St. Mary's County (SMC), Maryland Family Branch

Introduction:

The St. Mary’s County (SMC), Maryland branch of the family began with the arrival of John Cissell (Cecill) in 1698. He died there in 1698. His birth date is generally taken as about 1638, but his birth place and parents are not known. He was a farmer and, although not literate, did acquire a fair amount of property during his lifetime in Maryland.

From John’s Will, and the few surviving land records, we know that he had 7-sons (John, William, Thomas, Richard, Robert, Edward, and James). Except for his Will there seem to be no other records related to Richard, Robert, or Edward and it is assumed that they died young and had no children. His son John also appears not to have had any children. [If anyone has information different from this, we would like to hear from you. See contacts at bottom of page.]

There were a few Cissell’s in SMC in the 1700’s that paper records are unable to provide family connections for. One of these is John Baptist Cissell (ca. 1741 SMC – ca. 1799 KY).

Test Results:

Four Cissell (Cecil) family descendants from SMC County have been tested. Three of them (Cissell-31919; Cecil-567299; and Cecil-54035) are known to be descendants of John’s youngest son, James (d. 1717), through his son James (d. 1788). The fourth (Cecil-823794) is a descendant of John Baptist Cissell (JBC).

The test results provide the following family tree connections for them:

For now we are assuming that Ancestor 1, with SNP FGC1313, is the original John Cissell (or possibly his father or grandfather). This is based on some very rough estimates of dates. A good date for SNP FGC1313 will have to wait until Dr. Iain McDonald at University of Manchester has completed the updating of his analysis systems; we hope this will be done later this year.

Since we have only the one descendent from Ancestor 2, his date cannot be estimated. Dr. McDonald however, had previously estimated the birth date of Ancestor 3, as about 1694. This needs to be re-checked after his analysis system is updated, but if true would suggest that the Common Ancestor 3 is probably John’s Son James (d. 1717) or James’s own son, James (d. 1785).

The test results show that JBC was not a descendant of John’s son James. They do suggest, however, that he was likely a descendant of one of John's other sons: William, or Thomas. We cannot currently tell which one.

The SNP chart with the results for this group is provided here for reference:

Current Test Efforts:

Based on the known paper records and the above DNA test results we are assuming that the actual family connections are similar to this chart:

So, which of John’s sons is JBC is descended from? To find out, Julie Kelts is heading an effort to find descendants of William and Thomas and obtain DNA results for each of their branches. It is hoped that this will answer that question.

John Cissell’s Wife and the Mary Dant Mystery:

Over the years several suggestions have been proposed as to who John Cissell’s wife was. One is that she was Mary Shirtcliffe, the daughter of John Shirtcliffe.

In his Will, John Cissell bequeathed the properties he owned, amounting to about 500 acres in total, to members of his family. His Will did not specifically identify his dwelling plantation, but it is generally taken to have been “Poplar Neck”. The Will gave this property to his wife “Mary”. After her death it was to go to his son Edward Cissell; but if Edward did not reach the age of 21 or have children, the land was to go to his son James.

In the land records for 1701, about three years after John’s death, the 200 acres of Poplar Neck were allocated as follows: William Cissell (25 Acres); James Cissell (25 Acres); Thomas Cissell (50 Acres); Mary Dant (50 Acres); and Thomas Cissell (50 Acres). Who was the Mary Dant in possession of 50 Acres of the original home plantation?

Since Mary Shirtcliffe is known to have married John Dant the assumption that she had been married to John Cissell and then later to John Dant did help to explain the Mary Dant in the 1701 land records.

Several St. Mary’s County researchers, including Linda Reno, have looked into this. After much work they concluded that Mary Shirtcliffe could not have married John Cissell. The complete analysis will not be repeated here, but the general argument relates to the fact that Mary Shirtcliffe had originally married Peter Mills and then after his death had married John Dant. Peter had been married previously before coming to Maryland. With Peter she had at least 3 Children. Given the dates and times involved and the fact that John Cissell had had at least 7 children of his own, she could not possibly have also married John Cissell.

But if John Cissell’s wife was not Mary Shirtcifffe, who was the Mary Dant on the land records and why was Mary Cissell not listed there? A possible solution to this long-standing mystery was proposed in an article, “The Maryland Cissell Family”, for the Winter 2018 issue of the “Chronicles of St. Mary’s”, the journal of the St. Mary’s County Historical Society. The argument was that John’s wife was actually Mary Mills, a daughter of Peter Mills from his first wife.

In this case there are two possible reasons why Mary Cissell may not have been listed on the land records for Poplar Neck. Mary Mills had apparently been born in Holland. As a non-English citizen, she would not have been able to legally inherit property in Maryland and so would not be listed on the land records. Another possibility is that Mary Cissell could well have died about the same time as John Cissell. In either case, some of her property could have gone to her mother-in-law, then Mary Dant, (an actual English citizen and able to own land). And so the Mary Dant in the land records was still most likely Mary Shirtcliffe, but she had not been the wife of John Cissell.

Can DNA testing be used to verify that Mary Mills was actually John Cissell’s wife? The answer is yes, but not very easily. Normally, one could test several members of the Mills and Cissell families using Ancestry.com or Family Tree DNA Family Finder tests. These can easily verify family connections back 4- or maybe 5-generations. Unfortunately the time back to John Cissell and his wife is now about 10-generations or more. Since ½ of the DNA from each line is lost each generation, there will be little or no useful DNA left after 10-generations for these tests to see. So to use this method one would probably have to dig up some of the great-great-grand children of John Cissell and Peter Mills to get useful information.

We are currently looking at another possible approach. Even though very little DNA from that time period remains in the descendants, there is a possibility that some unique combination of rare markers might have existed and been passed down to some of them. To investigate this approach, we have done whole genome sequencing for two of John Cissell descendants. The test results have been provided to a researcher at University of Toledo in Ohio to see if any such markers can be found. A third descendent of John Cissell is also doing whole genome sequencing and we are waiting for his results to become available.

Contacts:

Julie Kelts: jvkelts@gmail.com

If anyone is interested in getting tested to help this effort, please contact Dave Cissell dcissell@gmail.com for more details.