In every online tree that I look at, John Slaughter (1735-1798) is said to be the son of Robert Slaughter, Jr. (1702-1769) and Mary Smith (1713-1741). I cannot find any evidence to support this parent-child relationship, whatsoever. If anyone knows of evidence to support this parent-child relationship then I would really appreciate it if you'd point me in the right direction.

So far, all of the evidence that I have been able to find indicates that John's father was William Slaughter (1726-1762). The following is a quote found in both The American Monthly Magazine and the Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine:

"(3) Brothers - Slaughter - Frances Brothers, of N. C. m. John Slaughter in 1757; what were the names of her parents? John Slaughter was the son of William Slaughter of Va. - N. V. T."

John Slaughter had a son named George, and George (1764-1845) had a son named William Allen Slaughter (1804-1886). William Allen Slaughter kept a journal, in which the following was written...

"...I now come to write of my ancestors. The first account that I have of them was about the first settling of Virginia. Ther was three brothers came over from England (see page 38 for correction) but did not settle near together. I am not able to give any of their names. One family of them moved to Kentucky and became very popular but the branch from which we decended remained in Virginia until after the Revolutionary War. I do not know how many generations after the first landing before my naritive sets in. I only know that one by the name of William raised a large family but I know the name of but one son, my Grandfather John Slaughter....(In the same small script as at the bottom of the page before the addendum is written the following): Refer to page 6 about 6th line. There is a mistake I find. They came from Atlantic Coast to Culpeper Co Va, then called Orange. The names of the three brothers were Robert, Francis and Thomas. Robert was the father of William, who was father of John with which this narative begins. (signed) TGS (Note: I assume the TGS stands for Thomas Gaines Slaughter, son of William Allen Slaughter and Susan Mathis. Carolyn)"

It appears as though the first part of the journal entry was written by William Allen Slaughter, and that the second part (the "correction") was written at a later time by his son, Thomas Gaines Slaughter. If not read carefully and correctly, the name of John's father could be an easy thing to miss. In this journal entry, the authors state the following...

• Three Slaughter brothers arrived from Atlantic Coast to Culpeper, VA (a.k.a. Orange)
• The names of the Slaughter brothers were Robert, Francis and Thomas
• Robert was the father of William Slaughter
• William Slaughter was the father of John Slaughter
• John Slaughter was the grandfather of William A. Slaughter (the original author to this journal entry)