An old and widespread error falls by the wayside.
About a half century ago (ca. 1950) this author was annually in the home of one Russell Brown, a brother of Percy Pemberton Brown who did a lot of genealogical research and documentation of his Grandfather Henry Coate Pemberton’s genealogy. My parents took me there every Thanksgiving Day, to a nice home in Richland, Washington, USA. I do not remember ever meeting Percy, but his name was often mentioned in connection with Pemberton genealogy. The pedigree Percy had established showed a James Pemberton with a son John (who married Frances DeRochelle) and their son George X Pemberton, who in turn had a son Isaiah who was surely my ancestor.
In 1982 it was discovered that the records of this John Pemberton, allegedly of St. John’s Parish, Virginia, could also be found in the archives in Barbados. The problem was that the Barbados records were from St. John’s Parish in Barbados. Mr. Ernest L. Pemberton travelled to Barbados in 1982 to see for himself. And so it was found that these records of John and his sons were correct but incorrectly attributed to the St. John’s Parish of Virginia (both parishes were extant at the time). Other facts proved that this John could not be the same as the one in Virginia. For more details of this research see Pembertons of St. John’s Parishes in Virginia Colony and Barbados written by Ernest.
Percy was not sure about the top end of his work on our Pemberton lineage. I remember his brother saying this while we looked at the 9 generations of my pedigree. James Pemberton’s son John Pemberton and the latter’s wife Frances DeRochelle were the major problem as was their son George X Pemberton. But that stood for 50 years and became part of many pedigrees which still persist on the internet. Then, in 2003, an old scrapbook kept by George M. Pemberton was brought to the attention of family researchers. This old book contains many pages of Pemberton genealogy, including the ancestry of my Isaiah Pemberton, born 27 Dec 1756 in Newberry, South Carolina. Several diligent researchers began to check these old records and found them to be very accurate. John lost his place as my ancestor and was replaced by George Pemberton of Cheshire, England.
This was an intensive and carefully reasoned project as you will see if you visit the website cited below that chronicles their work and reasoning. The primary researcher was Daniel Buckley and he was ably assisted by Dixie Ann Pemberton, a descendent of George M. Pemberton and as of this writing, the Vice-President of the Pemberton Family World Wide organization. Their extensive work can be seen here: http://www.gbso.net/BUC/introduction.htm and the same work is duplicated here: http://pembertonfamily.com/history/buc/introduction.htm. You will find several pages of detailed analysis which prove beyond any reasonable doubt that this old lineage was indeed an error. You can find more information about this line in the Major Family Branches section of this website.
The authors lineage is through this Isaiah Pemberton who married Dr. Hall’s daughter Elizabeth Hall. My entire line is this:
Jackson D. Pemberton, b. 2 Jul 1937
Son of Stanley A Pemberton, b. 1 Aug 1902
Son of Addison J Pemberton, b. 27 Jul 1871
Son of Henry C. Pemberton, b. 11 Jul 1849, and Beulah Roberts Jackson
Son of Jesse Pemberton, b. 27 Feb 1814, and Ruth Peirce
Son of Robert Pemberton, b. 20 Jan 1788, and Eunice Coppock
Son of Isaiah Pemberton, b. 27 Dec 1756, and Esther Coate
Son of Isaiah Pemberton and Elizabeth Hall, b. abt 1722, Virginia Colony
Son of George Pemberton and Elizabeth Brooks, b. abt 1690, Cheshire, England
Son of George Pemberton and Sarah Middleton, abt 1660, Cheshire, England
