This site was created as a place for the descendants of Thomas Copeland and Anna Hood to learn more about their Copeland ancestors and their living relatives. Thomas Copeland and Anna Hood were married 23 Oct 1802 in Campbell County, Virginia. Shortly after their marriage they moved, along with Anna’s father James Hood, her uncle William Hood, and her brother-in-law Edmund Fears and their families to Grainger County, in Eastern Tennessee. From there they all moved en masse to what is today Limestone County,
Thomas and Anna Copeland had at least seven children: Obediah Copeland, Pleasant Copeland, Martha Patsey Copeland Knodell, Rebecca ‘Becky’ Copeland Mulkey, William Copeland, Agnes ‘Aggie’ Copeland Stom Cluxton, and Henrietta ‘Hannah Ritta’ Copeland Hudson Shores. The children of Thomas and Anna Copeland married and settled with their families in Southeast Illinois, where some descendants still live today. Some of Thomas and Anna’s grandchildren left Illinois and made their homes in Missouri, where some of t
In early records for the family in Illinois, some members of the Copeland and Hood clan are listed as “free people of color.” DNA testing of more than one branch of the family tree has confirmed the presence of minority admixture, and in fact shows that these families were tri-racial: European, African, and Native American. Over time, and through subsequent marriages with individuals of predominantly European ancestry, the family transitioned in the records from “free colored” to “white.” Prof. Henry Louis