SPURLOCK, SPIRLOCK
  DYS Numbers  
Kit # Ancestor 3 3 1 3 3 3 4 3 4 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 H
9 9 9 9 8 8 2 8 3 8 9 8 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 4 4 6 6 6 6 A
3 0   1 5 5 6 8 9 9 2 9 8 9 9 5 4 7 7 8 9 4 4 4 4 P
        a b       |   |   a b             a b c d G
                  1   2                           P
Group 1
4442 Miles Spurlock aka Miel Spirlock b. ca. 1794 VA +1 Rachel Mills > John B. Spurlock b. 1828 AL +2 Sarah E. Austin > Samuel Lafayette Spurlock b. 1866 IL +3 Sarah Josephine Rice 13 23 14 11 11 14 12 12 13 13 13 30 19 9 10 11 11 25 15 19 28 14 16 16 17 R1b1
4447 Miles Spurlock aka Miel Spirlock b. ca. 1794 VA +2 Catherine Fine > James K. Polk Spirlock b. 1848 IL+ Martha Etheridge > Harvey Alexander Spirlock b. 1872 MO+ Pearl Bricker Burton 13 23 14 11 11 14 12 12 13 13 13 30 19 9 10 11 11 25 15 19 28 14 16 16 17 R1b1
25832 Harvey Spurlock b. ca. 1793-1796 + Milly 1813 > Johnson Spurlock b. 1814 TN + Mary "Polly Ann" Birdwell > James Russell Spurlock b. 1838 Flynn's Lick, Jackson Co, TN + Margaret Louisa Carter > James Stanton Spurlock b. 1861 TN + Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" Ho 13 23 14 11 11 14 12 12 13 13 13 30 19 9 10 11 11 25 15 19 28 14 16 16 17 R1b1
27559 John Spurlock, Sr. b. ca. 1730-1734, d. ca. 1793 Montgomery Co. VA + Mary > William Spurlock b. 1753 Bedford Co. VA+1 Unknown > John Spurlock b. 1788 + Nancy Cope > Andrew Spurlock b. 1809 + Catherine Barger 13 23 14 11 11 14 12 12 12 13 13 30 19 9 10 11 11 25 15 19 28 14 16 17 17 R1b1
28081 John Spurlock, Sr. b. ca. 1730-1734, d. ca. 1793 Montgomery County, VA + Mary > John Spurlock Jr. b. ca. 1760, d. 1816 Floyd Co, KY + Frances "Fanny" Turman > David Spurlock b. 1785, d. 1846 Sharp Co, AR + Susan / Mary Hancock > Robert T. Spurlock b. 1816 13 23 14 11 11 14 12 12 13 13 14 30 19 9 10 11 11 25 15 19 28 14 16 17 17 R1b1
  Group 2
25243 Miles Spurlock b. 1804 KY, d. 1886 Madison Co, AR + Susan R. Sewell > John Herriman Spurlock b. 1829 Warren Co. TN, d. 1890 Cannon Co, TN + Mary Ferrell > Enoch J. Spurlock b. 1867 Cannon Co, TN + Nancy Watson 14 23 16 10 15 16 11 14 11 13 12 29 15 8 10 11 11 25 15 20 28 14 14 14 15 I


The DYS Numbers in red have shown a faster mutation rate than the average, and therefore these markers are very helpful at splitting lineages into subsets, or branches, within a family tree. DYS 19 is also known as DYS 394. A Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) test, which is used to confirm the haplogroup, has been performed on the haplogroups written in bold, red print in the right hand column. It is necessary to do an SNP (commonly called “snip”) test for only one individual within a family group in order to determine the haplogroup for everyone in the group.


THE SPURLOCK FAMILY
Copyright © December 2003, Revised 2006
Mary Fern Souder


The Spurlock surname is not a common one, and it has therefore been possible to locate and study those few Spurlocks who first appeared in Virginia in the mid-1600's, and stayed throughout the 1700's. The Spurlock family has been additionally fortunate in that early family historians wrote reports of their research, and circulated them among extended family members.

One of first researchers was Sterling Spurlock Brown (1869-1958), of Woodbury, TN. In 1945, Sterling wrote an account of Spurlocks who then lived in 23 states. Charles E. Spurlock (1882-1957) corresponded with every Spurlock in the United States that he could locate. Charles wrote an untitled paper, dated ca. 1923, which gave a running summary of what he had gleaned during his correspondence. He wrote an update entitled "A Quarter of a Century Later," Charles Edmond Spurlock, Sioux City, Iowa, 1947. James Harvey Beach, born 1872, of Norwood, PA, left an undated two-page paper.

MIEL SPIRLOCK

I descend from a man named Miles Spurlock, who spelled his own name as Miel Spirlock, born ca. 1794 in Virginia. He was drafted into the War of 1812 from Flint [Flynn's] Creek in Jackson County, TN, in January 1814. He joined Capt. James Larkin Ferrell's Company in the Tennessee Militia, and marched to Ft. Strother, MS. At Ft. Strother, he joined Gen. Andrew Jackson's Command, and was assigned as a "life Guard" [bodyguard] to Gen. Jackson. After serving three months Miel sold his discharge papers to Stephen Nickolas in Jackson County, TN, authorizing Stephen to draw his pay. In July 1814 Miel authorized David Huff of Smith County, TN, to represent him to obtain any pay or rations that might be due.

Family legend is that Miel lived to be 104 years old, but this has not been confirmed. There are documents in his pension file in the National Archives which mention him being alive in 1886, at about age 82. Miel was the father of 16 or 17 children. Two of his sons died while serving in the defense of our country. Some of Miel's children continued the use of the Spirlock spelling, while others spelled their surname as Spurlock. Miles will be referred to as Miel Spirlock for the remainder of this study.

There is a very clear paper trail from Miel Spirlock and 15 of his children, to the present day, but we have been unable to conclusively identify his parents. Although Charles Edmund Spurlock's work contained a bit about one of the daughters of Miel Spirlock, only her father's name was given, and nothing was mentioned about his lineage.

In 1988, Mrs. Pat Spurlock Elder formed the national Spurlock Family Association, and she began publishing the Spurlock Family Quarterly. Two able co-editors, Kenneth Haas of Bettendorf, IA, and the late Howard Horton Harvey of Sherman, TX, joined her. The association and journal immediately began serving as a clearinghouse and repository for all those studying the Spurlock surname. In addition to Pat, Ken, and Howard, Robert Spurlock also served as an officer. The Spurlock Family Quarterly was published for 17 years, ending in December 2004.

One of Miel Spirlock's sons, born 1834, used two names: Miles Spurlock, Jr., and Miles Lafayette Spurlock. In 1995, Howard H. Harvey located a descendent of this son. She was Adeline Bauchens. In 1981, her mother, Mary Evelyn Spurlock Gillespie Lindsey (1924-1992), a granddaughter of Miles Spurlock, Jr., (son of Miel Spirlock) attempted to fill out a Bible pedigree chart from memory. Although this remarkable document cannot be viewed as precisely correct concerning early dates and relationships, it does, without doubt, contain the names of those she heard her elders discuss.

The Bible pedigree chart that Mary Evelyn filled out listed her great grandfather, Miles Spurlock (Miel Spirlock), as born in 1791. The most striking aspect of this pedigree chart is that it lists the father of Miles Spurlock as being "Zacharia" Spurlock. His date of birth is given as 1762. Even more telling is that "Agnes" is listed as the name of Zachariah Spurlock's wife.

Mary Evelyn also used a spiral notebook to record the vital statistics concerning her family members. One entry states "Zacharia Spurlock & Agnes D ('D' written in tiny superscript, meaning died) McClenburg." It is assumed that Mary Evelyn did not know how to spell Mecklenburg, and that this can only refer to Zachariah Spurlock, and his mother, Agnes, who lived in Mecklenburg County, VA. Zachariah Spurlock, along with five siblings, and his mother, Aggy, were named in the 1774 Mecklenburg County, VA, will of his father, Stephen Spurlock, who had died there. The widowed Agnes Spurlock, and Zachariah Spurlock were both listed as residents of Mecklenburg County, VA, in "Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States, Taken 1782-1785," page 34. Although Zachariah Spurlock definitely moved west between 1820 and 1830 and was enumerated as age 70-80 in the 1830 Kanawah County, VA, census, perhaps his mother, Agnes, had died in Mecklenburg County as recorded in Mary Evelyn's notebook.

Mention of the name of Agnes Spurlock (born by at least the mid-1730's), in a pedigree chart made from memory 150 years later by Mary Evelyn Spurlock Gillespie Lindsay, increases the confidence level with which we can accept Mary Evelyn's documents as reflecting the ancestry of her great grandfather, Miel Spirlock. It seems unlikely that Agnes, a female, would have been discussed so many generations later if she had not been an important person in their family.

Zachariah Spurlock, b. ca. 1750-60, married Betsey Mealer on 13 October 1792, in Mecklenburg County, VA. Throughout his adult life, Miel Spirlock had a close relationship with a man named Russell B. Nicholas, born ca. 1802, the son of Stephen Nicholas and Elizabeth Spurlock, "a widow," who married on 13 January 1802, in Wayne County, KY. There are clues that Elizabeth Spurlock Nicholas may have been the mother of Miel Spirlock. If this is the case, and if Miel was also the son of Zachariah Spurlock, there must have been a divorce or abandonment between Zachariah and Betsey Mealer, because Zachariah Spurlock lived for many years after this time. Zachariah married Eley Hendrick in 1809 in Warren County, NC. Some Spurlock researchers hold other theories concerning Miel Spirlock's family of origin. These theories are also plausible, but will not be presented here due to time constraints. They are discussed in past issues of the Spurlock Family Quarterly.

The results of the analysis of the Y-chromosomes of Participants 4442 and 4447 (with one descending from the first wife and another from the second wife of Miel Spirlock) show that the two men were a perfect match on the 25-marker test. After having definitely established the Y-chromosome sequence of Miel Spirlock, the next step was to compare these results to those of the extended Spurlock family.

HARVEY SPURLOCK

Participant # 25832, who descends from Harvey Spurlock, is a perfect match with descendents of Miel Spirlock. Harvey and Miel were both born in the 1790's, and both enlisted in the War of 1812 from Jackson County, TN. Their geographical location, along with the DNA results of their descendents, suggests that they were closely related. Mrs. Pat Spurlock Elder, a direct descendent, has provided the following information concerning Harvey Spurlock:

On 13 November 1814 Harvey Spurlock mustered into the 3rd Regiment of the Infantry of Col. Roulston's West Tennessee Militia in Jackson County, TN. His company left Nashville, TN, on 26 November, and arrived in New Orleans on 22 December 1814. Unfortunately, Harvey died less than a month later in New Orleans. An undated payroll states that he "Died 28 Jany 1815."

Information concerning the life of Harvey Spurlock has been reconstructed from his widow's pension application, his son's guardianship papers, and a deposition given by John Wheeler. Harvey had married Milly (maiden name unknown) in May 1813 at the home of John Wheeler in Jackson County, TN. Milly was born about 1798 in Virginia, and they had only one child, Johnson Spurlock.

The original application for Milly's pension listed her co-administrator as Stephen Nicols [sic], but at the August 1815 Jackson County Court, Stephen Nichols' name was stricken in several places, and Milly's request for letters of administration regarding her late husband's estate, named William Wheeler as co-administrator in the place of Stephen Nicols . On 2 October 1815 the Court appointed David Huff of Smith County, Tennessee, her power-of-attorney in her attempt to obtain military benefits for herself and her son.

After August 1815, Milly and Johnson moved to Caldwell County, KY, where she married James Rush on 13 May 1817, with Mary McCormick being present at the ceremony. By August 1819, Milly and James Rush had moved to Jackson County, TN, where she applied to have James Rush named legal guardian of her son, Johnston [sic] Spurlock. John Wheeler and Richard P. Clark served as securities for James Rush. It appears that Milly and James Rush lived in Jackson County, TN, until after the 1840 census, because James Rush had a younger wife on the 1850 census.

Johnson Spurlock was born 12 March 1814 in Tennessee, and died 7 December 1894 in Jackson County, TN. He married Mary "Polly Ann" Birdwell, who was born in 1816 in Jackson County, TN, and died there in 1904. They were the parents of nine children. Polly Ann's parents were from Bedford County, VA.

JOHN SPURLOCK, SR., OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, VA

We are indeed fortunate that Participant 27559 # and Participant # 28081 have joined the Spurlock DNA study. These men descend from brothers who were sons of John Spurlock, born ca. 1730-34, and his wife, Mary, who lived in Montgomery County, VA. Although their pedigree predates that of Miel Spirlock and Harvey Spurlock by 60 years, because of our small sample size we cannot yet predict what the Original Haplotype of the first Spurlock male may have been. We don't know which family group had the one-step mutation on DYS 464c, or when it occurred. However, we can definitely conclude that at some time between the birth of William Spurlock, born 1753, and the birth of Participant # 27559, DYS 439 for this lineage mutated one step, from a 13 to a 12.

The following information concerning the family of John Spurlock, Sr., was provided by Carl Spurlock and Levi Spurlock, and published in the Spurlock Family Quarterly, Volume 1, Number, 3, 1988, pp. 51-58:

John Spurlock, Sr., was born ca. 1730-1734. The first written record for him was in 1758 when he was paid five shillings for his service as a private in the Bedford County (VA) Militia. Since his name does not appear on a Bedford County, TN, tax list, it is assumed that he was not a landowner there, and that he worked for someone else. He is listed on the 1770 Tax List of Botetourt County, VA, as the owner of 121 acres. It appears that the land of John Sr. was located in the part of Botetourt County that was taken in 1776 to form Montgomery County, VA. After 1776, John Spurlock, Sr. was taxed in Montgomery County, VA (this land is currently located in Floyd County, VA). The land holdings of this very industrious extended family grew from the 121 acres first owned by John Spurlock, Sr., so that by the 1790's the combined holdings John Spurlock, Sr., and his sons exceeded several thousand acres.

On April 19, 1778, John Spurlock, Sr., and his sons, William, John Jr., and Jesse signed the Oath of Allegiance at Ft. Patrick Henry, VA.

William Spurlock, son of John and Mary Suprlock, served two tours of duty in the Revolutionary War. He first enlisted in 1776 from Botetourt County, VA, marching to the frontiers of North Carolina and South Carolina. He was discharged near Wilmington, NC, after having served six months. He was drafted on 10 July 1881, marched to Yorktown, VA, and was present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis to Gen. George Washington on 19 October 1781, having served for three months. He bought land in Knox County, KY, by 1800, and also lived in Lee and Harlan Counties, KY. He owned 600 acres, married twice, and left 18 surviving children. At age 81, shortly before his death, he rode to Hawkins County, TN, to apply for a Rev. War pension. Those certifying that they knew him to have served in the War were Christian Pearson, John Berry, and William Nichol. The subsequent documents that were filed listed the names of his 18 children.

John Spurlock, Jr., son of John and Mary Spurlock, has been recognized as a patriot in the Revolutionary War due to the Oath of Allegiance he took in 1770. He and Fannie moved to Floyd County, KY, where he is credited as being the first settler at Spurlock's Landing (present-day Prestonsburg, KY). He and Fannie owned most of what is now Prestonsburg, including where the courthouse stands. He died at Spurlock's Landing, KY, in 1816, leaving nine known children.

A Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) test has been conducted for Participant # 4442, and his haplogroup has been confirmed as R1b. Since all of the participants in Group 1 have extremely similar markers, it is necessary to test only one representative in order to know the haplogroup for all of them. R1b is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe. This group of hunter-gatherers appeared in Europe about 400,000 years ago, before the last Ice Age.

MILES SPURLOCK

Participant # 25243 represents a well-established Spurlock family that descends from Miles Spurlock, born 8 May 1804 in Kentucky. Miles Spurlock married Susannah "Susan" Sewell. On 4 July 1837, he received a land grant of 100 acres in Wilson County, TN. On the same day, Francis Spurlock received a grant of 30 acres in Wilson County, thus suggesting a relationship between these two men. In 1841, Miles added 300 acres in Cannon County, TN (located in a portion of the county created from Wilson County). In 1851, he added 500 more acres in Cannon County, TN, some by grant, but most of which was by purchase. A review of documentary evidence regarding Miles and Susan Spurlock was written by Ken Haas and published in the Spurlock Family Quarterly, Volume 2, Number 2, 1989, pp. 41-44.

Miles was engaged in farming until the 1870's, when he and Susan, along with many of their children, moved to Madison County, AR, to join their son, Andrew "Jackson" Spurlock, who had moved there in 1859. A biography for Andrew J. Spurlock, born 1838 in Cannon County, TN, appears in Goodspeed's History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford, and Sebastian Counties, AR, 1889, pp. 1115-1116, and is reprinted in the Spurlock Family Quarterly, Volume 2, Number 3, 1989, p.42. It also gives some information about his parents.

Their family tradition is that they were not related to the "other" Spurlocks, meaning the family of Miles Spurlock (Miel Spirlock), born ca. 1794 in VA. This disavowal of kinship has been borne out with DNA testing. Miles and Susannah were the parents of nine children.

Participant # 25243 differs from those in Group 1 by seven one-step mutations, six two-step mutations, one three-step mutation, and one four-step mutation. His haplogroup has been predicted as "I." Haplogroup I is prevalent in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, and is sometimes referred to as "the Viking haplogroup."

There is now an official Spurlock Surname Project, so Spurlocks who are interested in participating should contact the writer at the Spurlock Surname Project at:
www.spurlock.info/dna/index.htm

In addition to those persons mentioned above, I am deeply indebted to many cousins who have collaborated with me. These include Paula Allen, Shirley Spurlock Grooms, C. Pauline Steinbrueck, Wayne Woodard, the late Vanita Royer, Bonnie Hall Cole, Toni J. Crowley, Dorothy Spurlock Bailey Berry, Virgle L. Chappell, Mary Jo Hocker, Pauline DeWitt, Leota Klinker, Phyllis Norville, Kathy Larbi, Evelyn Morris, Ida Keefer, the late Arnold Spurlock, Carla Dunlap Krehbiel, Virginia Bates, Ken Hankinson, and Ronald "Bruce" Thorsen.




Last Updated on 2/21/2006
By Wallace W. Souder