Home- Phelps of Northeast NC

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This site is a collection of research material for the genealogies of Phelps in northeast North Carolina. Closely associated with this is the Phelps ydna project at https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/phelps/about/background

Join our effort to study the origins of Phelps in northeastern North Carolina. Phelps settled in that part of the state beginning as far back as the 1600s and their many descendants continue to live in the area while other descendants moved south and west. This project will attempt to look at the origins of the Phelps in that area. And it will make extensive use of a new tool, Y-DNA testing of Phelps males.

Y-DNA is the male chromosome, passed down from father to son largely unchanged for hundreds of year. It is considered "junk" DNA having no bearing on physical traits other than being a male. We are actively recruiting male Phelps in the area for a simple YDNA test, usually performed by, Family Tree DNA. We have NO financial interest in this, and are strictly volunteers. If desired, your identification will be completely blind, even with your mailing address unknown. While we would appreciate your submitted paternal ancestry, this will not be required.

Our purpose will be to identify major biological Phelps lines in the area, their origins, and where possible, to confirm known paper trails. Because we already have identified several major Phelps lines from colonial America at the Phelps YDNA web site, we will be able to determine if the Phelps in this area are related to those other Phelps in colonial America.

Our Y-DNA research has proven several Phelps lines, with good paper trails, who are not related to one another:

• The line of James Phelps, Sr b. bef. 1740 Gates Co, NC d. 1794
• The probable line of James Felps/Phelps of Chowan Co, NC
  • A group of nine biologically related Phelps likely from Tyrrell Co, NC
  • The biologically related lines of James Phelps d 1786 Caswell Co, NC, Thomas Phelps d 1751 Albemarle Co, Va, and Thomas Felps, d 1759 Baltimore Co, Md (with descendants in Rowan Co, NC in the 1800s)
  • The line of John Phelps d. 1747 line of Goochland, VA.
• The line of John Phelps of Bedford co, VA
  • Three unrelated New England lines of: William Phelps b ca 1593 England; George Phelps b ca 1606 England; and the brothers Henry, Edward and Nicholas Phelps

1861 Northeastern North Carolina