Frontispiece

Links to pages in this website can be accessed by clicking on the set of 3 horizontal bars, or equivalency symbol (3 vertically stacked dashed lines), on the upper left hand corner of the webpage.

A brief pedigree chart in pictures is provided on the page Family Tree Glance.

This website is intended to be in ongoing stages of development, pages and changes will likely occur faster than a table of contents can keep up with; for your convenience, here are a few links:

...Reasons for this website...

Table of Contents

... Our [me and my immediate kin] agnatic Thornton pedigree overview

[hint: there may be other Thornton lines related to us]

...Ancient tribes lore, myth, story, fable... compared to facts, reality...

...Names of a few ancestors, points of reference in the larger spectrum...

...Geographic milieu, [areas of living and dwelling,] of our ancestors, within the past 300 years thereabout...

There are pages discussing long range genealogy projects, families being researched, museums, and areas that may be of interest to you, at the links provided by the website platform using the link button at the top of the page.

Studies and Site Content at a Glance

Consistent with the ancestry overview page which has further detail, the given names of the manager and author of this website is Luqman Abdullah, the patriline surname Thornton. 

On my agnatic side, meaning only referring to father, father’s.. father’s… line, the surname of both recent and oldest record, consistent throughout, that can I can attest to is Thornton.  Patriline, is the term used to refer to this father's line, whereas accepted derivations of the word, are pater, briefly Latin father, joined with line.  ‘Record’, means, there is a valid legal record that can be substantiated, such as through a certificate, birth, marriage, or death record.

The surname of my agnatic grandfather, as in my father’s father, is Thornton, referring to James Thornton. This James Thornton the second is buried in Maryland sometime between 2005 and 2010.  He is the son of Dr. James Thornton, born in the Oberlin Village area of Raleigh, North Carolina later moving to New York City.  Said Dr. Thornton was son, perhaps the youngest of a number of children, of Frank Thornton, who according to record was born in Virginia, and when the era around the Civil War concluded, moved to the Oberlin Village area.

In summary, along with the described Thornton line, my ancestry in recent history is comprised of Mrs. nee Ten Eyck, wife of Dr. James Thornton who resided in New York City up until about 50 years ago, where he and her are buried not too far from.  In her ancestry, is found surnames like Tapscott, Johnson, and Perciful.

Choosing not to speak much on my immediate maternal side, in the main, their history in America began as farming families that may have originally settled on the coastlines of America several hundred years ago, then moved south and western direction.

As far as a purpose of this site, in genealogy study, this serves to provide other genealogists working on related projects a source for frame of reference, leave a little something to relatives, assist in setting the record straight for anyone else who might have questions, while doing these, provide something that could be helpful to those on their paths of genealogy and identity studies. 

Announcements and Thoughts

December 2025

Work is being done on this website; in the process, some of the links might not work.  Webpages and the table of contents are being rearranged, webpages being renamed, webpages added, and so on. Hopefully there will be a better reader experience.

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November 2025

A new but long should have been set section has been added, With Respect to Our Cousins. As the name implies, it is an area where information overlaps between my direct ancestors and near cousins. A prime example are the Proctors. Mrs Margaret Proctor, born about 1839, was left with about 9 Proctor children after a farm accident about 1870. A few years later, she married Mr Tapscott. Seeing that there are many Proctor researchers, and Tapscott researchers that both study the ancestry of their great grandmother, it is fair that we share, as the information in this site would have been extremely difficult to make it to these pages without our cousins.

Aside from the sub-base or introductory page, the first story is: 

Towards Understanding a Timeline of Samuel Kinnelly Proctor (b. about 1836)

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Book in progress. The book on the family, history, etc., has content that will not under about no circumstance, be put on a publicly accessible website at this time.

If interested, would like to add, contribute, submit pictures, obtain a copy, please email: treebookstudy@gmail.com

There is a viewable by link version of the draft. 

Icon for now are significant/ popular family crest reds, with halo in the background. The rest borrows from the logo for this site.

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Latest finds in progress April 1, 2024

As April Fools' Day suggests, don't be a fool. The best thing to do is practice the true and best way of life. That I learned long ago, and recurringly comes back to me, and sometimes affirmed through factual proofs that that is wisest, regardless of when folks may seem to direct you in directions that take you off course.

Some aspects of the pedigree, not even going back more than about a half dozen generations have been discussed more than others.

Earlier this week, I have obtained a photo of 'what appears to be' my grandmother Marilyn's grandmother or aunt sitting amongst school mates. Marilyn told me that Fany used to babysit for her. Until the course of study/verification is complete, there is the story background that either my grandmother Marilyn as she told me, or her mom, in my great grandmother Vivian, were babysat by a woman they described to me as aunt or great aunt, named Fany/Fannie,  and/or middle name might be different, Fany/Fannie L's niece (??). Fannie or possible spelling variation Fany Johnson. There is both, her grandmother and aunt with the same name. In carefully reviewing the records, the grandmom born perhaps in the middle 1850s appears to have died a couple of years before Marilyn was born. So the aunt story lines up, as she was about 20 to 30 years old when Marilyn was a baby about 80 years later. Unfortunately, I cannot figure which one of the dozen or so girls in the referent photo she is. If it were the case that she was an exception due to some exclusions based  on some ground of some sort, even still, I cannot see the difference, at least not now. It might explain why grandma was hurt when excluded -by her own relatives?- from riding a school bus back in her late middle school years, c. 1940, Alabama/Mississippi Selma/Biloxi/Montgomery area. 

For now, please see a pedigree chart at Johnson - Johnston page. It may help clear up some questions if there any.

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I remember in my childhood days (maybe it is daze) being somewhat shocked that that side of the family genealogy records were submitted to the 'Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture', NYPL. This especially after all the sacrificing the family did to remove the blemish of the use of color to denote humans. And that, that area of the human family was not really the predominant pedigree pool. Perhaps she knew something I was not told. Based on the picture though, if it were to be in the Schomburg, the fit might questioned by at least passerbys. ...More of this post here, Johnson Find.

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... P Marks, 'died before 1872'. Well it appears it was long before then, .. Chatham, not the one built in 1856. Veteran?. There are several entries with same name. Died as prisoner?  The rest of this post is here, Johnson Find.

-Luqman

'There's no compulsion in Deen' (often translated from Arabic and close vernaculars as religion, perhaps more accurately way of life). Religion is distinct from ritual [Whitehead], as animals can perform rituals, flocking together and eating meals at specified times. When people pick a color and place the word power after it, and merge that into Deen, the result may be some made up religion which may involve rituals some of which do not really have anything to do with the religion or Deen, and with no belief nor understanding of it accompanying, to propel it, and what usually results [Whitehead appears to say] is just destruction.

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April 13, 2024

The table of contents needs updating, there is at least 3 new pages, including one dedicated to crystallizing the pedigree and ancestry what has been presented to me as a set of ancestors of mine, and numerous others, Mrs. Elizabeth Tapscott thru Bessie Ten Eyck,  wherein is Nettie, William (born about 1819, and lived in at least Fauquier County Virginia), and others. 

New pages July 2024:

• Quest for Understanding Margaret A. Johnson/Grayson/Proctor/Tapscott/Smith