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Mary Counsilor
1578 - 1625 (47 years)
My bad Madison data
An explanation and apology
My family tree database contains 60 people with the surname Madison who are descendants of Issac Madison (1509-1624, at least purportedly), who was the 3rd grandfather of
- President James Madison and his 2nd cousin,
- My 5th great-grandmother Catherine Madison (1754-1818)
But I am extrememly disappointed in the quality of my Madison data, as I have encountered a great number of poorly documented events (including birth and death dates and places), and a great deal of conflicting data.
I am quite confident about
- The fairly robust data I have on the aforementioned Catherine Madison, who was widowed twice (and had had 3 children) by the time she was 22, and who then married my 5th great grandfather William Arbucle by whom she had 9 8 children, mostly born in Mason County, (now) West Virginia,
- The even more robust data I have on her father Humphrey Madison, who was killed at age 26 while on duty with the Virginia Militia,
- The fact that Humphrey Madison's father was Thomas Madison, brother of Ambrose Madison, the grandfather of President Madison,
- The little data that I have bothered to collect on President Madison, his parents and Madison grandparents, and his fairly well-known siblings and direct aunts and uncles, and, finally,
- The names and relationships among most of my Madisons.
This lack of good data is all the more frustrating because President Madison himself compiled a familty tree based largely on a family Bible. But even though a family Bible should be one of the best sources of 17th and 18th century data, that Bible doesn't cover quite enough of my Madisons, and some of its data appears to conflict with other well-documented events.
Parenthetically, I have not tried to bring any Madison lines below President Madison's generation, except for the descendants of Catherine, none of whom carry the Madison surname.
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