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THOMAS JEFFERSON Sr., was born 1640 in Henrico, Virginia, and died before 1 December 1697 in Henrico, Virginia. He married Mary Branch before 1678 in Henrico, Virginia. Mary Branch was the daughter of Christopher Branch and Sarah Almond. Thomas Jefferson Sr. was the son of Samuel Jeaffreson.
Thomas Jefferson, the first to settle in Henrico Southside, lived at Osborne's across the James River from Farrar's Island and near Kingsland, home of the Branch family. His plantation was located in the Curles Section of the James River, south of the present city of Richmond, Virginia. This is in the vicinity of where the river begins it's snake-like path past Flower du Hundred (which was represented in the first Virginia Assembly of 1619 at Jamestown by his believed great uncle, John Jeaffreson). He married Mary Branch, daughter of Christopher Branch, Junior, before 1678 when her grandfather Christopher Branch, Senior, named her "my grandaughter Mary Branch, wife of Thomas Jefferson," who was executor of his will, 20 June 1678 pr. 20 Feb. 1681/2. (Henrico County Deeds and Wills 1677-1692, pp 109-110).
Judith Jefferson's grandmother Mary Branch descended from one of the oldest families in Abingdon, Berkshire, England. Her grandfather Christopher Branch who emigrated to Virginia in March 1619/20 (Hotten: page 26) was a planter of Arrowhattock on the James River, Henrico Southside. He was a neighbor of the Jeffersons, Farrars, and a number of related families living on Swift Creek. He was burgess in 1639, a justice 1656. His will (Henrico Court 1668, pages 209-10) names "grandaughter Mary Branch, wife of Thomas Jefferson," who was executor of his will.
Peter Walne, Berkshire Archivist, in a well documented account of the Branch family of Abingdon, states that it was unfortunate that James Branch Cabell did not have all the facts when he published Branch of Abingdon in 1911, for it was in that year that "Arthur Edwin Preston, J.P., F.S.A., began his study for a history of his native town of Abingdon which lasted thirty years, but was never published. From his research, the Branch family was a family of note in that part of Berkshire for two centuries."