Gregg Bonner's APPERSON Family
Gregg Bonner's
APPERSON Family
Anna Jutson (Apperson) Smotherman, with her husband, Lewis Smotherman, and their family.

The Duke d'Epernon Connection Nonsense

One can find in many places the assertion that this Apperson family (and related Epperson families) was descended from Bernard Nogaret De La Valette, 2nd Duke d'Epernon. This notion is preposterous, and flies in the face of all historical accounts, is wholly unsupported by documentation, defies known geographic possibility, shows a complete misunderstanding of the mechanism of surname adoption, and doesn't agree with the known genetic evidence, among very many other strikes against it. In short, it is total bunk. If one is interested in finding ones real Apperson ancestry, as opposed to legendary connections to Dukes, Greek Gods and unicorns, one is best to dispense with this "French Connection" junk in its entirety.

The 'Noble line' of Apperson is likely the outcome of fraud attempts in the late 1800s. A common scam then was to inform people of the same surname, or even similar surname that they were the rightful heirs of some vast fortune in Europe unclaimed due to the line being extinguished in Europe. The crook would offer to help the intended victims recover the estate for "a fee". This same scam runs today in emails where someone writes saying that some person working for an oil company in some African country who shares your name died in a car wreck, leaving some fortune. They will help you share the estate if you can help them show the court that you are related to the deceased. Invariably, the next step in the process is for you to send them money to pay court filing costs or whatever.

This fraud attempt was then picked up popularly in the Apperson family (presuming, erroneously, that the claims made were actually true), and promoted in early genealogy books on the family. Even in these works, though, the documentation consists of "grandpa's fireside stories". However, a look at the real records shows that the biography of the Duke was published, and included no mention of the marriage that is central to the claimed Apperson connection. Also, to keep the Apperson-Duke connection narrative going, it requires the Duke to do things in one place, when it is known from historical records that he was elsewhere. Finally, and most obviously, it requires the existence of a certain Alice B. Faudoas. Unfortunately for Apperson researchers who want to believe this "French Connection", this person is a fictitious creation. There was an Antoinette Faudoas, but the dates related to her are impossible to reconcile with the supposed Apperson connection. Solution? Just change her name and dates a little. Problem solved! Too bad it is fantasy.

So the number of general strikes against this theory are, principally:

1. There is no evidence supporting the idea that Alice B. Faudoas exists, because she is a work of fiction.
2. The family lore that existed prior to the fraud attempt and subsequent amateur genealogy publication did not claim French as their ancestry (see below).
3. The genetic evidence shows matching DNA to people in Jutland and across the Baltic from Jutland, and not from interior or southwestern coastal continental Europe (see also, below).

The 1925 Apperson-Chaney Letter describes the origins of the family as being "Dutch", but I believe this mention is an example of the all-too-common mistake of substituting "Dutch" for "Danish". The common Danish name of Jesper lends to the creation of the patronymic name of JESPERSEN (pronounce the "J" like a "Y"). It is this "JESPERSEN" that is derivatized into the surnames we now know as APPERSON, and also EPPERSON. The name Jespersen is fairly common in Denmark and Sweden.

Thanks to Jim for providing the original letter. To contact Jim, e-mail him using the following address:

Now just to take up the genetic aspect. Multiple people deriving from Apperson ancestry have had their single nucleotide polymorphisms from their autosomes and X chromosome analysed. By finding jointly shared segments of matching DNA, one can ascribe particular DNA segments to particular individual ancestors shared in common. Once the descent of particular segments has been identified, one can then compare them to known reference populations, and identify the posterior probability of matching people in those reference populations. One example of one such segment I show here (part of my mother's chromosome 7):

Chromosome 7: 16,814,270 to 37,317,834

By inspection of several such segments, it can be seen that the DNA does not match French populations. It does, however, have an excellent match to Swedish populations. This would be in good agreement with the notions taken from the 1925 Apperson-Chaney letter (see above).

Conclusion: The Apperson origin is in Jutland, or just across the Kattegat from Jutland.
APPERSON Y-DNA TYPE
DYS
3
9
3
3
9
0
3
9
4
3
9
1
3
8
5
a
3
8
5
b
4
2
6
3
8
8
4
3
9
3
8
9
i
3
9
2
3
8
9
ii
4
5
8
4
5
9
a
4
5
9
b
4
5
5
4
5
4
4
4
7
4
3
7
4
4
8
4
4
9
4
6
4
a
4
6
4
b
4
6
4
c
4
6
4
d
Value
12
24
13
10
17
18
11
12
12
14
11
31
15
09
09
11
11
26
14
20
32
14
16
16
16
My Appersons came to America very early - at least as early as the late 1600s. I believe I am descended from the John Apperson who was baptized at St. Peter's Parish Church, New Kent and James City Counties, VA in 1713. He was called in the Parish Register and Vestry Book, "John Apperson, son of John Apperson, Jr." So clearly there were some earlier John Appersons in that family.

My most recent Apperson was Anna Jutson (Apperson) Smotherman, who is known within living memory of my close family members. She can be found in the census records with her father Jacob Aurelious Apperson and mother Rachel Frances (Jones) Apperson. Jacob Aurelious Apperson is the son of John R. Apperson and Eleanor Wilson "Milly" Coleman. This is proved by the death certificate of Jacob Aurelious Apperson. His death certificate states that his parents were "J. A. Apperson" and "Elmar Colman". I am a little surprised at that middle initial of Jacob's father, but I am quite confident that these are the same people. The Coleman line is known back to Mobjack Bay, circa 1630 or so. I think it is the Coleman records which will show John R. Apperson's father to be Jacob Apperson and Elizabeth, said to have been a BEVERLY. So now I am trying to prove that link. Maybe there I will discover why Jacob Aurelious Apperson's death certificate says "J. A. Apperson" as father instead of "J. R. Apperson". My Apperson family appears to have been in New Kent Co., VA, and then later in Cumberland and Buckingham Counties, VA., and then in Tennessee, and then Logan County, KY, and finally in Oklahoma.

Death certificate of my g3-grandpa, Jacob Aurelius Apperson
Gravestone of Jacob Aurelius Apperson
Home in Oklahoma
This picture appears to show the following, left to right:
Charlie Smothermon, Clyde Smothermon, Ruby Smothermon, Anna J. Smothermon, and Lewis Smothermon.
Please see also the BIBLE section of this site. I have added a transcription and images of an old family Bible which mentions several APPERSONs, and related persons.
Last update: 01 October 2013