The Missing Seaton - William Winston Seaton's Lineage
Author Edward Seaton of America
My research into the “missing link” connecting our family to the Setons of Scotland has led me to conclude that, as my great-grandfather Oren A. Seaton speculated in his family history, we are descended from John Seton, who came to Virginia in 1635 and was the first Seton (variously spelled “Seaton, etc.”) in America. As recorded in the Public Record Office, London (E157/20), he sailed from that city August 7, 1635 on the ship “Globe.” He was the sixth son of Sir David Seton, 7th Baron of Parbroath, Fife, Scotland.
With the exception of John Seton in 1635, no other Seton (or Seaton) came to North America from Scotland in the 17th Century, according to the extensive listings from ship manifests in David Dobson’s two books, The Original Scots Colonists of Early America 1612-1783 and Scots on the Chesapeake 1607-1830.
The lineage chart accompanying this report is based on this conclusion. It shows our line of descent from a Norman refugee who went to Scotland at the time of William the Conqueror, Saher de Seton, to the current living generations. While my other evidence for our “missing link” is in large measure the disproving other suggested possibilities, it also points to the conclusion I have reached.
I received invaluable help in my research from Diane Baptie, a professional researcher and author in Edinburgh who specializes in the early period in question. Mrs. Baptie not only knows where to find the records, she is able to decipher both the handwriting and use of language in those arcane 17th Century documents. She also efficiently followed up leads Karen and I ran across during our recent visit to Edinburgh.
The mystery about our link to the Scots stems primarily from an 1871 biographical sketch written by his daughter of our relative William Winston Seaton, the famous 19th century editor of the first and long-influential Washington D.C. newspaper, National Intelligencer. She makes the unqualified statement that our line descended from Sir John Seton, 1st Bart of Garlton. She cites no authority, but says his son Henry “sought refuge” in Virginia from Scotland in 1690.
At issue is the parentage of our direct-line ancestor, Henry Seaton, who was known to be in Gloucester County, Virginia, on the Piankatank River in 1690. We have a precise record of his descendents, but who was his father? While other family genealogists, including Oren A. Seaton and Monsignor Robert Seton in their respective books on the family, believed we are descendants of another line stemming from Sir David Seton of Parbroath, W.W. Seaton’s daughter can’t be dismissed lightly because her father was just three generations removed from Henry Seton, his great-grandfather.
Additional confusion stems from a lineage chart for the Parbroath Setons now on the World Wide Web, under supervision of Canadian genealogist Kenneth R. Seton, at www.thesetonfamily.com. While it agrees with the two authors of books on the family that Henry was the great-grandson of Sir David of Parbroath, it says he emigrated to Virginia from Scotland in 1690 and was the son of a John Seton and grandson of Captain David Seton. Captain David Seton was the fifth son of Sir David Seton of Parbroath. The two family book authors hold that Henry was rather the grandson of the John Seton who came to America in 1635 and was Sir David’s sixth son. This view maintains Henry was the son of George Seaton, the latter John’s son who played a somewhat prominent role in 17th Century Virginia history.
The confusion and mystery would be easily resolved if good birth and death records were available for that period of Virginia history. Unfortunately, that archive was destroyed by fire in the American Civil War. As a result, I turned to Mrs. Baptie to research records in Scotland. With only a half hour of work, she proved the assertion of W.W. Seaton’s biographer wrong. Sir John Seton of Garleton had 10 children – none named Henry. A copy of her report with his children’s names and citations is attached.
Addressing the theory reported on Kenneth Seton’s website proved more time-consuming, but after researching various records, including financial transactions, of Captain David Seton, Mrs. Baptie learned he had only one son, David. For a while we theorized perhaps Kenneth Seton’s Parbroath descent listing had simply missed a generation and that this son was the father of John Seton, in turn the father of Henry. But through extensive research she could find no record of the son, David, or any offspring beyond 1662. She found no evidence that he married or had children. In addition, she examined a little-known two-volume history, The House of Seton, published by Sir Bruce Gordon Seton in Edinburgh in 1941. It lists the son of Captain David Seton as “died without issue.” Mrs. Baptie’s reports with citations are attached.
The “missing link” therefore comes back to the Seton who came to America in 1635, John, the son of Sir David Seton of Parbroath. Little is known of his life in America except that he settled in Gloucester County, Virginia. His departure for America likely was related to the fact that by 1633 his oldest brother, George Seton, the 8th and Last Baron of Parbroath, had fallen from high estate and was forced to sell the vast Barony of Parbroath.
There are references in Virginia records that survive mentioning George Seaton, presumably John’s son and Henry’s father. From Oren A. Seaton’s book and from investigations Karen and I made at the Gloucester Library in Gloucester, Virginia, we know that he amassed considerable property from operating a ferry on the Piankatank River, which continued to be operated by the Seaton family well into the 18th Century. In Virginia Colonial Records 1600-1700, Cavaliers and Pioneers, there are numerous land grants to him for the transport of people. In 1662 he obtained a patent for 6,000 acres on the Potomac in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He later served as a Justice of the Peace of Gloucester County and took part with the insurgents in Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. In a will dated 1682, he is listed as dead.