Chesnut (Chestnut)
Notes (1) The Chestnuts (Chesnuts) first appear in America with the death of Alexander being documented in Frederick, VA in 1749.
(2) Various spellings of the Chestnut (Chesnut) family previously had prevented the connections made in this genealogy, which is being presented here in it’s entirety (concerning Chestnuts (Chesnuts), due to recent interest and research into the line. The original French Huguenot name was "Chesne" and was changed to the Scottish spelling of "Chesnut" when they arrived in Scotland.
(3) Due to Chestnut (Chesnut) marriages into other lines within this genealogy (McMillans), duplicate material may exist here, to conserve numerical sequence, although other marriage lines (McDill, Moffett, etc.) are not documented elsewhere here.
Recent research via the Internet and correspondence with various branches of the Chesnut family (ERichardson in Georgia and Lonsdale in California, together with Phillip Graham (see McMillans)) has gathered sufficient evidence to make previously unknown links to Chesnut lines below, including those of the James Chesnut line (Mary Boykin Chesnut - author of “A Diary from Dixie”) of Camden District, SC.
From research, it appears that Alexander and his sons emigrated from Ireland to the Pennsylvania region, then to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia (now West Virginia). Son David then went to Chester Co., SC; son James’s widow and family to North Carolina, then to Camden, SC, son William remaining in the Shenandoah Valley region, and a possible son John, settling in the Cumberland Co., area of PA.
The Chesnut family became a typical family faced with the prospect of civil war over the slavery question, with James’s family remaining in the South (a grandson became a Confederate General and aide to Jefferson Davis); and David’s family (together with McMillans, Stormonts and McDills) moving north into Todd Co., KY and then on westward, because of their anti-slavery sentiments.
Note:
As part of the Rootsweb WorldConnect Project, Don Chesnut ( [email protected] ) has presented a Chesnut lineage that differs somewhat in the generation following Alexander Chesnut m. Mary O’Draine from that presented by Edith Elizabeth Foster Stormont and CW Chesnut ( http://www.uftree.com/FamilyGathering/WebPages/CWChesnut/d0/i0000510.htm ).
The basic difference appears to be the addition of a generation between Alexander m. Mary O’Draine and that proposed by Edith Foster Stormont and C. W. Chesnut, consisting of John, who fathered (among others) the David who is a progenitor of the Stormont connections.
In the interests of completeness covering all possibilities (particularly in that record substantiation cannot be definitely made concerning Alexander m. Mary O’Draine and family) we are including Don Chesnut’s lineage as well as those of the others.
To keep track of his particular lineage layout, we are including our “Ref” (Reference) category from our genealogy database for entries, with his indicated as “RootsWeb”.
That lineage of David is fairly well documented and considered valid.
The William Chesnut (m. (1) Mary Sophia Wade and m. (2) Catherine Calhoun) listed as a brother of David and son of John Chesnut is another Chesnut lineage given us by D. L. Chesnut. Other brothers (with “RootsWeb” reference) are those shown by Don Chesnut.
In keeping with our policy of concentrating on our lineages, we have not documented here all complete lineages that Don Chesnut and D. L. Chesnut have presented, except where they parallel those of our own (in other words, we have tried to maintain here the siblings of particular families to where they connect to our primary lines). We have, however, included them in our database for further reference.
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