project-news-3-ChrisMyth

It is difficult to write that a belief held by many Garrison and Garrason descendants has been proven
wrong. I write of the erroneous belief that the Duplin County, North Carolina Garrisons and Garrasons
descend from Christopher Garrison (chr 1730 Staten Island, NY), son of Isaac and Maria (Christopher)
Garrison and grandson of Lambert Sr and Susannah (Morgan) Garrison and of Barent Christopher and
Anna Catherine (Stillwell) Christopher, all of Staten Island. First, let me tell you why we know it is not so.
Then I will tell you how I think the idea came about.

Lambert Garrison, Sr, grandfather of Christopher, was a son of Gerrit Segers (b c1620) of New
Amsterdam. He had a brother Frederick whose descendants chose to use the Segers/Saegers surname
(in the English custom) rather than Gerritsen/Garrison (in the Dutch custom) as did Lambert. A
descendant of Frederick is a member of this Garrisons' Compass DNA Project.

All descendants of the Duplin County, North Carolina group in this Project, at the present time, descend
either from
(1) Jedediah Garrison (c1752-1830) who moved from Duplin Co to Franklin (now Banks) Co, GA by
way of Orange (now Alamance) Co, NC and Greenville Co, SC; or from
(2) Ebenezer Garrason (c1750-1801) who remained in Duplin Co while his only son James
(c1778-c1811) moved to Effingham Co, GA.

DNA results prove that Jedediah and Ebenezer were very closely related, so closely that it has been
adjudged they were brothers. Public records show they lived in the same community in Duplin County and
they witnessed each others' deeds.

The DNA results for the descendant of the Segers/Saegers branch of the New York family are so different
from all those members of the Duplin County family as to exclude the possibility that the two families were
related even remotely.

How did this mistake come about? Actually, quite innocently so it is difficult to be angry with anyone. In the
1920s when about 70 years in age the late D H P Garrison of Godfrey, GA started family research. His goal
was to prove ownership to a lost mining claim out west. He failed in that and in his innocence and ignorance
he led the family up the wrong tree. I believe DHP was like my grandfather Garrason - so honest he trusted
everyone else explicitly. That was his innocense. His ignorance was simply not having more than a grade
school education and little contact with the outside world. At the time he started he was forced to do most of
his research by mail - it was too far to Athens or Atlanta to drive for mere genealogical research - and
because of that he had nothing to compare to the information he got in letters.

He knew that Jedediah had named a son Christopher and he believed the boy was named for Jedediah's
father. So did many others, including Jane (Williams) Quillian, Jedediah's granddaughter, who in her 70s
wrote a paper claiming that Grandfather Christopher Garrison had moved to Georgia with the family in 1784.
The year was 1804 and she made two other date mistakes in her paper. For a serious researcher that puts
the accuracy of the whole article under suspicion. Actually, I have never seen her original paper nor a
photocopy of it. I could not swear that the typed transcripts in circulation are absolutely verbatim.

DHP contacted Media Research. a depression-time mail-order genealogical research company. They sent
him the record of Christopher's 1730 christening. Without having one iota of proof that Christopher ever left
Staten Island or that he had a large family (church records show only two daughters) DHP and his relatives
who joined him in the search "moved" Christopher to Duplin County and "gave" him a large family. Years
later, a number of us modern day researchers tried in vain to prove that Christopher was the ancestor but we
were unable to find even one speck of evidence that Christopher had ever lived in NC or was the father of
those claimed to have been his children. If he lived in Duplin Co and raised his family there he would
indoubtedly have left at least one record to prove it. [In all honestly, I will admit that in my younger days of
innocense and ignorance I "bought" the Christopher story.]

Early on, DHP teamed up with the late A T Outlaw, Register of Duplin County. In the 1930s Outlaw wrote a
newspaper article on the Garrisons and it has been widely distributed. Unfortunately it contains all the errors,
omissions and bad assumptions that both men had accumulated. Some time ago I wrote an 18-page article
correcting and expanding on that article. It is fully documented. If anyone would like a copy in pdf format
email me at garrason@bellsouth.net. Please put "Outlaw Revision" in the subject line.

To show some of the other damage DHP did to the Garrison/Garrason cause and to illustrate his mind set
about accepting what others sent him, let me write more. At first he had Christopher's christening as 1730
which is what the Reformed Dutch Church record shows. Apparently later he considered that was an adult
baptism. A lady up North sent him a tale about five Garrison brothers coming to Delaware from Scotland
about 1700. By the time they had merged their tales, DHP had Christopher born c1700 and his parents in
the 1670s or 80s. There is proof that they were born after 1700. However, DHP's adjusted dates were
written in his family Bible and submitted to the GA DAR for inclusion in a book they published on Family Bible
Records. Unfortunately, DHP, like many of us others for a time, thought there was just one
Garrison/Garrason family who made come to America. Of course, that was not so. In fact, numerous families
of the name developed here when the English put a stop to patronymic types of surnames. There were
historical inaccuracies in the lady's story that DHP did not catch. She had one brother marrying a first cousin
of Pocahantas nearly 100 years after the Indian Princess had died and she had the brothers receiving land
grants from George III many years before he became king in 1760.

As for how the "Grandfather Christopher Garrison" came about, I offer the following simple explanation.
Likely the story was told through the years that "Jedediah named his son Christopher for his grandfather."
That is an ambiguous statement. Was it for the infant's grandfather or for Jedediah's grandfather. Without
further clarification it is impossible to say.

Here is some speculation to consider. In the mid-1700s there was a man named James Garrison with a
proven son Isaiah who lived in Carteret Co, NC. Jedediah Garrison's obituary told that he was born in
Cortwright (an ignorant spelling of Carteret common at one time there) Co, NC. The late Sam Garrison
insisted Jedediah (and my Ebenezer) were sons of James and that James had come from Delaware where he
had married _____ Hussey. Unfortunately, Sam was never able to prove his contention and I, too, have
been unsuccessful. Now, if that is true, then Jedediah had a Grandfather Hussey. And (drum roll, please)
Christopher is a very common name in the Hussey family going all the way back to the 1630s when the first
Christopher Hussey settled in New England. Jedediah's grandfather may have been named Christopher
Hussey and it would have been Jedediah's grandfather for whom he named his son. It should also be
pointed out that an unidentified James Garrason (so spelled) joined Jedediah in 1770 to witness a deed for
Ebenezer Garrason in Duplin Co. And Isaiah's signature was found on a 1776 petition in Orange Co with
(but not next to) Jedediah's.

So, my Jedediah-descended cousins, I am sorry to have to disappoint you but we cannot argue with DNA
results. The lab was independent. They did not have the specimens there at the same time. They did not
know who had donated any specimen. They had no idea what we were trying to prove and disprove.