The Davis family provided a wealth of information and constitutes one of the largest and deepest branches of our family tree. A second and even more prodigious allied family emerges from the annals of history when one uncovers the one-thousand-year-old story of the Montgomery family, the ancestors of Matilda Montgomery (and therefore the rest of […]
The Swofford Lineage Jane Stilley was my grandfather Leb’s mother. We met her father’s illustrious Stille family. Jane’s mother was Nancy Swofford. Nancy was the daughter of Sarah Jane Fixes and John Swafford (spellings varied). My father, JD, was very aware of Nancy Swofford. She was born in Franklin County, IL in 1820 and passed […]
The Descendants of James and Rachell Keyes Davis From the south side of the James River in 1623 to the pocosin swampland of the Pungo River in Hyde County in 1802 was a journey of 179 miles and 179 years. I have traced the lives of countless numbers of Davis offspring into the hills of […]
Where to go Next in This Collection of Stories? Days later I returned to my desk. I shuffled through the papers looking for a cigar I had smuggled in from the village cigar shop, which has since shuttered the windows and barred the door forever. Every once in a great while I enjoy an Acid […]
Do Ancestors Rise from the Dead? There are times when it seems my ancestors are tugging at me. Or: Am I tugging at them, as if they were a security blanket my dog wanted to take away from me? This urge that we have as senior citizens to become familiar with our family tree is […]
The Welsh Explorers and Immigrants: 1575-1803 An exploration of the Smith family name led to the family of Peter Smith of Westmoreland VA and the latter half of the 17th Century. We were stranded in history between Doegs Neck and the Nominy and Yeocomico Rivers and left to ponder Peter’s relationship with those of the Washington, […]
A Preface to our Dutch Ancestors Shortly after the Dutch took possession of Manhattan Island in 1625, the corporate authorities (West India Company) created 9 bowerijs (farms); three along the Hudson River and six located further to the east along Bouwerij (Bowery) Lane. The east side farms were identified by the name of the family […]
Gen 8: John Stilley (1715-1795) and Grace Fountain My Fathers’s 4th Great Grandparents, Somerset MD to Beaufort NC John Stilley, Hezekiah’s father, married Grace Fountain, daughter of Stephen Fountain and granddaughter of a French Huguenot immigrant named Nicholas de la Fountaine. Grace de la Fontaine Americanized her name and traveled through her maiden years as […]
New Sweden & New Nederland Shown on the map to the left, these small colonies (New Sweden to the southwest of New Nederland) were dwarfed by the surrounding British colonies but represent the earnest efforts of the Dutch and Swedes who each hoped to become major players in the new world, North American continent. Our […]
We are about to meet the Stille family, whose surname has been Anglicized, Americanized and altered in countless record books. They are the ancestors of Jane Stilley, my father’s grandmother on his father Leb’s side of the family tree. This is the first full blown research of a matrilineal branch that I have revealed in […]