Blann Family Page
Welcome to The Blann Family Page, which furnishes historical detail beyond the site index, exploring nine generations of Blanns in the line of Thomas Bland of Caroline Co., Maryland. We also examine the evidence for a tentative identification of three further generations of Blands before Thomas.
1. Claire Anura Lillah Blann --Born Sept. 12, 1983, in Nashville, TN. The only child of Gregory Blann and Sylvia Watts (Blann), Claire graduated with honors from Overton High School in 2001, and received two bachelor degrees from the University of Tennessee in 2006. She graduated from the Nashville School of Law in 2020. In 2008 she married James Cobb; second marriage to Travis Wells on March 16, 2023. Travis' daughter is Eirian Wells.
2. Gregory Boone Blann --Born Oct. 14, 1952, in Staten Island, NY. Second surviving child of Troy R. Blann Sr. and Sue Boone (Blann). Gregory has one brother, Dr. Troy Robinson Blann, Jr. ("Rob," born 1948), who for years was a English professor at Trevecca Nazarene University (he married Barbara Sue Brooks -b.1949), with two children: Jennifer (b.1981) and Tristan (1984-1992). Gregory was raised in France (1956-59) and America,and earned a bachelopr of arts in music and art at Peabody College-Vanderbilt University in 1974. He has written five books on spirituality. He married Sylvia Watts on Aug.12, 1973, in Percy Warner Park in Nashville and they have one daughter, Claire.
3. Troy Robinson Blann (Sr.) --Born Nov. 15, 1919, in Mineral, Virginia. The Blann family lived in upstate New York, where Troy's father, Rev. Melvin Blann, was a Pilgrim Holiness pastor. Troy went to Business College in Gloversville. NY, worked briefly for General Electric, then joined the U.S. Army in 1942. A Master-Sergeant E-8 in the Army (he retired with 20 years service in 1962), Troy was stationed at Ft. Campbell, KY. for a time during WWII and spent several weekend furloughs with the Boones, a Nazarene family, in Nashville. There, he met and subsequently married Sue Boone in Nashville on May 5, 1944, with Sue's brother-in-law, Claude Galloway and Rev. Wise officiating. Troy’s siblings were: Melvin R. Blann II; 1917-1983, an upstate New York piano tuner, church organist and Freemason. Mel married Ellen Merchant and had 5 children: Melvin III, Judy, Diane, Chris & Debbie. Troy's two sisters were: Magdalene "Maggie" (Mills), 1921-1997, a registered nurse and missionary to Swaziland and Rhodesia in the 1950's. She married Maryland widower Carl Mills in 1963 who had three children from a previous marriage: Richard, Gloria and Glenda. Troy's youngest sister was Linda Lee (1925-2006) a nurse, who married Millard Insley of Maryland in 1964 and had no children. During Troy's tour of military service, he and his family were stationed in Washington DC, London, England; Naples, Italy; Bayonne, New Jersey; Yuma, Arizona; Malsherbes (near Fountainbleau & Paris), France; McCordsville, Indiana, & Columbus, Georgia (2nd Infantry Division). In 1962, Troy retired and settled with his family in Nashville, TN. where he died on Feb.19, 1999, at age 79. He is buried at Spring Hill Cemetery in Nashville. Troy's parents were Rev. Melvin Blann and Anna Matthews.
4. (Rev.) Melvin Raymond Blann I --Born April 26, 1891, in Talbot Co., MD; died July 7, 1953, in Trappe, MD. Buried at Springhill Cemetery in Easton. He married Anna Matthews on June 29, 1916, in Trappe, MD. His siblings were: George Thomas (b.1871), Roland Solomon (1873-1949), Sarah Wilhelmina (Willie) b.1875, Percy Robinson (b.1878), Effie Ellen (1880-1964), Arthur Elwood (1883-1969; also a preacher), Hattie Melvina (1885-1979), Clifford Nelson (1887-1975). According to his daughter, Linda Insley, Melvin had only a sixth-grade education (his sister Effie being the only one of his siblings who graduated from High School). As a young man he attended half a year at "God’s Bible College" (which his older brother, Rev. Elwood Blann, had also attended), but his training was interrupted when his father had a stroke and Melvin returned to help out at home. (The 1950 Talbot Co. MD census however reports that Melvin attended 4 years of college.) Melvin subsequently became a pastor in the Pilgrim Holiness Church (a now-defunct Protestant sect that continues as the Wesleyan Church) in various churches in Maryland (Broom's Island, 1917, where Melvin II was born), and Virginia (Mineral, 1919-21, where Troy & Maggie were born). At the urging of his brother, Elwood, Melvin moved with his family to upstate NY and pastored several churches there (Wells, Port Jervis, Monticello & Onianta), some of which, as a carpenter, he built himself (according to daughter, Linda). For reasons now lost to us, Melvin was often called "Dick" by his siblings and church associates. In 1952, he retired with his wife to Maryland, bought a retirement cottage in Trappe, and six months later on July 7, 1953, he passed away. Melvin's parents were Arthur Bland and Annie Robinson.
5. Robert Arthur Bland --Born in March 5, 1840, in Denton, Caroline County, MD. (this is the birthdate given on his tombstone, however the 1900 census gives the following earlier date: May 1837. All the other censuses agree with the 1840 date.) Arthur’s parents were Thomas Bland and Elizabeth Stevens. Thomas died before 1850, when (Robert) Arthur was a youth, apparently leaving the family in debt. Young Arthur was separated from his sisters, Lizzie and Mary Jane, as well as his mother (Elizabeth, who remarried John R. Willis around 1853). Arthur was farmed out, probably as an indentured servant or "bound-out boy," to help pay off the debts and learn a trade. According to his son, Nelson, Arthur ran away from the family that kept him because he was forced to eat leftovers and to live and sleep in the barn with the animals. In the 1850 census, Arthur's mother, Elizabeth Bland, is living in the household of John R. Willis with 6 year old daughter Elizabeth A. Bland and 5 year old Thomas F. Willis. In the line above the Willis family in the census is an 11 year old named Arthur, living with the household of William Neighbor, who is about the right age to be Arthur Bland. At age 21, Arthur appears on the 1860 Caroline Co. MD census as a farmhand in the household of 39 year old John R. Willis. While the handwriting on the surname resembles "Mills" it is almost certainly Willis because the household includes 47 year old Elizabeth (Arthur's mother, born in ca. 1813), Elizabeth (age 15), Thomas (age 16) and Mary (Mollie-age 7). Also in the household is William Flemming (age 33), a farm hand. The 1860 census shows that Arthur's sister, Mary Jane, had by then married William McCracken.
After living with several families, before returning to live with his mother and sister, Lizzie, Arthur signed on with Captain Hardcastle at Lloyd Landing, running a steamboat on the Choptank River, hauling people, farm produce and plants back and forth from Baltimore to the Eastern Shore (per his grandson, Ellis Blann). He also developed an alcohol habit during this period. One tendentious anecdote I heard about him in my youth was that one of my Maryland relatives had encountered an old man who knew Arthur from his sailor days and he characterized Arthur as "the meanest man on the Chesapeake."
After about a decade at sea, Capt. Hardcastle put Arthur ashore on one of Hardcastle’s farms at Miller’s landing. According to my father's cousin, John Blann, the Robinson family had a farm down the river from Lloyd Landing and because of that proximity a relationship started that ended in marriage. On Jan.3, 1871, Arthur married Annie Robinson (1841-1939), a very religious woman, and together they had nine children. (There is a record of a Robert Bland who joined the Union Navy in Washington D.C. in 1861, and afterward transferred to the Army, but it is not certain whether this is Robert Arthur, 21 at the time, or his uncle, Capt. Robert J. Bland, who would have been 43.)
The 1870 Talbot Co. Census shows 30 year-old sailor, Arthur Bland, boarding in Trappe with a farmer named Nathaniel Clifton. By 1880, he is listed as a 40 year-old farmer and husband in another house in Trappe, married to Annie, age 29, with four children. Arthur stopped drinking alcohol and began to attend church in his old age. John Blann states that Arthur and Annie lived at the home of the farm manager at Lloyd Landing, and this was where all their children were born. By the 1910 census, Arthur and Annie Blann had moved to a house on Landing Neck Road, in Trappe. This road, on the western side of Route 50 across from the White Marsh cemetery, is now called Almshouse Road and their house still stands at the first crossroad, which goes into Trappe. (John states that the road that ran by their house into Trappe, also passing by what would later be my grandmother's house, was the old Route 50, prior to the construction of the nearby four lane highway which is now US 50.) Arthur died in Talbot County, MD, on April 12, 1916, according to his tombstone at the Springhill Cemetery in Easton, MD. He was known as "Otts" Bland, a shortened form of Arthur. At some point during his later years, Arthur (or another member of his family) changed the spelling of the surname to Blann. This would have been around the 1890s since the 1900 census is the first to spell his name "Blann." Arthur's parents were Thomas Bland and Elizabeth Stevens.
6. Thomas Bland --Born in 1810 in Denton, Caroline Co., MD and died between 1840 and 1850. He married Elizabeth Stevens (b.1810) and had three children, Elizabeth (Lizzie; 1846-1912) who married Dave Evans, Mary Jane (1836-1880) who married William McCracken, and Robert Arthur (b.1840). After Thomas' death, his widow remarried John R. Willis (April 4, 1853) and had another daughter, Mollie Willis (b.1856) who married Walter Griffith. John's other two older children were Thomas and Elizabeth A. Willis. Although Thomas Bland's parents are not fully proven by documentation, George Bland of Caroline Co., son of Joseph Bland and Sarah Andrew, is almost certainly his father. I have 17 DNA matches to George Bland and his wife, and Clair, 4 which are over 20 cM on 1 segment. Inferential evidence: The 1820 census shows George Bland Sr. as having two unidentified children age 10 or under, the right age to be Thomas and his younger brother, Robert, and there is no other Bland with young boys in the 1820 MD census. (Also, the name George appears frequently in the next few generations of Thomas’ family.) Thomas’ mother was probably Clara or Clair, widow of Peter Collins who remarried widower George Bland in Caroline Co. in 1809 (he was earlier married to Elizabeth "Betsy" Caulk from 1797 to 1808).
Note: Thomas’ granddaughter, Hattie Blann Swann, stated that her father, Arthur, had an aunt and uncle, Millie and Robert Bland, who lived in Easton, MD. While there is a black servant named Robert Bland in the 1850 & 1860 Caroline & Talbot Co. censuses, there is also a white Robert J. Bland (b.1817/18 and his wife, Millie (Amelia Noble) and several children (their first-born is named George) on the census in Caroline and Dorchester counties from 1850 to 1890. This Robert is the brother of Thomas Bland and is a DNA match to my line. The 1850 census of Caroline Co., MD, (household #1299) shows Robert Bland, aged 32, carpenter, Milly 19, George 10. (Note: This George is too old to be a son of this 1849 marriage. A George T. Bland, possibly this same George?, appears on the Caroline Co. civil war rosters of volunteers in Company E). The 1880 Census of Dorchester Co., MD, household #143/150 Cedar St., Cambridge shows Robert Bland, aged 63, carpenter, Amelia 47, wife, Charles 20, son, George 18, son. His other children were Mary Emma (b.1855) and Ella (b.1858). A "Denton Journal" obituary of July 3, 1897, records the death of local Capt. Robert J. Bland from a stroke of paralysis. The parents of Arthur and Robert J. Bland were (almost certainly) George and Clair (Ireland) Bland.
7. George Bland --George Bland (ca.1760-1820), the son of Joseph Bland Sr. of Caroline Co., MD., was the father of Thomas Bland and his brother, Capt. Robert J. Bland. (I show 12 DNA matches to siblings of George Bland as well as 6 more to George.) Maryland records show that George Bland was the son of Joseph Bland and Sarah Andrew, and that he was born between 1760 and 1765 in Caroline Co. He was a militiaman in Charles Co. in 1777 and, after a 20 year unknown period, married Elizabeth "Betsy" Caulk, daughter of Henry and Frances "Frankie" Caulk, in Caroline Co. in 1797. George appears on the Caroline Co. censuses from 1800-1820. In 1800 he has two young daughters, Sally and Arianne, and one 16-26 year old male (a son from a first marriage?). A court document of early 1809 by Betsy Caulk Bland’s sister, Deborah, transferring all of the land which their late mother, Frances Caulk, had bequeathed her 2 daughters to George (with the provision that he build her a small house on the land), clearly infers that George’s wife, Betsy, was already deceased at the time. Soon after this (in Talbot Co. on Dec.28, 1809), George married Clara (Ireland) Collins, widow of Peter Collins (1778-1808, son of Isaac Collins and Ann Nancy Andrew) whom she had married in 1802. Clair (Clear or Clara) brought to the 1809 marriage three young children, who appear on the 1810 census in George’s household: Lisha, Isaac (both born ca.1803-7), and Peter (b.1808). The 1810 census duly reflects this, showing George married with two additional males under 10, and another girl under 10 in his household. The 1820 census (which shows two George Blands) indicates that still two more young males 0-10 were now living in the household of George Bland Sr. (These most likely are Thomas and Robert, born respectively in 1810 and 1817, especially, since there are no other Bland households in the area who show two unidentified males under 10). George apparently died not long after the 1820 census was taken. The other George Bland (Jr,) in the 1820 census was George Sr's nephew, the son of Joseph Bland Jr. (III) (b.ca.1750; d. before 1795), who married Rhoda Andrew.
DNA evidence in Ancestry.com points strongly to George Bland and his siblings as being our correct line. I have 6 DNA matches (one is 20 cM, one segment) to George's sister, Sarah Bland Manship (ca.1755-1797); 2 matches to his sister, Selah Bland Andrew (1755-1820); one match to his sister, Tamsey Bland Towers (1756-1823); and one to George's son Thomas J. Bland (1817-1897).
The Feb.19,1808 will of Peter Collins lists Clear (Clair) as his widowed wife and states that Clear came forth as a witness accompanied by Charles Ireland (1775-1818), who is likely her brother. Ancestry.com shows 22 atDNA matches between the line of Clair's son, Thomas Bland, and the family of Jonathan Ireland Jr. (1752-1780), Charles Ireland's father. (There is a 1778 marriage listing in Caroline Co. MD for John Ireland (1756-1800) and Ann Alford , but this is a son of Jonathan who moved to Camden County, South Carolina and not likely Clair's parents.) The evidence suggests that the likely father of Clair was Jonathan and Rachel Ireland's oldest son, Jonathan Ireland Jr. (ca. 1752-1780), who died in South Carolina as a soldier fighting on behalf of the American patriots. Court records show that Jonathan's wife's name is Rachel, the surname being uncertain--possibly Sullivan. Their children were: John (1772-1843) and Charles (1775-1818), and probably Clair (ca.1776-after 1820) as well as two sons apparently born out of wedlock named Preston and William, who were bound out. The parents of Clair's likely father, Jonathan Ireland Jr., were Jonathan ("John") Ireland (born ca.1725 in Dorchester Co., Maryland and died Nov.25, 1785 in Two John's, Potter's Landing, Caroline Co., Maryland) and Rachel Ozwell (ca.1735-1791). See the Ireland family page for more details.
8. Joseph Bland (II)--The father of George Bland, Joseph was born ca.1718/19 in Kent Co., Delaware (a border area of the state later re-zoned as part of MD). A Dorchestor Co. MD land record (Lib. 14 old 109) dated March 11, 1746 shows George Andrew, of Dorchestor Co. granting land to his daughter "Sarah Bran (Bland), wife of Joseph Bland Jr. of Dorchestor County." From this we can infer that sometime before 1746, Joseph married Sarah Andrew (d.1799), daughter of George Andrew Jr. (b.ca.1685?; died after 1755; the son of George Andrew Sr.) and Ellen Adams (d.1745, daughter of Richard Adams, who d.1709 in MD, and Abigail Williams). A Dorchestor Co. land record from 1770 (Lib.24 old 308) states that Joseph Bland, aged "about 50 years" gave a deposition. From this we can infer that he was born around 1720 or 1719. His wife Sarah was probably born about this time or slightly later. If she was 18 when she married ca. 1746 she would have been born ca. 1724. Joseph & Sarah moved to Dorchester Co., MD (which became Caroline Co. in 1773) sometime before 1775. Joseph appears on the 1775 Car. Co. census, married with 3 sons & 3 daughters under 16, himself approx.57 years old. In the 1790 census, he has one additional son under 16 and another daughter. A 1798 Caroline Co. MD land record cites Joseph Bland's age as "about 80 years" (ie. born ca. 1718). On Nov.5,1799 Joseph Bland of Kent Co., Delaware wrote his will which was probated on May 27, 1800. In the will, he names his wife, Sarah, and his daughter, Elizabeth Dillen, grand-daughter, Arena Bland (Arianne, George's daughter), son, George Bland and son-in-law, George Andrew. This clearly isn't a complete list of his children. Joseph Bland’s documented children are: Selah (b. before 1755, married George Andrew Jr.), Joseph Jr. (III) (b.ca.1750; d. before 1795, who married Rhoda Andrew--a Joseph Bland, either Jr. or less likely, his 59 year-old father, was a militiaman in Caroline Co. in 1777 and appears on the 1776 Fidelity oath census), Elizabeth Dillen (appears on 1850 census in Caroline Co.), George (born ca.1760/65-1820), Tamsey (married James Towers in 1788), Ann (married Charles Manship in 1778), and Sarah (married Aaron Manship in 1778-double wedding.) There were probably two additional sons. Joseph died around 1799/1800 and does not appear on the 1800 census.
9. Joseph Bland (I)--The father of Joseph Bland II (ca.1718-1800) appears to have been another Joseph (b.ca.1690-died after 1764), although some on-line trees lists Joseph’s parents as Theoderick and Sarah Bland. The evidence for the father’s name being Joseph comes from a record of a land purchase by a Joseph Bland made in 1736, when Joseph II (b.1718/9) would have been only 17 or 18 years old. (Minors couldn't purchase land and at best Joseph II would have been 18, a little young even in the colonial era.) Further confirming the existence of a father named Joseph is the later sale of the land in 1764, which mentions both Joseph Bland Sr. and Joseph Bland Jr. (b.1718/9) and Jr.’s wife, Sarah Andrew, showing that he used "Jr." until the death of his father after 1764; then he was Sr. in respect to his own son named Joseph (this Joseph III, being the father of the second, younger, George Bland (designated as Jr.) who appears on the 1820 census). (Thanks to Parker Todd for supplying most of the information relayed here concerning Joseph Jr., Sr. and George Bland.) Ancestry.com cites a Thomas Bland (born 1650 in Staffordshire, England and died in Maryland or VA) as the father of Joseph Bland I, but I have found no confirming evidence of this.
Most likely, the Maryland Blands were closely related to the Virginia Blands. These include the famous Theoderick Bland Sr. (1629-1671) of Virginia, father of Theoderick Jr. (1663-1700) and Richard Bland Sr.(1665-1720), who lived in Prince George Co, Virginia from 1653 until his death. Richard’s son, Col. Richard Bland Jr. of Williamsburg lived from 1710-1776). Richard Sr.’s grandson, Theoderick lived from 1740-1790. In Charles Bland’s 1982 book, A Vision of Unity: The Bland Family in England and America, he cites a Thomas Bland, a relative of the VA Blands, from Sussex County, England, who came to Maryland between 1666 and 1672, traveled about, and had land around the Anne Arundel Co. area, but he seems to disappear (apparently childless?) from the MD records around 1690 (one source says he left MD in 1700). The earliest Bland cited in the Charles Bland’s book whose children immigrated to America (Virginia) is the English Adam Bland (1528-1598), father of Gregory Bland (1567-ca.1627) and a relative of John Bland of Kent Co. England, the Marian martyr. The name Bland (sometimes spelled Blann, Bran, Braun, Blin and in France: de Bland) was said to have originated in a hamlet in Westmoreland County, England named Bland. An early Robin Hood era figure mentioned by author Howard Pyle, was named Sir Roland of Bland.