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Ned,
I am very confused as to what you are stating. My MRCA was 32 and John Fleming Polk was 12, so we are 20 generations apart. Now John F. and Alonzo Q. Polk were 3 generations apart, which none of us can explain. Were you actually referring to the difference between John F. and Alonzo vs. John F. and Me? I hope the 67 marker test I have taken with FTDNA does come up with a difference between John F. and me that means we do have a more recent common ancestor, but 20 generations is a BIG difference and I have my doubts as to whether the 67 marker test will bridge the gap.
You posted some information about Spratt. I would suggest that you be very skeptical about information you find in publication around Mecklenburg about the Spratts and the Polks. Those folks have relied on traditional stories for a long time and some of the published info is not true. Below find one of the better sources and what it states:
"Thomas Dryden Spratts Recollections of His Family," July, 1878, Univ. of NC, Charlotte, Spratt Family Papers 1835-1988, Manuscript Collection No. 140.
Thomas Spratt, the ancestor of a family by that name in this country, removed from County Down in North Ireland about the year 1730. He came over in the flood of that Scotch Irish emigration which rolled hitherward about that time and shortly after, and settled in the central part of the Carolinas.
He landed at Philadelphia and settled first in the south central although then the western part of Pennsylvania, on a creek called Conococheague (Con-o-co-chig), a stream which rises just north of Chambersburg. Pa., then flows for some seventy or eighty miles and empties into the Potomac at Williamsport Maryland, not far from the famous battleground of Antietam or Sharpsburg. It drains a fertile valley some thirty miles wide. [BILL POLK ADDITION: I note that this creek is the same one where Charles Polke, the Indian Trader settled].
How long he tarried in that locality is not now known, but not many years. He soon wended his way southward and was the first man to cross the Yadkin River in North Carolina in a wheeled vehicle.
Anne Barnette the grand-daughter of Thomas Spratt was the first white child born between the Yadkin and the Catawba Rivers.
He settled on Rocky River in what was then Anson County, N.C. for a short time and then moved to what soon afterwards became Mecklenburg County, N. C. on some spot now embraced within the corporate limits of the city of Charlotte. He built there, and when the county was established in 1762, his house was used as the seat of the first Court held in Mecklenburg County. This fact I have often heard the old people affirm and it is recorded in Foote's Notes of North Carolina. - I do not know that anyone now living could identify the exact locality but if so it would be a pleasing task to some descendants today to contemplate the situation and contrast the present surroundings with the imaginary or probable appearance of the olden times.
(A marker was erected at Charlotte, N.C., in 1928, on the site of Thomas Spratt's house, by the D.A.R. of Charlotte, which bears his name. It is located about six blocks south of Tyron Street. - Francis Killian Spratt, son of Barnett M. Spratt and grandson of the writer.)
This old pioneer and progenitor of our Spratt family is buried, I am told, in a grave east of Charlotte and in the vicinity probably within its present corporate limits. The graveyard is situated on the place, I believe belonging to the estate of the late Maj. Morrow, premises of Colonel Thomas Polk of Revolutionary fame. I have heard, and hope it is not exactly the truth, that Col. Polk cheated my grandfather, Thos. (Kanawha) Spratt, out of the land or got it for a paltry consideration. However, this statement may be from a post-appraisal made over a half century later.
It is certainly much to be regretted that the dates of so many of the circumstances and events connected with the family were not recorded or if so lost. The date of the first settlement of Charlotte at or near the time of my grandfather's removal from there is not known, certainly to the writer.
My grandfather, Thomas Spratt, was born on the ocean during the voyage to America. His age on his tombstone is set down at seventy six and he died July 21, 1807. From these dates I infer that the time of emigration was in 1731, the year before the birth of General Washington. He was the only son and the eighth and last of the children.
The names, relative ages, marriages, and number of children of all these were once given to the writer by old Mrs. Susannah Barnette Smartt. He wrote them down but the paper now containing the record is lost. Although some of the minor details are now forgotten the principal circumstances and characteristics are distinctly remembered.
The pioneer, Thomas Spratt, married Mary Clark, (Widow). The names of their children and order of their ages are as follows, as nearly as I can now recollect: Mary, Ann, Susan, Elizabeth, Martha, Jane, Rachel or Rebecca (not distinctly remembered which), and last, Thomas.
Mary or "Patsy" and Ann both married Barnetts, Thomas and John; --- Susan married Col. Tom Polk of Charlotte; --- Elizabeth married Robert Leiper; --- Martha married Captain Thomas McNeal; --- Jane married Colonel Thomas Neel, ... Rachel married a man named Taylor. They all left off-springs. The number and names of the off-spring of all the girls were given by Aunt Smartt to the writer and he regrets that the record cannot be found.
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Bill Polk, Kansas City, MO.
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