My Maternal Line: Jesse Freeman, Nancy F. Price, and the mtDNA H1a131 Thread That Runs from Sweden to the Appalachian Backcountry to Me
** I want to say this is not 100% fleshed out but I am fairly confident we have this mtDNA line right. Future testing may change this but I am confident enough at this point to say what I am saying here with that provision. If anyone thinks it goes another way I will listen and correct as always. **
Most of what I write on this blog is about the Y chromosome — the paternal Freeman line, Q-BZ2738, the Native American story carried father to son across the Appalachian backcountry. But DNA passes down both sides, and the middle, yet the maternal line has its own story to tell. This post is about that other thread: the mitochondrial DNA I carry from my mother, her mother, and all the mothers before them — a line that loops back, unexpectedly, to the Freeman family itself, and further back still to a small iron-mining parish in central Sweden. A line that ends in me as I am a male and did not pass it to my sons. But my sisters granddaughter and others carry it on still.
My mtDNA haplogroup is H1a131. I know this haplogroup is real and traceable because I have an exact full-sequence match to a man today in Sweden, whose maternal line has never left Sweden. His earliest known maternal ancestor is Karin Nilsdotter, born 1713 in Ramsberg, Örebro County, Sweden — a tiny parish in the historic Närke province, a region whose economy for centuries revolved around iron mining and smelting in the forests of central Sweden. Henrik's family stayed. My line left — at some point a woman's daughters carrying this exact same mitochondrial signature moved west, crossed the Atlantic, made their way into the colonial Carolinas, and eventually her H1a131 DNA passed down through a Price daughter named Nancy who married a Freeman on the Appalachian frontier. We think the DNA connecting me to a Swedish iron-mining community in 1713 is identical to the DNA Nancy F. Price carried when she stood in Lincoln County, North Carolina in the 1790s to marry Jesse Freeman.
That is what mitochondrial DNA does: it holds still while everything else in the world moves around it.
The Surprise: My Maternal Line Also Leads to a Freeman
My maternal line does not carry the Freeman surname — it runs through Clarks, Roses, Dellingers, and Harrisons by the time it reaches me. But trace it back far enough and it lands squarely on Jesse Freeman, son of Aaron Freeman Sr. (b.1745) — a man whose family sits at the heart of this entire research project. To be precise about how Aaron connects to my Y-DNA line: I do not descend from Aaron Sr. on the paternal side. My Y chromosome comes down through John Freeman (b.~1755), who was approximately Aaron Sr.'s 3rd to 4th cousin. Both men share a common Q-BZ2738 ancestor estimated to around 1620 — meaning their paternal lines had already been separate for well over a century before either of them was born. They are cousins in the Q-BZ2738 network, not father and son. What makes this post remarkable is that while my Y-DNA connects me to John Freeman's line, my maternal mtDNA connects me to Aaron Sr.'s family through Jesse — meaning both branches of the broader Q-BZ2738 Freeman cousin network flow into me, just through completely different biological pathways. Jesse Freeman is my 5th great-grandfather on my maternal line. His wife, Nancy F. Price (b.1776), is my 5th great-grandmother — and it is her mitochondrial DNA, haplogroup H1a131, that has passed unbroken mother to daughter down to me.
My two lines — paternal and maternal — both connect to the broader Q-BZ2738 Freeman cousin network, just through different men on different branches. The Y chromosome came down through John Freeman's line. The mtDNA came down through a daughter-in-law who married a son of John's cousin Aaron Sr. Whether that is coincidence of geography or something more is a question worth sitting with.
Jesse Freeman (1772 – 1845) and Nancy F. Price (b.1776)
Jesse Freeman was born in 1772, almost certainly in Rowan County, North Carolina, as a son of Aaron Freeman Sr. (b.1745, Chowan Co., NC) and Mary Bentley. He married Nancy F. Price in Lincoln County, North Carolina — a county that directly borders old Rowan. The marriage bond lists Philip Price as entering the agreement alongside Jesse, identifying Philip as Nancy's father and placing the Price family firmly in the Rowan/Lincoln County orbit of the late 1790s.
From Rowan the family moved briefly into Rutherford County, North Carolina, then pushed further west into the Turkey Creek and Sandy Mush watershed of Buncombe County around 1803. By the 1810 census Jesse Freeman is documented in the Sandy Mush Indian settlement of Buncombe County — a community that, as we have covered extensively on this blog, was home to several Freeman families including Jesse's father Aaron Sr. himself, who died in Buncombe County in 1825.
A significant land record places Jesse firmly in this community. A 9 October 1827 land entry (#2440) for Zachariah Candler — who is known from other records to have purchased land from Aaron Freeman Jr. — describes land in Buncombe County in the forks of Sandy Mush and Turkey Creeks, adjoining property connected to Thomas Harrison, Thomas Freeman, Jesse Freeman, Loring Hall, Walton, McEntire, John Dillard, William Hunter, and Joseph Wilson. This single document is invaluable: it places Jesse Freeman as a neighbor of a Harrison family in exactly the community where his daughter Frances is believed to have married a Benjamin Harrison, and it shows the Freeman and Harrison families already sharing the same tight geographic footprint by 1827.
Jesse Freeman died in 1845. Some records list his death in Burke County rather than Buncombe — a detail that may reflect a late-life move or simply a recording inconsistency, and one worth clarifying with primary sources. No will has yet been located.
The Children of Jesse Freeman and Nancy Price: What We Know and What We Need
Jesse and Nancy's children are only partially documented, largely because courthouse fires during the Civil War destroyed much of Buncombe and Burke County's early records when Stoneman's Raiders burned the Burke County courthouse. What we can currently piece together:
Frances F. (Fanny) Freeman — born 1797, died 1859 — believed to be a daughter of Jesse and Nancy, and the maternal ancestor in my direct line (see below). DNA matches are tracking to her line.
Silas Freeman — a son believed to be living in the Sandy Mush area, though documentary confirmation is still being sought.
At least two other children suggested by DNA match patterns — one possibly named Nancy, and one unknown son.
Our researcher Kim Archer has a book she is reviewing for the Newfound Baptist Church records through 1865, which may name Jesse's family members directly. A will, probate record, or grave location for Jesse Freeman would be transformative for this line — if you have any leads, please reach out.
Frances F. Freeman (1797–1859) and Benjamin Harrison (b.1798)
The critical but still-unconfirmed link in this chain is the marriage of Frances F. Freeman to Benjamin Harrison. The record loss in Buncombe and Burke counties makes direct documentation of this marriage extremely difficult to confirm through paper alone — which is exactly why the DNA evidence matters so much here.
What the documentary record does strongly suggest is that a Benjamin Harrison from the French Broad River / Sandy Mush / Turkey Creek area of Buncombe County — a region populated by multiple Harrison families by 1800, including a Thomas Harrison, Nathaniel Harrison, John Harrison, and others — married into the Freeman family in this community. The 1827 Candler land entry already shows a Thomas Harrison as a neighbor of Jesse Freeman, suggesting the Harrison and Freeman families were embedded in the same small watershed. Our working hypothesis, supported by researcher Kim Archer's analysis, is that one of these Buncombe County Harrison men had a son Benjamin who married Frances Freeman, Jesse and Nancy's daughter. Identifying which Harrison patriarch was Benjamin's father is the next documentary priority for this line.
Frances F. Freeman (often documented as Price) died in 1859. She is my 4th great-grandmother and the oldest confirmed carrier of the H1a131 mtDNA in the documented chain. We do need more mtDNA testers to confirm the Freeman connection!
The Maternal Line: Generation by Generation
The unbroken mother-to-daughter chain carrying Nancy F. Price's mtDNA H1a131 from her to me:
Each woman in this chain passed her mitochondrial DNA unchanged to the next generation. The H1a131 that Nancy F. Price carried in the 1790s is the same sequence I carry today — and the same sequence Karin Nilsdotter carried in Ramsberg, Sweden in 1713.
The mtDNA: H1a131
Haplogroup H1a131 is a branch of the much larger H1a lineage, which itself sits within haplogroup H — the most common maternal haplogroup in Europe today. H1a131 branched off from its H1a ancestor around 2950 BCE, making this a lineage with roots in the ancient European Neolithic world. The most recent common ancestor of all tested H1a131 carriers is estimated to have lived around 1 BCE. There are currently 46 tested descendants in the FTDNA database, with known origins concentrated in the United States, England, Germany, and five other countries.
This is a fully European maternal line — there is no Native American signal in this mtDNA. Nancy F. Price's ancestry on her maternal side traces to the same Neolithic European populations that gave rise to H1a across the British Isles and continental Europe. The Native American story in our family runs on the paternal Y-chromosome side through Aaron Freeman Sr. and his ancestors back to Q-YP1463. Nancy Price's maternal line is the European side of the equation — a reminder that these Appalachian backcountry families were carrying both threads simultaneously.
The Swedish exact match tells us something important about the migration path of this lineage. H1a131 almost certainly arrived in the colonial Carolinas from somewhere in northern Europe — Britain, Germany, or Scandinavia being the most likely candidates given the settlement patterns of the Rowan and Lincoln County communities where the Price family lived. The Rowan County area in the mid-1700s was heavily settled by German and Scots-Irish immigrants coming down the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania. A Price family carrying a Swedish-origin mtDNA lineage fits that pattern exactly — the H1a131 ancestor likely arrived in Pennsylvania or the mid-Atlantic colonies in the early-to-mid 1700s, moved south down the wagon road into the Carolina Piedmont, and was absorbed into the frontier communities of Rowan and Lincoln Counties before Philip Price's daughter Nancy married Jesse Freeman at the end of the 18th century.
What We Still Need
A will, probate record, or grave location for Jesse Freeman — the most urgent single document for this line
Newfound Baptist Church records (on order) — may name Jesse's children directly
Identification of Benjamin Harrison's father — which of the Buncombe County Harrison men (Thomas, Nathaniel, John, or another) had a son Benjamin who married Frances Freeman
Burke County records — to resolve whether Jesse's 1845 death there reflects a late-life move or a recording error
Additional DNA matches tracking to Frances, Nancy, Silas, or the unknown son of Jesse and Nancy — if you have these matches, please reach out
Price family research — tracing Philip Price's own origins may help identify when and where this H1a131 lineage first arrived in North America
If you descend from Jesse Freeman and Nancy Price, or from any of the Harrison families of the Sandy Mush and Turkey Creek watershed of Buncombe County in the early 1800s, or if you carry the H1a131 haplogroup and have colonial Carolina or Pennsylvania ancestry, we want to hear from you.
Contact us in the comments or through the Freeman DNA Project at FamilyTreeDNA: https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/freeman (I am David Freeman there)
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