Fuqua, Martha

Abt 1829 -

• Name	Fuqua, Martha
  Birth	Abt 1829	Caswell County, North Carolina
  Gender	Female
  Reference Number	25265
  Person ID	I24784	Caswell County
  Last Modified	23 Sep 2023

  
  

  Mother	Fuqua, Mary,   b. Abt 1798, Virginia
  Relationship	natural
  Reference Number	323791
  Family ID	F2428	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Event Map		Birth - Abt 1829 - Caswell County, North Carolina  = Link to Google Earth
  Pin Legend	: Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  
  

• Notes

  ". . . There are issues related to the Fuqua line that are troubling. The parents of William Fuqua (m. Frankie Dunivant, 1792) are not known, although he is in the generation of the great-grandchildren of Guillaume Fouquet. He lived most of his married life in rural Caswell County, North Carolina. There is no record of land ownership so he may have been a sharecropper, supporting the family legend that we descend from sharecroppers. His daughter, Mary Fuqua, never married and had several out-of-wedlock children, the first at the age of twelve. Several of her daughters had out-of-wedlock children, including Fannie (Frances) who never married. This means that for two generations from 150 to 200 years ago, fatherhood was not identified and the family name was maintained by females. Even though this is not what you want to find when you research for ancestors, you must acknowledge that it is history and should appreciate the progress that has been made in the family over the last 150 years. It seems apparent that Fannie's second son, John Henry (my great-grandfather), started to upgrade the family genetically when he married Henrietta Brooks, a physician's daughter, probably the first literate person in the family. The generations that have followed in my line seem to have continued this upgrade through marriage, although I doubt that these were pragmatic decisions. It was Henrietta who changed the spelling of our name to Fuquay, perhaps to start a new genetic line. She may have instilled in the family an appreciation for the value of education. Both of her sons were literate. Two of her grandchildren earned college degrees (including my father) as did at least seven of her great-grandchildren with one earning a law degree and another a Ph.D. We never heard much about Henrietta when I was growing up, perhaps because she died before most of her grandchildren were born, but I believe that she is due a great deal of credit for the progress that has been made in the family over the last 125 years."