“Mary Queen, commonly called Queen Mary, a freewoman.” — Gabriel Duvall

Mary Queen, the Poppaw Queen

Mary Queen, also known as the Poppaw Queen, was born about 1690 in Guayaquil (present-day Ecuador), arrived in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, circa 1715. She was sold to James Carroll and lived at his Fingaul plantation in All Hallows Parish, in the Province of Maryland, British America (present-day Crofton.) Mary gave birth to at least three children while residing at Fingaul, Nanny, Phyllis, and Ralph (it has been speculated that she had other children.) James Carroll died on 13 June 1729. His Will of 1728 bequeathed Mary to his cousin Anthony Carroll, the Jesuit of Bohemia Manor, in Cecil County, Maryland. Phyllis and Nanny remained at Fingaul, which was gifted to the Jesuits at the “Mission of St. Francis Borgia” by the Will of James Carroll and later became known as White Marsh. Ralph eventually left White Marsh and joined his mother at the “Old Bohemia” plantation.

While many of the Queens won their freedom in Court, others remained enslaved at the various Jesuit stations and surrounding plantations throughout Maryland. In 1838, Thomas F. Mulledy, S.J., orchestrated the sale of more than 272 people to sugar planters in Louisiana. Prior to the mass sale of 1838, the Jesuits sold other families to planters in Louisiana, Missouri and Kentucky.

After the Emancipation of 1865, many Queens and other Jesuit families migrated throughout the Country; some from Western Shore Maryland to Pennsylvania and further north, from Kentucky to North Carolina, from Louisiana to the West Coast, and beyond. The 1870 United States Census reveals several clusters of Jesuit families in Maryland, Kentucky, and Louisiana.

If you believe you are descended from Mary, the Poppaw Queen or an Allied Family, please share a brief description of your earliest ancestor and provide the primary source of the information.

Acceptable Primary Sources include:

• Church Records (i.e., baptismal, marriage, and funeral records)
• State Government Records (Birth, Marriage, Land, Wills, or Death Records)
• Census Records
• DNA Match (Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, 23andMe, or GEDmatch)

If you have taken a DNA test and have uploaded your results to GEDmatch, please provide your GEDMatch Kit Number.

We are aware that there are numerous Queen families from Maryland, however this project is focused on the descendants of Mary Queen, a.k.a. the “Poppaw Queen” and other descendants of enslaved ancestors of the Society of Jesus in Maryland (“Jesuit Enslaved Ancestors”.)

Queen DNA Project Application