Charles S. Fairfax - Lineage

Lineage

He was collaterally related to Thomas, the 6th Lord Fairfax, who relinquished his English estates to his brother, Robert, and emigrated to America, where he settled on a plantation of more than a million acres (4,000 km²) in Virginia, which he inherited from his mother, Catherine Colepeper. Thomas Fairfax was the first person who employed George Washington as a surveyor.

The 7th Baron, Robert Fairfax, died without issue in 1793 and the title descended to an American second cousin, the Rev. Bryan Fairfax (1736–1802), was a priest of the Episcopal Church and rector of parish in Alexandria, who was the son of William Fairfax(1691–1757) of Belvoir and Deborah Clarke (1707–1747). The clergyman then became Bryan Fairfax, 8th Lord Fairfax of Cameron. Bryan Fairfax, whose wife was Elizabeth Cary (1730–1757), was succeeded in 1802 by his eldest son, Thomas Fairfax (1762–1846).

Thomas Fairfax, 9th Lord Fairfax of Cameron was thrice married and his son by his third wife, Margaret Herbert (1783–1858), Albert, who had died during the lifetime of his father, left two sons, Charles and John. Therefore, Charles S. Fairfax, the grandson of Thomas, the 9th Baron, succeeded to the title of Lord Fairfax in 1846—a title, however, that he never claimed, preferring to live as an American citizen.