Several past posts (here’s one) concerned a family named Fitts and Fitz which appears to be related. Was this family simply using a variant spelling of Phips, Fips, Phipps, etc., or was it another family entirely which happened to be related to some of the same people as the Phips family?
Various factors were noted which seem to suggest a relationship. Those factors won’t be recounted here, but among the most significant are the following:
- The family was associated with several families and even specific individuals with which the Phips/Fips family was also associated.
- One of those specific individuals appears to have been Tandy Walker, since John Fips was closely and directly associated with Tandy Walker in Lunenburg in the mid-18th century (1700s), and one of the Fitts family was named Tandy Walker Fitts.
- The 2nd wife of Tandy Walker Fitts is said to have been a Burton – Sarah Burton – and the Burtons directly tie into the Reeves family which was very closely associated with Samuel Phips in Montgomery County, Virginia, then Wilkes County, North Carolina, and then while Samuel was living in Ashe County, North Carolina and his father in law George Reeves in adjacent Grayson County, Virginia. (Reeves married a Burton, and then Samuel Phips 0r Phipps of Ashe County became an heir of George Reeves in Ashe County.)
We noted that this Sarah Burton is said to have been a daughter of Hutchins Burton. Now it appears that, according to unconfirmed information, Tandy Walker Fitts, Sr. and his wife Sarah Burton had a son named Hutchins Burton Fitts.
Hutchins Burton appears to have been a son of John Pleasants Burton and his wife Susannah Stamper. Hutchins appears to have been a brother of the Burton twins, Isom and Eli, who were born in 1807 in Ashe County, North Carolina and who died in Lawrence County, Indiana. Some of the Burtons migrated from Ashe County, North Carolina to Lawrence County, Indiana, as did some of the Phipps family.
Again, John Pleasants Burton married Susannah Stamper. Another Stamper from Ashe County was Frances (“Frankey”) Stamper, who married Jesse Toliver. Jesse Toliver was a Revolutionary War veteran who was born about 1756 in Fauquier County, Virginia according to his own testimony. Samuel Phips of Ashe County, North Carolina testified on behalf of his pension application, and Jesse’s son John fathered Mathursa (“Mathursey”) Toliver, who married Mathew or Matthew Phips who moved from Ashe County, North Carolina to Clay and Owen Counties in Indiana.
The John Pleasants Burton who is said to have fathered Sarah Burton who married Tandy Walker Fitts was supposedly a brother of Jane Burton who married Jane Burton. She married George Reeves, who was the father in law of Samuel Phips. John Pleasants Burton died in the same Lawrence County, Indiana where Phipps family members moved from Ashe County, North Carolina.
John Pleasants Burton’s father Hutchins Burton appears to have had a brother who married a Cocke, which is a family shown multiple times to be associated with the Phips or Phipps family in early southeast Virginia. John Pleasants Burton and John Burton had another brother, Nowell Hunt Burton, who appears to have fathered Josiah Burton, who apparently is the one to whom the Fipps orphans were bound in 1742 in Goochland County, Virginia.
Phipps Genealogy 
I suggest that everyone read the post by the “Legal Genealogist” Judy G. Russell entitled “Stop middling along!” who claims “The reality is that middle names were rare in America before the 19th century.”
I believe that I have posted before the fact that no contemporary record lists a “John Pleasant Burton” -no census, tax, land, court, vital record. The middle name “Pleasant” for John Burton appears to be a more recent addition. It reminds us that we need to consult the primary, contemporary sources when forming conclusions regarding our ancestors.
Pam Brett
That’s one reason that the posts about him noted that the information was based largely on secondary sources rather than primary sources. On the other hand, we have documented middle names involving some Phipps family members who were born in the 18th century, not the 19th.
Although middle names were rare, they did exist as early as the 18th century.
I have an ancestor, Gerard Robert Ellyson, one of several men of that name,
who was mentioned in the Quaker records of several Virginia monthly
meetings from 1706 through the 1740’s. I have viewed copies of the original
minutes at the DAR Library in Washington, DC.
The forebears of Sarah Burton who married Tandy Fitts were Hutchins
Burton (I), born 1694 (family Bible in Library of Virginia) died 1763 per
will probated in Henrico County, Virginia; Hutchins Burton (II) born 1723
(family Bible in LOV) – circa 1801, Mecklenburg Co., Virginia; Hutchins
Burton III born circa 1755, died 1828 (inventory of estate) in Halifax
Co., Virginia. Hutchins Burton signed for his daughter Sarah W. Burton
to marry Tandy Fitts in Halifax Co., Virginia. Tandy Fitts was one of the
purchasers at the sale of the effects of Hutchins Burton (III) in 1828.
In 1850,
some descendants of HBIII filed a suit in Halifax Co., Virginia for sale of his real estate. The names of his children shown in the suit included Sarah Fitts, wife of
Tandy Fitts. Actually, the grandchildren who filed the suit were not familiar with
all of their relatives, particularly those living in other counties/states.
Some sources state that Sarah Burton Fitts died July 21, 1840, and that
in 1841 Tandy Fitts married a third time, to Sarah Sidnor.
I have seen a chart showing a Hutchins Burton as a son of John Pleasant
Burton, but the DOB shown for him was 1798, so he would not be old
enough to be the father of Sarah who married Tandy Fitts.