Finding Your Relationship to Aaron Burr

Today alone, I have received two different requests from people interested in discovering if and how they might be related to former VP Aaron Burr. Each stated the same reality that I hear over and over: most of us grew up hearing that we were related to the former VP, but we didn't know if it was true or if so, how we were related. While we silently hope we are a close connection, we often tell ourselves that it was probably some distant relationship. The fact is that the closest anyone can be related to THE Aaron Burr is to be a direct descendant of one of his cousins. While Aaron Burr had no surviving heirs, he did have many well-documented first cousins.

If you were descended from anyone who was born with the surname Burr, then the chances are very high that you are related to Aaron Burr somehow. So the question may not not be "if" but "how" are you related. The all important link we need to discover we shall call the "most recent common ancestor."

To start, there is only one way you can be related to VP Aaron Burr and that is as a descendant of one of his cousins. The VP had only one known child (a daughter) to survive into adulthood, and while she had a son, he died at about age 10, leaving the VP with no name-bearing heirs. Then the VPs beloved daughter, Theodosia (truly the apple of his eye) was lost at sea on Dec 31, 1812 or Jan 1, 1813 as her father waited hopelessly for her and for the ship that never arrived. While some believe the ship was lost in a storm, there is evidence to believe that the ship, upon which she carried many of his journals and papers, was instead pirated about the time of the War of 1812.

Before we go farther on the subject of direct descendants, let's put to rest the long-time question about whether or not anyone could be a direct descendant as the result of an illegitimate off-spring of Aaron Burr. The answer is: "No known evidence of any such children has yet been proven credible." There have been rumors that the VP may have had illegitimate children, however, as a co-administrator for the Burr Family DNA project, no such DNA matches or other evidence have yet surfaced. We believe the rumors regarding illegitimate off-spring was part of the other rumors that were generated to further smear Aaron Burr's name. However, while anything could be possible and surprises do happen, the DNA project has been put in place to provide a way for determining one way or the other whether or not anyone claiming to have descended from the former VP can be determined based on any evidence of fact.

Aaron Burr's sister, Sarah Sally Burr, married the distinguished Tappan Reeves. They had one son and one grandson, each of whom died at ages 29 and 20 respectively, leaving no Burr heirs for the VP through his only sister's line.

So, relationship through direct descendancy from a cousin is the only way anyone can be related to the former VP Aaron Burr. I too, like so many others, always heard that I was related but never knew for sure. Imagine the surprise when after much research, I discovered, that  I am not only related to the former VP, but also related as closely as any living person can be, as a first cousin several generations removed. And by the way, if you are related to him, you are related to me, and I just love "Cousin Finding."

So, how do we find out HOW we are all related?

Determining how closely we are related to Aaron Burr requires that we determine how our grand parents are related to their respective parents and grand parents . . . until we arrive at the most recent common ancestor. Numerous options exist, and while I may be able to help link you to some resources, the fact is that I do not have a list of all of Aaron Burr's relatives . . . I sure wish I did.

So let's identify key ancestors in the VP's life. Vice President Aaron.Burr was the son of Rev Aaron Burr who married Esther Edwards, the daughter of Rev Jonathan Edwards (a major leader in the Great Awakening of the 1730s). Rev Aaron Burr also was one of the founders of the College of New Jersey, which today is known as Princeton University. Rev. Aaron Burr was one of either 17 or 18 children. That means that the number of first cousins alone on his father's side was quite large. His mother was one of 11 children, thus further expanding the number of first cousins. The number of his second cousins on both sides was an even larger group.

From about 1800 until much later in the 1800s, many of the VP's first and second cousins named their children Aaron after him. And so did any other branches of Burrs and other relatives including many who descended from one of the other four major Burr immigrants who came to America after 1630 and prior to 1700. While the former VP had some significant political enemies, the fact is that his family knew him much better and loved him dearly. It was an honor to name their children after him. So, do not let the name Aaron Burr get you too excited; the name was quite popular.

Rev. Aaron Burr, one of 17 or 18 children, was the son of Peter Burr (1699-1777), who was the son of Daniel Burr (1660-1727), who was the son of Jehu Burr (1625-1692), who was the son of Jehue Burre (ca.1596-ca.1672). All of these except the immigrant were born in Fairfield County, CT; and all of them except Rev Aaron Burr died in Fairfield County, CT.

We know Aaron Burr's ancestry, but we've got to figure out yours. We now need to focus on your grand parents and earlier. Starting with a grand parent is useful especially if that is alive and can provide further info. Otherwise, people who were alive between the years 1840-1930 have the unique advantage of living in a time when the US census records provide very useful information.

If you know the name of a grand parent or great grand parent who was born before 1930, then you can have access to a method for finding online info about that ancestor that might lead you to more info without you having to visit dusty archives in far away cities. The US Census is a very useful tool. And it is online at ancestry.com for a rather large membership fee. If you do not have a membership, then contact me at bjoycecole@relivinghistoryinc.org and let's go in through my membership to locate some useful info. Otherwise, if you have access to ancestry.com or a full online set of the US Census, then initiate a search for your grand parent or great grand parent whom you believe to have been related to Aaron Burr.

A word on Ancestry.com's Family Trees. DO NOT trust the info in the family trees. The little leaves that pop up are fun to follow, but a word to the wise: those little leaves are almost addicting as they pop up with possible links that others have found. It is so easy to accept one of those links with out verifying the information first. Once you attach an incorrect link, then you are at risk of many incorrect links popping up in the form of inaccurate little leaves. Sometimes the "leaves" are good for clues, but do not accept one as valid documentation until you have personally verified the info. Those neat little leaves far too easily lead people to accepting undocumented often incorrect information that spreads across the internet at unstoppable rates. For this reason, I do not use the family trees in ancestry.com. My advice is to stay away from the trees and focus only on documented info which you can get through their abundant source records in "Search".

So click on "Search". For beginners, your best resource for now will probably be the US Census, which was especially good from 1840 until 1930. The 1940 census will be posted in year 2012. There is no 1890 US census, as most of it was destroyed in a fire in DC. The census did exist as far back as 1790 and is useful for heads of household, but it is very tedious trying to track info on other members of a family.

Next step: In the search box, type in your ancestor's name, birth year, and birth location if you know it. Or give your best guess within a date range. You may only know the year the ancestor died; then use that. The search mechanism needs some kind of criterion for prioritizing the probability of the record you need being near the top.

After clicking on the "Search" button, hundreds (maybe even thousands) of possible entries for your ancestor may come up. Notice that I said "possible" entries. Much depends on what name your ancestor used at the time or whether or not the census taker put it down correctly. Also, some names were popular and may be the same for someone as another person born on the same date. You must look at the information in context with everything on the census record. 

For a person who recently contacted me, I put in her grand father's name and info and launched a search for Aaron Burr, born 1856, Texas . . .
An important clue here is: while she knew very little about her grandfather, she knew the year he was born and the state. She also knew her grandfather's father was from NY and and his grandfather's mother was from GA.
The first search result (which is sometimes not so easy) revealed the following:

1900 United States Federal Census
about Aaron Burr

Name: Aaron Burr Home in 1900: Justice Precinct 1, Dallas, Texas Age: 44 Birth Date: Feb 1856 Birthplace: Texas Race: White Ethnicity: American Gender: Male Relationship to Head of House: Head Father's Birthplace: New York Mother's Birthplace: Georgia Spouse's Name: Mary Marriage year: 1892 Marital Status: Married Years Married: 8 Residence : Justice Precinct 1 (All West of H&C R.R. Excl. Dallas City), Dallas, Texas Occupation: View on Image Neighbors: View others on page Household Members: Name Age Aaron Burr 44 Mary Burr 37 Mary E Burr 5 Maggie L Burr 3 Johanna Burr 1 Walter J Burr 1/12

View Original Record View original image V

This resembles the info she gave me, and could in fact be the census record of her grandparents in 1900. Many questions will surface and hopefully some will be answered. One question for instance arose: this ancestor apparently did not marry until age 36 or so. So was this a second wife or did he in fact not marry until mid 30s? This is the point where family members may have pieces of information. It is also the reason it is difficult and therefore time-consuming and costly for someone else to do the whole search for you. In this case, the process was simple enough and this in fact on first try was the person's grand father. But it isn't the end of her trying to find out how she is related to Aaron Burr. She now needs to follow the leads to her grandfather's parents and their parents. At some point, we need enough info to figure out where this person and VP Aaron Burr shared a most recent common ancestor. That is the key info needed. 

If the first search result had not been a correct link for her, she would have needed to continue looking at the other search results. In fact, she should probably continue anyway, because farther down there might be the census records for 1880, 1870, and 1860 for this particular Aaron Burr, born 1856.

As you identify records that are in fact your family, then open each of the links and write down the info you find there. Genealogists usually use one sheet (a family group record, which you can download) to show family makeup including details about parents and each child. They also use an individual page for each person, in order to record additional info they find on each person through other searches. In time the info comes together and starts identifying who your family members was, how they related, and in general a good glimpse of the family makeup.

While on the census page online, open the "View original image" and increase the size of the document as needed in order to find the original entry for your family. Make note of who your ancestor's neighbors were for each census year. This info could be useful in locating relatives in census years when misspellings of names or other incorrect or difficult to read info makes an entry difficult to find. Through another of my family lines, I have great grandparents with a German name that is spelled a different way in each census. Searches based on their name did not provide useful info. To track their info, I identified several neighbors and looked them up. Then on the "View of the original image" I located my ancestor and continued following the info. Each census year, I found those particular relatives by searching for neighbors with names that were not usually so misspelled. This was only useful because those ancestors did not move around. Also, marriages often occurred among people who knew each other in neighborhoods. It's amazing the kind of clues that surface as you look at neighbors especially back in days when people knew their neighbors.

In addition to census records, the search results at ancestry.com may also give you birth, marriage, draft, and other records. Examine each one that seems to be for a member of your family. Do not "assume" anything to belong to your family member unless something ties the info to known data. You may end up with a stack of documents that you don't know for sure whether or not it is for one of your family members. Then at some point, you'll find a name in a census or somewhere else that will tie in to one of those questionable documents and you'll have made a link. That is the fun of genealogy. And today you have the advantage of much of this info being on the Internet. Locating your ancestor as an adult on a census is helpful in identifying where to look in going backwards. On the original view, you should find where the parents of each person was born. Then you can do a search to find the person as a child in his or her parent's household. Through this process, clues can begin to lead you backward into earlier generations. And do not overlook siblings. Tracking the siblings also helps to identify whether or not you are looking at the right ancestor.

As the person mentioned above was seeking further info to determine how she might be related to Aaron Burr, we discovered that her ancestor's father was from NY. The former VP was from NJ but spent most of his adult life in NY. His ancestry however was from Fairfield, CT which was very close to NY City.

There was also a whole early branch of Burrs who settled in NJ. They were quakers. However, both NJ and NY were very close to Fairfield, CT where all of Aaron Burr's most immediate ancestors and first cousins came from. Those who descended from Jehue Burre (the first Burr immigrant who was also a Puritan who arrived with John Winthrop and became a part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630), will be more closely related to Aaron Burr than those who descended from the other 4 early immigrants. In fact, relationship between the other Burr immigrants is suspected among some of them but not yet proven. DNA results has indicated a strong possibility that there may be no family connection between Aaron Burr's line and those descended from the NJ branch who were Quakers. The other immigrants were Puritans and may still have family connections. About 10 years after arriving in the New World, Jehue Burre was an original founder of what is now Fairfield, CT and most of his next four generations were born there and many of them died there.

To determine your relationship to VP Aaron Burr, we need to identify who your more recent ancestors were and much of this information can best be confirmed by members of your family who hopefully know at least a few bits and pieces. 

Let me know if any of this helps you. After you find more info about your ancestors, I may again be able to help you to some extent, especially if you did in fact descend from Jehue Burre's line.

I descended from Aaron Burr's cousin, Peter Burr, who was born in 1727 in Fairfield Co, CT and migrated to the Colony of VA about 1748. He had 13 children, all born in VA Colony, and he died Jan 20, 1795 long before the area became West Virginia. I am especially interested in locating cousins who share a connection in descendency.

Also, if any of you connect to the Aaron Burr shown above as an example, contact me. I'll be glad to pass the connection on to the person who contacted me today for information.


B Joyce Cole, Founder of Reliving History, Inc. and the Peter Burr Society
See our website at: www.RelivingHistoryInc.org