family, too. I especially would very much like to display any photos of your ancestors you might have. Please contact me if you have any!

About Me

My wife Kelly and I.
I’m Joseph T. Richardson, a 4th great-grandson of Zachariah Dutton. I’ve lived most of my life in Decatur, Alabama, just a few miles away from where my great-great-great-grandfather William Dutton, son of Zachariah, first settled in about 1832. The genealogy bug bit me relentlessly at the age of 16, and I took to my Duttons immediately as the family I knew the least about and the one I had always felt closest to. I’ve now been researching the Duttons for about twenty years. Along the way I’ve received Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in History, and recently a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science.

9 thoughts on “About This Website”

  1. Hi,
    I was glad to find your site today! I hope that you can connect me. My third great grandmother
    Laura Ann Dutton ( 1864- 1910, Itawamba County, MS) was the daughter of Mary Catherine Bates and Thomas P. Dutton (5 May 1830/32, Lawrence County, AL and Died 18 March 1876, McCulloch Co., Brady City, TX)
    Thomas P was the son of Mary Brooks and Thomas Dutton (b ca. 1800 and died before 1832 in Lawrence Co. AL).
    Thomas Dutton was the son of Elenor Owens and Samuel Dutton (b ca. 1775 and died in the year 1823 in Lawrence Co. AL) They married 5 Nove 1798 in Washington Co. KY.
    Samuel’s Children are listed in estate papers:
    Thomas died before 1831 leaving an infant son Thomas
    Richard m. Mary ? ( died Jan 1831 in KY, Left will naming his brothers and sisters as heirs)
    Deborah m. William McDaniel
    Pricilla m. John Hughes
    Peggy (Margaret) m John Rhodes
    Elizabeth m. Robert Crayton
    Sally m. James Coulson
    Perkins died young before 1831
    Owen died before 1831
    Aron d. 1843 in Itawamba County, MS was guardian of his brother Thomas’s son Thomas.
    David died before 1831

    1. Hi Margaret, thanks for the comment. I’ve encountered your family before. I live in Morgan County, just to the east of Lawrence County, Alabama, and the sons of Zachariah Dutton seemed to all be in either Morgan or Lawrence — so when I first started my research and found this Samuel, I simply presumed for a long time he was Zachariah’s son. I didn’t learn until a year or more later that Zachariah’s son Samuel, Samuel Sneed Dutton, remained in North Carolina.

      I don’t know much more about this Samuel than you do. I wish I did. I believe he was a brother of Aaron Dutton who settled in Jefferson County, Alabama. This is based on two things: first, the recurrence of the name Aaron; second, the Joseph Rhodes Jr. who married Margaret Dutton daughter of Samuel in 1823 then, following her death, married Harriet Dutton the daughter of Aaron in 1827 in Jefferson County. My notes on this family are not very well documented, but I found a number of other siblings I suspect belonged to the same family:

      1. Samuel Dutton, born before 1780, d. 1823 in Lawrence County, Alabama, md. Ellender (or Eleanor) Owens on 5 Nov 1798 in Washington County, Kentucky
      2. Aaron Dutton, born ca. 1785 in Pennsylvania [the only one we can find in a later census], married Margaret Powell on 5 Mar 1804 in Green County, Kentucky
      3. Deborah Dutton, born before 1787, married Simon Malone on 8 Jul 1801 in Green County, Kentucky
      4. Meriam Dutton, born before 1789, married James Pogue on 29 Apr 1803 in Green County, Kenucky
      5. Polly Dutton, born before 1793, married Elisha Chaney on 2 Dec 1807 in Green County, Kentucky

      Since it appears Aaron was born in Pennsylvania, that’s where I presume they all came from. I would think the next step is to take a good look at Washington and Green counties in Kentucky (which were adjacent until 1834), since it seems the Duttons lived there as a family, possibly with their parents, for at least a decade, and possibly longer, since Richard son of Samuel remained in Washington County.

  2. Me and my brother are descendants of Edmond Dutton. This is how we are kin Edmond his son Alexander his son William R Dutton his son Andrew Dutton his son Felton Dutton and our dad Billy Dutton.

  3. I am a GG grand-daughter of Wm. Zacharia Dutton and Lavina Jane Borden. Jesse Dutton and Hannah Elizabeth Terry were my grandmothers Mom and Dad. My grandmother Walsie Dutton Jarrett was a twin to Walter.
    I spent the majorities of my summer In Sommerville Ala. Listening to the stories of her life. I am now 62 and have vivid memories of her stories as we shucked corn or shelled peas. I miss her but have maintained most of the stories she told me and passed them on to my own grandchildren. I did my DNA test last year and would love to add it to your collection but don’t know how to send it. It was done through Ancestry.

    1. Hi Jeannine! I’m sorry I haven’t replied to your kind comment before now, I somehow didn’t see it! What is your Ancestry username? Send me a message on Ancestry at jtrichardson280 or comment here. Waitaminute, I think I found you. 🙂 I will message you on there and hope that is you.

  4. Joseph, I’m preparing my supplemental for DAR and in trying to make the connection between Jarred and William his son, I find no evidence that I believe DAR will accept. How did we come to that conclusion? I so want to file this!
    Delores McKleroy Brooks

    1. No, I don’t think they would accept the evidence we have, given the recent ordeal we’ve had trying to prove the connection between Edmond Dutton and his son Alexander, in which we were ultimately unsuccessful. We have very similar, and perhaps better evidence for that one. Alexander was living “next door” to Edmond on the 1850 census, had adjacent land grants, and Alexander was named in a biographical sketch of Edmond by the sister of a daughter-in-law of Edmond as being his son. (That sounds like a distant connection, but this was a lady intimately acquainted with the facts.)

      With Jarrard and William: the primary proof for the connection is a letter from Freema Dutton, a great-granddaughter of Jarrard, who named Jarrard and Charity’s children. Supporting facts are a web of intermarriages (especially with the McDonald family) and proximities on the census that don’t really prove anything, and the fact that Jarrard’s other children ended up in Walker County, Alabama (suggesting that Jarrard himself probably migrated there before his death). Based on the timeline of William’s birth, Jarrard is the best conclusion for being William’s father, and most of Zachariah’s other children can be eliminated.

      I sent you a lengthy email or series of emails detailing this evidence a number of years ago. I can pull it up and resend it if you’d like.

      I lost patience with the DAR through the whole Edmond-Alexander ordeal, and I really doubt it is worth the trouble to pursue this argument with them.

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