Re: Charles Browne and Priscilla Brooke-MD and VA

Thanks so much.I had Ann Fleet (versus Semple) Tompkins marrying Charles Browne...but I have not done a lot of research on that.I suspected that she was a daughter of Christopher Tompkins and Ann Nancy Fleet (who was a daughter of William Fleet, Junior and his first wife Ann Temple...not Semple).I assume that Christopher Tompkins Browne (son of Charles and Ann) was given the name of "Christopher" because of Christopher Tompkins.

The Priscilla Browne and William Webb marriage is interesting.That William Webb was a son of James Webb and his wife Mary Smith.That Mary Smith was a daughter of Colonel Francis Smith and his first wife Lucy Meriwether.James Webb had a sister named Mary Webb who married Colonel Samuel Smith, and Samuel was out of my Smith family (that traces back to the Alexander Smith who died in Middlesex Co., VA in 1696).DNA testing on living male Smith descendants of these two Smith families shows that these two Smith families were NOT "blood related" (as was expected, per "conventional documentation research").

Another member of my Smith family was Colonel Maurice Smith.Maurice had two daughters who also married into this overall Webb family.Frances Smith was the third wife of William Crittenden Webb, Senior and Martha "Patty/Patsy" Smith was one of the two wives of Willia Crittenden Webb, Junior. I need to look at a good chart of the Webb family to see just where all three of the above-referenced men named William Webb "fit."

For now, the connection between John Brown, who married Mary Bennett (who had a brother named Smith Bennett), and the Bennett Browne family remains a mystery.I had long suspected that this John Brown was out of the Francis Brown "I" who died in Essex Co., VA in 1691/1692.Perhaps that is actually correct, and perhaps the only connection between that Brown family and your Browne family is a possible "Bennett" or "Smith" connection (though it appears that Bennett Browne was not actually a Bennett descendant....he was just named for the husband of his grandaunt, as I recall...correct)?

It is possible, I suppose, that there is no connection after all.I have not proven that one of the four males under the age of 10 in the Middlesex home of John Brown in 1820 was the same male of the proper age range (20-30) who was in Christopher T. Brown's Middlesex home in 1840.In 1841, my gg-grandfater, Smith W. Brown (born about 1817), married Susan Hill Garrett in Middlesex, and DNA testing on a living male "Brown" descendant (my cousin) shows that Smith W. Brown was actually a "blood Smith" out of the same overall Smith family as the referenced Alexander Smith, Colonel Samuel Smith, Colonel Maurice Smith, etc.

By the way, what happened to Basil Browne and Fanny Dandridge?

Are there any living Browne males in your overall family?If so, at least one of them should certainly be encouraged to join the Brown Society DNA testing project: http://brownsociety.org/browndna/overview.htmhttp://brownsociety.org/browndna/overview.htmThanks again.