Thomas JR. Did go to Martha’s Vineyard?
http://www.geocities.ws/jernigan_connection/issue20/index.html
the Jernigan Connection Newsletter, Issue Twenty, April 2000
In 1685 a second patent went out, this time in the name of 'Thomas Jernigan SENIOR," for 330 acres by Somerton Swamp, but a study of the metes and bounds shows that the new 330 acres included the old 250. The "fresh run" was this time identified as Somerton Swamp itself. The use of "senior" shows that eldest Jernigan boy was also a Thomas. On 20 October 1689, a patent (VPB 8:9) was issued to:
3-A. THOMAS JERNIGAN JUNR. of NANSEMOND COUNTY; VA.
The land was 300 acres at Somerton "on a swamp called Back Swamp," to which he was entitled by six headrights, listed as John Harwell [probably Harrell], Margaret Grady, Abraham Jolly, Jno Nottingham, Wm Sandiford and Robt Croome. In 1696, according to Hening's "Statues at Large" [of Virginia], 4:58, "James Doughtie, father of Edward Doughtie, purchased of Thomas Jernegan, son of Thomas Jernigan, the plantation whereon the said Edward now lives, lying on Evans' Creek, in Nansemond County, being part of a patent for 700 acres of land, formerly granted to one Mulford."
Most Jernigan genealogists seem to be agreed that Mulford was the Thomas Mulford who, in 1650, was granted 700 acres in Nansemond "near the head of the Southward Branch of the said [Nansemond] River" -- or maybe his son, whichever of the two had a daughter (and heir) named SARAH.
Thomas Jr. and Sarah had, besides probably several other sons and a decent sprinkling of daughters, three sons on whose names we can reasonably reach agreement. They are Thomas, and David, and William. Deep in my heart is the abiding belief that none of these was the eldest son -- the wistful stay-at-home, the heir, the progenitor of countless Jernegans who STAYED in Nansemond County, and some of whom are still there. This eldest son may be (and I'm only guessing) the GEORGE X JERNIGAN who was with the elder Thomas in Bertie (1734?), witnessing (with a very graceful flowing "G") the deed in which the latter sold the last of the patent "of the said Jernigan" dated 9 March 1717/18 (Bertie deed D"246).
THOMAS JERNIGAN "the mariner" of Martha's Vineyard, MA was born in Nansemond about 1695 and came to the Vineyard in 1712 with Captain Joseph Jenkins. He married Abigail Ripley, by whom he had seven sons and a daughter, of who only two survived him: Sarah (born 1719) and William, (born 1728 shortly after the death of his seafaring father "of a fever" in Jamaica). William became the leading citizen of his generation in Edgartown, and the ancestor of all the Martha's Vineyard Jernegans (with the middle "e", just like back in the Old Country).
In February 1722/3, several shipmates of Thomas, and most likely Thomas himself, came visiting his parents in Nansemond, and his father gave him a remembrance to take home to his family: Thomas Sr. of Nansemond, yeoman, unto son Thomas of New England, mariner, one Negro girl about 17 years old, named Rose. The deed (Edgartown, MA Deeds 3:521) is witnessed by two men from Martha's Vineyard -- Thomas Daggett and William Mackelroy, who was married to young Thomas's wife's sister -- and two Nansemond lads, Stephen Catten and Thomas's brother David Jernigan (his mark "DI", meaning "DJ"). Either or both of the latter may have been shipmates of the others, or may have joined them at this time.
