After years of frustration at not locating any information about the parents of Jesse Hodges, we did Y-DNA testing.
Jesse had 2 sons, William P. Hodges and Lemuel T. Hodges.
We obtained samples from descendants of two of William's sons. The two samples were exact matches on all 67 markers.
Instead of finding a Hodges family from which we could search for a line that went west and went missing, the samples showed a 66 of 67 marker match with the "Gold" Crow families of South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee.

The oral history say the parents died while enroute to Arkansas and that the children continued west with the wagon train and were delievered to relatives in Arkansas, we presume Searcy County. This would have been about 1835-1838. The oral tradition also says that a grandmother was part indian with a surname of Qualls. (Oral so not sure of spelling). We are now looking for families in the early period of Searcy County with a Crow or Qualls connection coming out of Tennessee, Georgia or South Carolina.

We would also like to find a male Hodges descendant of William's brother Lemuel who would be willing to do Y-DNA testing to confirm that Jesse had this same DNA pattern. So far our test only confirms that William P. Hodges had this pattern.

Joyce Hodges
Bonner Springs, KS