My current Jarvis family research has been a double-pronged effort. Initially, I had hoped to be able to piece together documentation to prove the children of Francis Jarvis, a servant who arrived in Accomack County, Virginia in 1636.

Those efforts were stymied by the 1820 courthouse fire in Gloucester County, Virginia and by documenting a second Jarvis in the area at the same time – one Thomas Jarvis, who was born no later than c1621, and who would have been a contemporary of Francis, not his son.

The second effort has been to work in the traditional format of genealogical research, going backward in time from Zadock Jarvis, born c1750, possibly in Maryland, trying to find convincing evidence that he was the son of James Jarvis, who rented Quince Orchard in Frederick County, Maryland in 1770 from Henry Clagett. James Jarivs died between the 1770 agreement to rent the land and 1777, when it was mentioned in Henry Clagett’s will that the “widow Jarvis” was still living there.

A broad statement is found in the FamilySearch family tree that “all the children” moved to North Carolina in 1781 and that son James lived out his life in Hope, now Forsyth County, North Carolina. That immediately presents a problem as there is no James Jarvis in Surry County (where Hope was located at the time), North Carolina in 1790. There is a James Jarvis in Rowan County in 1790, but he is gone by 1800. There is one James Jarvis living in Salisbury, Surry, North Carolina in 1800.

The evidence tying Zadock Jarvis to Maryland from North Carolina is the 1778 oath of allegiance list of Montgomery County, Maryland, which includes the names of Zadock and Elisha Jarvis.

Zadock has certainly never been on the list of 10 Most Popular Names and the man on the 1776 militia list is of the right age to be our Zadock, later living in North Carolina. Adding to the preponderance of evidence supporting the existence of one man named Zadock Jarvis is that no Zadock Jarvis is found in later Maryland records.

The next issue is that the 1790 census includes one Elijah Jarvis in Rowan County, but no Elisha. There is a marriage record for Elisha Jarvis marrying Drucilla Smith in Rowan County in 1786. Elisha eventually moved on to South Carolina, so the question is – who is the 1790 Elijah Jarvis? Was he called Eli and the census taker assumed his name was Elijah? Or maybe it was just an error on the part of the census taker. No further mention is found of Elijah Jarvis. There is an Elisha Jarvis living in Wilkes County in 1793.

There is an interesting Jarvis family website that appears to be based on facts. The host has even mapped out land owned by various members of the family in early North Carolina.

From information found there, a case can be made for all of the early Jarvises to have been related and, with the addition of Elisha Jarvis’s widow’s Revolutionary War pension application, it ties the family back to Montgomery County, Maryland.

That still doesn’t provide primary proof that the Jarvis clan of North Carolina were the children of James Jarvis of Frederick County, Maryland. There were a whole group of Jarvises living nearby in Jarford county, Maryland at the same time.

The evidence connecting Zadock Jarvis to James Jarvis is lacking, but, in this case, negative evidence doesn’t eliminate the possibility that they were father and son.

Will anyone ever find primary evidence to prove the connection? At this point, I am doubting it because I’ve done research in Frederick County, Maryland and they have pretty good records.

It’s been an interesting deep dive into Jarvis possibilities, but I don’t think there is primary proof out there proving any of Zadock Jarvis’s ancestral line.

If a Jarvis family descendant is excitedly reading this post, hoping for confirmation of the descendants of Francis Jarvis who arrived in Virginia in 1636, I have to admit to being the bearer of bad news.

First, there is no question that a man named Francis jarvis arrived in Virginia in 1636, described as a servant, and that apparently the same man, called a planter, settled in Gloucester County, Virginia, by the mid-1640s. The Gloucester County man had a wife named Ann.

However, the 1820 courthouse fire in Gloucester County took all its documents with it, leaving researchers with no alternative resources.

Further, some claim that immigrant Francis had a number of children, including a son named Thomas Jarvis. However, the only Thomas I could find had to have been born by 1621 in order to claim head rights in the 1640s. He could not have been the son of Francis, born perhaps c1615!

Simply put, all attempts to document children of Francis Jarvis have found only negative evidence, meaning there is no primary documentation to support or refute any possible children.

Francis’s contemporary, Thomas Jarvis, adds a second layer of complication to our efforts, as there are no primary records that prove possible members of his family either.

Sadly, the family tree built from Francis Jarvis through purported son John, grandson John and great grandson James Jarvis is planted in nothing but quicksand.

Unless someone discovers duplicate copies of Gloucester County records that have sat in their attic for some 200 years, it will be quite impossible to prove that this family tree leads to Zadock Jarvis (c1750-1830+) of Maryland, North Carolina and Indiana.

Jarvis researchers – beware of undocumented claims!!!