Re: John Merritt of Edgecombe County, NC.,..

Willie -

The book "Merritt Familes of NC" by Lynne Stater Turner does list Pegee as wife of John Stone. Pegee listed as daughter of John Merritt. John is listed as son of Charles SR, the progenitor of this line. At this time and place in Edgecombe Co on Beach Swamp, and and a bit later in what becomes Franklin Co, there should be a lot of these guys, brothers and cousins all living nearby, so a lot of them, with the same names and mixed up records. Have fun working on them!

The book also states this:

"When men went to War (the French and Indian Wars were going on at this time), it was common for them to write a Will, just in case they were killed. Benjamin Merritt had done this (son of Nathaniel), and so did John and Thomas Merritt. John Merritt, SR.'s Will is found in Abstract of Wills 1690-1760, by Grimes, .."

Right after it says that John died 1757. Wife Mary "(possibly Haywood)". So you are probably pretty darned close to the facts on this one.

This is a great old line of Merritts going back to Charles Merritt, who was in VA early by 1664 if memory serves, not far from Jamestown. He stuck around for awhile, got a couple of jobs, then stole some hogs. Fearing trouble from that, he fled to NC before 1700. Lots of great history there, and he left a gigantic family, many descendants and researchers who are today in the Merritt DNA project.

I'm thinking that if you look at our Merritt DNA Patriarch page, the second paragraph, this is the family you are looking at. We don't list the women typically to save space, but it does show John SR and father Charles:

http://www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/merritt/patshttp://www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/merritt/pats

The family is broken up on that page just to make it easy to read, but most of those guys in Lineage I descend from Charles.

Hope some of that helps - Mike Merritt
(Charles Merritt and I descend from the same Merritt, we just don't know who that is. His line and mine seem to point at England/London in the real early 1600s, or late 1500s. I am currently researching another Merritt who lived near to these guys, who I am hoping is a VA Merritt who migrated down that way. He is Thomas Merritt, who patented land on Cypress Swamp about 1751)