All who have engaged in genealogical research are aware that genealogy is not an exact science and without casting aspersions on any individual or group it will suffice to say that the spectrum of genealogical facts runs from provable to totally fictitious. In some respects genealogy is like religion; many points can not be proven but must be taken on faith and there are degrees of faith. Some are convinced alleged data is a fact if that data fits their theory of what was. We all have theories. The notion that FRANCIS FOY was the, first FOY in our ancestry to come to the new world in the 1600s is, at best, a theory.

Many FOY researchers have run across the name FRANCIS FOY. The popular belief is that FRANCIS FOY, or his immediate family, fled Normandy France during the Huguenot persecution and traveled to Yorkshire, England. There FRANCIS married SERENA MILES and together they came to the New World where they had several children, one of whom was named THOMAS. THOMAS moved from Baltimore County Maryland to North Carolina. He raised several sons in that region. Most of us can trace our roots to one of those sons.

But, where is the name FRANCIS found in FOY research? What is the case for or against the existence of FRANCIS. Certainly THOMAS had to have a father and a mother but were they FRANCIS FOY and SERENA MILES?

Concerning early FOY beliefs regarding the first FOY to America, a genealogist researching the FOYs will run across a letter written February 3, 1891 by FRANKLIN FOY to CLAUDIUS E. FOY. (The existence of each of these FOYs and their descendants can be established.) FRANKLIN tells CLAUDIUS in this letter:

"I thought to have complied with your request before this but have been in bed with LaGrippe, and did not get the idea from your letter that you wanted it right away, and knowing it to be a matter that could not be written up in a hurry, I have been a little careless perhaps, which I hope will not give you any trouble and that you will excuse me with apology and I will give you the facts as I have received them. "Our ancestor, JOHN FOY, came to this country from France during the persecution of the Huguenots, and it seems he came alone, so far as we know, of the name, which is a matter of history - but in company with others fleeing for the same cause. Among the families that came over was a family by the name of MILES, who settled in Maryland. He, JOHN FOY, came down here and settled on Rocky Run and went back to Maryland and married MISS SERENA MILES who came from France with him. They came and lived just up the hill to the left of the road coming this way from New Bern, where they raised a large family of children, five boys, I think there were, they died and were buried under a bunch of cedars near the main roads. Among the boys names were PETER, THOMAS, JACOB, FREDERICK and JAMES. The last named was my grandfather, who settled on New River, Onslow County, NC, a place called Sugar Maple. He married, as well I recollect, a MISS WARD by whom he raised JOSHUA, FREDERICK, ENOCH, MORRIS, LOUIS, PETER, JOSEPH,, JAMES and two daughters, ELIZABETH and SERENA. ENOCH was my father. "Grandfather JAMES FOY served in the Revolution and was in the battle at Moore's Creek. I have heard it said that it was he who shot and killed the British Of ficer whose death caused the Americans to gain the battle."

Note there is no mention of FRANCIS FOY. According to FRANKLIN FOY, JOHN FOY was the FOY who came to the New World from France and married SERENA MILES. Where did FRANKLIN get his information? We do not know.

Later, in a letter of his own, CLAUDIUS FOY writes to another FOY relative, and says he believes the first FOY to come to America from England was THOMAS FOY. He either did not believe FRANKLIN was correct or had found some information to refute what FRANKLIN believed to be true.

AMOS SIMMONS FOY. the son of FREDERICK FOY, JR, recorded in his family's Bible:

"My great grandfather was from France, he married an English lady in Yorkshire, England. He was the one who settled, what is termed, the French Huguenot settlement on Trent River, North Carolina. His location was at Rocky Run, two and half miles from New Bern, in that state, hard by which place I was born."

NANCY FOY ARCHER, a descendant of AMOS and one of the contributing researchers in this effort, has that Bible in her possession.

There are other versions found in FOY letters regarding who came from where first. Most versions mention France and the Huguenots, passing through England, etc. One version claims there were actually three brothers named JAMES, JOHN, and FREDERICK (no FRANCIS) that came to America from France. This claim says the mother of these three boys had the maiden name MILES. The father's name is not mentioned.

Now, how and where did the name FRANCIS come into FOY history? There is no mention of him in any of the FOY's early writings.

In a 1983 a publication called The Heritage of Onslow County (North Carolina), which has short biographies of individuals and families who lived in Onslow County, there is a write up by ROGER KAMMERER about FRANCIS FOY on page 145. KAMMERER wrote about several of the FOYs from that area and apparently had a great deal of information about them. He cites as his references family notes, Craven County deed books, Craven County court minutes and Records of Jones County, by Zae Hargett Gwynn.

KRAMMERER says about FRANCIS FOY:

"FRANCES FOY, a native of Normandy, was the direct ancestor of the Onslow County FOYS. FRANCIS FOY was a French Huguenot who traveled from France to England to escape persecution. He was married in Yorkshire, England, to SERENA MILES. FRANCIS FOY indentured himself to gain passage to America, settling in Baltimore County, Maryland about 1673. Their known children were: MARY FOY, PETER FOY, MILES FOY (1675-1751), JOSHUA FOY and THOMAS FOY, SR."

From where did KRAMMERER get his information about FRANCIS? Consider this: In 1935 BYRON CECIL FOY, who was born in Texas and who married THELMA IRENE CHRYSLER, the daughter of WALTER P. CHRYSLER, head of the Chrysler Automobile company, commissioned the Research Department of the American Historical Society (AHS) in New York to do some research on the FOYS. Segments of that research report, published in 1938, appear in most every research project on the FOYs in existence. Portions of it appear in probably the most famous and complete work on the FOYS, that of MARY B. JACOBS.

The AHS report claims one of the first Maryland State records containing the name FOY is a record in the Maryland Assembly, 1682 sessions, wherein it is ordered paid "To FRANCIS FOYE ten pounds of tobacco" (tobacco then being commonly used as currency). The report continues in its discussion about other records mentioning the name FRANCIS. However, it points out there is a problem with that name in that there is a masculine and a feminine spelling; i.e. FRANCIS (masculine) and FRANCES (feminine). In many of the records it is clear the spellings have been confused. Some, or all of the records cited could have referred to a woman named FRANCES who was married to several men, one of whom was a MILES FOY.

The AHS report states, after mentioning the above noted FOY family traditions, the obscure records in Maryland and the problem involving the spelling of FRANCIS: "It is quite possible that the original FOY settler in Maryland was FRANCIS, and it was he who married a MISS MILES and they were the parents of MILES FOY."

That's it. That's their theory without further documentation. That is the first and only mention of the name FRANCIS as the possible first FOY in America we have found so far. There were and are other references in early records to the name FRANCIS FOY, mostly military records, but none connect that name to the established FOY line which begins with THOMAS FOY. Those who have done extensive research regarding the early FOYs have found other problems in the AHS manuscript which will not be addressed here.

Now, I want to tell you a personal story about researching the name FRANCIS FOY in England. Every once in a while a researcher will run across totally fictitious records. It happened to me.

Being naive about genealogical research and not being satisfied with the quality of records I was finding regarding the early FOYs in the United States, I decided I would do something other FOY researchers had not done.

In a major genealogical magazine, EVERTON'S GENEALOGICAL HELPER, I found an ad for a genealogical researcher in Yorkshire, England. I corresponded with this member of the Association of Genealogist and Record Agents in England about the FOYs and he immediately went to work. This individual had vast experience and references. Almost immediately he found a record in the International Genealogical Index (IGI) for Yorkshire, England which referenced SERENA MILES and FRANCIS FOY. This record indicated SERENA MILES (born about 1648) and FRANCIS FOY had been married in Yorkshire in 1669.

The mystery of FRANCIS FOY was solved, RIGHT? - WRONG.

Encouraged and happy my researcher continued his search and, as far as I am concerned did an excellent and thorough job of it. But, he found nothing. Nothing in any other record in that and surrounding counties regarding FRANCIS FOY and SERENA MILES; lots of FOYs but no FRANCIS or SERENA.

Now, the English are nice people but they do not work for free just as we do not and this search was costing me hundreds of dollars. So, I asked him to go back to the entry he had found in the IGI and track down its origin. He did. It turns out the entry he had found in the official English IGI record was made in 1992, not from records of the 1600s. My researcher obtained the reference numbers SGEOR, batch F509580, Sheet 14, Source 1553416 and sent it to me.

For those of you who do not recognize those reference numbers, those are reference numbers for microfilm records in the Mormon Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. I sent for those records and received thirty eight pages of incomplete, inconsistent and inaccurate data regarding FOYs and their alleged descendants beginning in England in the 1600s and ending in the 1900s in North Carolina.

I contacted the person who had sent those records to the Mormon Library and she admitted she had personally entered the FRANCES/SERENA data into the IGI record in England as a part of a religious ordinance record keeping system regarding her relatives. She had obtained the information from a relative in North Carolina. No documentation, no sources; another dead end for FRANCIS.

I once had a physics professor who cited an interesting example of perpetual motion; a self sucking cow. Think on that a while.

Like that cow we went full circle in our search for fact. We went from a theory by the AHS that FRANCIS FOY married SERENA MILES in Yorkshire, England and came to America to an official record in England that such a marriage took place to the fact that the information used to establish that English record actually came from the AHS theory we started with in the beginning.

I am confident there are errors and incomplete and inaccurate information in data on my FOY relatives I have collected over the years. However, we have made and intend to make every effort to include only verifiable information in this FOY data base.

With that in mind it may be decided to include FRANCIS and SERENA in this FOY data base simply because they are a possibility and do fit one theory of the identity of THOMAS FOY's parents and many researchers have run across those names. However, there is no record of them in old FOY documents and no proof or record yet found that they even existed.

Such is the case for and against FRANCIS FOY. The jury is still out. Perhaps somewhere someone has more evidence.

Submitted by Dick Miller
November, 1998

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