PACE-L Archives

From: "Seamas" <>
Subject: [PACE-L] Gordon Pace and the Boykins
Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 13:37:25 -0400

Hello Gordon! Seems to me I have come across your name before in the course of hunting down my Pace ancestors. Would it have been at the Pace network site? Very good to meet you. Thank you for your detailed e-mail on the Boykin component in my Pace lineage. The Boykins certainly are confusing! However, after examining what you sent me, it now suddenly seems clear to me that the confusion among earlier researchers about the Boykin spouses in my line may have been somewhat self-imposed. That is to say, perhaps past researchers had a reluctance, albeit unconsciously, to accept the possibility that both the wife of Thomas Pace AND the wife of his son Nathaniel Pace could have been Boykins. Perhaps they thought it illogical, or improbable, or that it carried with it some stigma brought about by the possibility of cousins marrying.. But it really makes a lot of sense. In another branch of my family tree, where the people were fairly well-off and from a rather illustrious b!
ackground, (namely the Hintons and Hammonds,) cousins repeatedly intermarried, not out of ignorance, but rather out of what I would theorize was then a somewhat common practice. There was, sometimes, the desire to see to it that offspring marry people of equal, or ''higher'' social standing. Alternately, there was sometimes a desire to see to it that a family's wealth remain within the family. So, marriages were often arranged for consolidation of power as much as for other, normal reasons, such as continuation of the family name. In my Pace/Boykin line ( as well as my Hinton/Hammond lines), the frequent practice of naming children after their ancestors, often using family first names and surnames for several successive generations, just seems to bear out the high regard our ancestors gave to family alliances. Wouldn't you agree?, In short, the tentative family tree you gave me makes perfect sense- even if everything hasn't yet been perfectly proven. . Mildred Boykin Pac!
e and Amy Boykin Pace could easily have been second cousins.(And of course all of the above doesn't rule out plain old love and geography as other reasons for cousins marrying! ) Didn't mean to give a lecture, Gordon. Very interesting news about the DNA testing. You do a very good job of administering this list. Thank you both for that, and for the data on the Boykins. Sincerely, Jim Doherty

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• [PACE-L] Gordon Pace and the Boykins by "Seamas" <>