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| This land transaction shows the only record of John's occupation, a planter. [1] |
I first
started researching the Giddens family in 1998. My mother's mother, Edith
Giddens, was a descendant of Mitchell Giddens, the youngest son of John Giddens
and his wife, Sarah.
Much documented and undocumented information is found when searching for John Giddens on genealogy websites. In this post, I will highlight some of the conflicts and some of the many documents that tell about John and his family.
John
Giddens vs. John Jacob Giddens
When John died in 1802, he had at least 1000 acres of land and a large inventory of other items, as well as a wife and eight children.[2] John's name can be found in many records both before and after his death. In all records I have seen, his name is written with no middle name or initial.
Sometime in the last decade, his name began to appear as John Jacob Giddens in family trees at Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, and other sites. In October 2021, there were 162 trees at Ancestry for this John Giddens, father of Mitchell and other children. John Giddens is his name in 90 trees and John Jacob Giddens in 72 trees. In those 72 trees, there were no documents showing that his name was John Jacob Giddens.[3]
