John Conrad Tapscott

John, 1956

John Conrad Tapscott

26 November 1950 - 29 July 2016

John Conrad (“Tapper”) Tapscott passed away at JFK Medical Center, Edison, New Jersey, Friday morning, 29 July 2016.

Born 26 November 1950 in Terre Haute, Indiana, to Glenn and Mary Emaline Tapscott, John grew up in Denver, Colorado, where his family moved while he was still a baby. There, when less than two years old, he lost his father and was raised by his widowed mother and his five older brothers and sisters.

Wedding photo, 29 May 1971

From 1968 to 1971, John served with the U.S. Army, in Berlin and in Viet Nam. On 29 May 1971, he married Victoria (“Vicki”) Angela Maria Pytell in South Amboy, New Jersey. John and Vicki spent their married lives in New Jersey, where John received BS degrees in Computer Science and in Social Cultural Anthropology from Lawrence College, Rutgers University and worked as a computer analyst. John spent the last ten years of his life living alone, Vicki having passed away 8 Sep 2006, but had an enormous number of friends in the VFW, Moose Lodge, Elks, and American Legion and he remained close to Vicki’s family. Her sister, Kathy, and brother-in-law, Bob McGovern, looked after him during his final days.

John is survived by two brothers, Bob (Mary Frances) of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Bill (Nyla) of Corpus Christi, Texas; by two sisters, Mary Anne McKenzie (Russ) of Lakewood, Colorado, and Margaret Jacot of Westminster, Colorado; by sisters-in-law Elizabeth Tapscott and Kathy (Bob) McGovern of Old Bridge, New Jersey; and by a number of nieces, nephews, great nieces, and great nephews. In addition to his wife, Vicki, he was predeceased by his parents and a brother, Jim.

Services were held Wed 3 Aug 2016 at McCriskin-Gustafson Home for Funerals in South Plainfield, New Jersey. On Fri 5 Aug 2016, John's ashes were interred with Vicki's at Holy Cross Burial Park and Mausoleum, East Brunswick.

John was a Wabash Valley Tapscott, a great great grandson of Henry the Traveler of Clark County, Illinois.

Fauquier County Tapscotts and DNA Testing, Once Again

Classical “paper-trail” genealogy is a challenge when researching the Tapscotts of Fauquier County, Virginia. Most were black or mixed-race descendants of slaves, without good records. And, there were often name changes and births outside of matrimony. Thus, only with the inclusion of unreliable family history and questionable conclusions, can classical methods indicate that the Fauquier County Tapscotts are descended from Henry the Immigrant. This site has proposed the use of autosomal DNA to provide additional evidence of a relationship (see, e.g., Sunday, January 13, 2013; Thursday, March 13, 2014; Sunday, March 30, 2014). Needed has been a DNA match between a descendent of the Fauquier County Tapscotts and a descendant of Henry the Immigrant outside of the Fauquier County group.

We now have not one match, but two. Two separate individuals indicated by classical, though questionable, genealogical research to be descendants of Harriet Tapscott of Fauquier County, great granddaughter of Edney Tapscott, show autosomal DNA matches (one "moderate," one "good") with a descendant of Edney’s son Henry of Caswell County. Paper studies indicate that the matching individuals are 6^th cousins once removed. The DNA-predicted relationship for both is 5^th to 8^th cousin. To protect individual privacy, names are not being released.

    

Is all of this exact proof? Not exactly. The matching descendant of Henry of Caswell is 7 generations from Edney Tapscott, the common link. That person has 126 total parents and grandparents going back to Edney. The ancestral distance from Edney is even greater for the two Fauquier County subjects—8 generations, with 254 ancestors. Thus, there could be non-Tapscott connections between the individuals, though it isn’t likely since the Henry of Caswell line was located geographically far from Fauquier County. Due to the site containing the data and the small number of matches, chromosomal mapping and phasing, which could increase reliability, cannot yet be carried out.

Nevertheless, we can now say that autosomal DNA evidence indicates that the Fauquier County Tapscotts are descended from Edney Tapscott, presumably though his son Ezekiel, grandson James, and great granddaughter Harriet.

The Enigmatic Sweitzers, Chapter 7

In the cemetery at Raisin City, California, a few miles southwest of downtown Fresno, are found four nearly identical, crudely wrought square markers, each bearing a name and the year 1933. One marks the burial of Everett John Sweitzer, eldest son of John W. and Leora (Savoree) Sweitzer, and grandson of George A. and Elizabeth (Tapscott) Sweitzer. The tragic story of the four markers bearing a single year is not for tender ears.

Everett, who spelled and signed his name his name “Evertt” in his younger days, was born in Clark County on 3 Aug 1890. Possibly as a result of having served at stateside military hospital duty during WWI, Everett ended up in California. In 1918 he was working in Fresno County for A. Mattel, a wine maker, and in 1920 he was a farmhand at a Fresno County “grain ranch.”

In 1921, in Fresno, Everett married Elmira Juda (also “Judy”) Sherfey. Born around 1867 in Nebraska to Christopher C. and Mary Catherine Sherfey, Elmira had been married twice before. Around 1885 or 1886 she wedded George E. Goodwater, and the couple farmed in North Dakota. Then in 1902 or 1903 she married William D. York, and the two homesteaded in Colorado. The first marriage, which ended in divorce, produced three children—Eva, Florence, and Walter Edward. The second marriage was childless.

Around 1920 Elmira moved to Fresno County, California, where her father, Christopher, and brothers Robert and Levi were living. There she met and married Everett.

Despite a large difference in age (Elmira was about 23 years older than Everett!), the marriage appeared to be successful. The couple, which operated a small dairy and poultry ranch, was eventually joined by Elmira's son Walter, whose marriage to Pearl E. Christian had disintegrated, and then by Walter’s two girls, Ella Mae and Mary Eunice, who had been living with relatives after their parents’ breakup. And Everett could not have been happier. He loved the girls.

But things were not all that rosy. Everett had financial problems. The ranch was heavily encumbered. And Everett became fanatically religious, filling the small farmhouse with religious calendars and books.

Friday, 22 September 1933 appeared perfectly normal on the Sweitzer ranch. Everett had been working all day and had been joined by Elmira’s brother Robert who helped fix a pump. When Robert met Everett at the ranch house door that evening, he heard Everett say “'I am the only one left alive. You go home and call the coroner.” Instead, the sheriff was summoned.

When deputies arrived at the ranch and confronted Everett, he dashed into the house put a pistol to his head, said “God be with me,” and fired a single shot. Inside the house the deputies found Elmira and her two granddaughters, dead. Notes scattered throughout the home told the story. Elmira, seated in a chair, had been poisoned the preceding day. A note read “My wife dead 2:30 noon September 21st. I poisoned her. I hope and pray she has gone to a better world. I know she was a good woman and is better off.” The two granddaughters, wrapped in a sheet, had been clubbed to death that morning, apparently with a claw hammer. A note declared “Girl's dead 6 A.M. I know they are better off and go to a better place.” Ella was thirteen; Mary was ten.

At a funeral the following Tuesday morning, four coffins, containing the bodies of Elmira, Ella, Mary, and Everett, were placed in the Church of the Brethren in Raisin City. A grief-stricken Walter was present, but the girls' mother, Pearl, said it was impossible for her to attend. Following the service with the sermon “Suffer the Little Children,” the four victims were buried in a single large grave. One of Everett’s notes at the murder scene requested a gravestone for each and this was done though the markers were crude and some names misspelled. The “U.” in Mary’s name apparently stands for “Eunice.” “Switzer” should have been “Sweitzer” and “Everette,” “Everett.”

Everett’s Clark County relatives seemed more concerned with Everett’s property than with his fate. Within days of the multiple killings, Charles Sweitzer wrote the Fresno sheriff asking what was to become of his brother's estate. Notes left by Everett at the scene of the tragedy indicated that Elmira's son Walter Goodwater, father of the murdered girls, was to get the farm. But it was not to be so. Everett left a will giving everything to his wife if she survived him. She, of course, did not, preceding him by a day. Everett’s father, John, and brother, Charles, ended up with the $4,000 estate. Why Everett's sister, Ethel Mae, was not included is unknown.