Crime and punishment and the Sherrills

If you think the Ancestors and Descendants of Mary Pennington and Andrew Free will be a boring read, think again. I’m working on the Sherrill line right now, and it is full of criminals, murder and mayhem. You’ll find a mistress and a gang of angry Indians.

For those of you who insist on riches and royalty, there may be some, if we ever hook with them. William A Sherrill, in his forays into English records, found early Sherrills in the higher courts. For example, Lucy Maria Lind, a descendant of James II, King of Scotland and Henry III, King of England, married Markham Eeles Sherwill, Esq b 1787, the son of Markham Eeles Sherwill. Their son, Markham Eeles Sherwill Esq b 1814 was a Captain in the Bengal Army. Bill found Sherrills in all ranks and professions, but, of course, none of them were related to us.

But adventure, bravery, and, of course, a little crime here and there, are filling the pages of the history. So be prepared. William Sherrill arrived in the Americas because of a crime. And we can claim his ancestry on two lines! His daughter Margery [our ancestress] and her husband were in and out of court regularly. And if you insist on being related to the famous, try John Wilkes Booth. His mother was a Sherrill. Or how about running with the Younger/James gang? The father of Eugene Alton Sherrill, George Nelson Sherrill and William Tecumpsi Sherrill was killed in a bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota. He was a member of the gang that included Cole Younger and Frank and Jesse James. True, they were only adopted into the Sherrill family when their mother married James M. Sherrill. Still, I’ve been to the James house in Missouri and seen the bullet hole in the wall in the house in St Joseph where Jesse James was killed. I had no idea, at the time, that there was a Sherrill connection, but it makes all that history so interesting.

So be ready to accept whatever we discover about our ancestors, good, bad and indifferent. We’ve got plenty of heroes, too. Just wait til you read about them. Wow, this is interesting.