An article in 'The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Jul., 1915), p.45' titled 'Pope Ancestry' shows the main line of succession from Col. Barnaby McKinnie to Burwell Pope as follows:

Col. Barnaby McKinnie ->
Mourning McKinnie (m. John Pope) ->
Henry Pope ->
Burwell Pope (m. Priscilla ?)

The main line of succession by heirs is demonstrated in this article by the claim of "fee tail of property'. This line does match up perfectly with the tables given in 'The Hills of Wilkes County, Georgia and Allied Families'.

This article provides a direct contradiction to the article published in 'The William and Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 3. (Jan., 1904)' titled 'Col. Nathaniel Pope and His Descendants'. In that article (pg. 196) Burwell Pope is identified as being married to Priscilla Wootten, and Burwell's father is identified as "John Henry Pope (brother to Nathaniel above)". Moving up one paragraph, the Nathaniel mentioned is identified as "Nathaniel Pope (named above as son of John and Elizabeth (Pope) Pope)".

The only way that I can see this as being possible is if Mourning McKinnie and Elizabeth Pope were both wives of John Pope (son of Nathaniel Pope aka Bridges and Jane Brown). This would still, however, leave the problem that the father of John Pope mentioned in 'The Hills' was Henry Pope and the father of John Pope mentioned in 'The William and Mary Quarterly' was Nathaniel Pope aka Bridges. I also noticed that the only times that the name "Henry" appeared in the article in 'The William and Mary Quarterly' was in the mention of John Henry Pope and his son, Henry Augustine Pope.

I'm still searching. Any input would be appreciated.