My sister has been working for several years tracing our family
history on our father's side, beginning with a genealogy we had from
our grandfather. From that and her work so far, we are very fortunate
to have a great deal more information than many families ever get.
However, we have run into a snag, and need some help finding
documentation for several generations.
We have what we think is the right information, or at least most of
it. The biggest problem we have is documentation. The source our
grandfather used and on which my sister relied turns out to be a
source that is no longer accepted by several patriotic societies to
which we have applied for membership, which of course calls into
some question the validity of those records. Our main objective at this point
is to acquire and verify the correct information, whatever it turns
out to be, and to definitively link these particular generations.
So the question is twofold:
1) we need to identify, link, and verify the names, dates and places
of these particular generations, including accurate information on
marriages and wives, which seem particularly difficult, and
2) we need impeccable documentation, and NOT from the ?Virkus Compendium of
American Genealogy,? but other reputable sources. Although "Virkus"
has fallen out of favor as an approved source, he must have obtained
his information from *somewhere* and hopefully those sources are still
out there.
An acceptable answer would be either
1) direct documentation with sources leading to our being able to
obtain copies of title pages and pages of books linking these
generations; OR
2) the name and contact information of at least one professional
genealogical researcher in Virginia who can locate and provide us with
this documentation, and is verifiably available and willing to do so,
with fee information if possible.
===================================================================
So here is what we have to work with:
GILES ROGERS: son of John Rogers and Lucy Iverson.
This is our first American ancestor. Patented land in Dragon Swamp,
Stratton Major Parish, King and Queen County 1670 ; Married Rachel
Eastham about 1672 in England, returned to America where their son
JOHN ROGERS was born about 1680 aboard ship. GILES died about 1730.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
*NOTE: we do *not* need information on Giles himself, nor anything
further back. We already have all that, and his information is given
just for a starting point. What we need are the subsequent generations
in the ?New World?, i.e.:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
*JOHN ROGERS married MARY BYRD 1716, and died about 1768.
There is some question whether she is the MARY BYRD of Westover,
daughter of Col. Wm. Byrd II, or not. (There is a school of thought
that John married a RACHEL EASTHAM, daughter of George Eastham and
Mary Bird - yup, same name as his mother. (See attached research).
This marriage apparently took place in King and Queen County, as their
son, GEORGE ROGERS was born in King and Queen County 1721. Any
documentation on JOHN ROGERS and MARY BYRD - dates and places of
births, marriage, death, etc. is what we need, or consequently, that of JOHN
ROGERS and RACHEL EASTHAM.
*GEORGE ROGERS first wife in 1740, was ?LEE, daughter of Henry Lee.
(His second wife was Francis Hoomes Pollard, of which there is much
written). He apparently had title to his grandfather Giles' land.
*HENRY ROGERS was born to GEORGE ROGERS and ?LEE abt. 1741 in
Fauquier County, VA, and died abt. 1794. He was our American
Revolution ancestor. He married ELIZABETH LANKFORD abt. 1762.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
*NOTE: we do not need any information subsequent to Henry. We also
have all that. It is ONLY these several generations we need accurate
information and documentation for.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
So to summarize, we need impeccably documented links, with accurate
marriage and birth names, dates, and places, going from
GILES to JOHN, from
JOHN to GEORGE, and from
GEORGE to HENRY
such documentation to include title pages to books, page numbers of
actual information, locations of physical records, means to get copies
of title pages, and pages with the actual information (including
purchase information for books if reproduced and available), and/or
some other way to get copies of the applicable title and other pages,
whether by hiring someone in the local area or purchasing a
membership/registering somewhere.
===================================================================
**One other note, we KNOW there is much misleading and even wrong
information out there. Please don't use Ancestry.com especially, as
anybody can and does post anything there, and we have already been
down that road. Also, what we're looking for are NOT the obvious
sources like Cyndi's List or RootsWeb - we've been there. We're fairly
conversant ourselves with this type of research, but have exhausted
our own resources, and are hoping that someone may know of more
obscure or scholarly sources online than the main genealogy sites.
Please ask before assuming anything, and please keep in mind we need
both information AND documentation. The first is no good without the
second.
I have nine pages of notes in pdf format sent to my sister by a
distant "cousin" detailing his search on the same subject, which is
posted online here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~vtrx/ROGJohn&Rachel_notes.pdf (I don?t
know why, but I?m not able to open this file except from Mozilla, so
let me know if you have any trouble, and I?ll try to repost it and get
a better url.)
And here is a link to some other information we have already found:
http://home.cfl.rr.com/budinfl/ See esp. lines 7, 8, and 11.
Please let me know if I can provide any further clarification that
might prove helpful in the search. Thanks much, and good luck!
Hopefully,
Byrd-ga |
Clarification of Question by
byrd-ga
on
22 Jul 2005 12:06 PDT
Hi Paf,
Great to hear from you -- many thanks for responding! I?m glad someone
has taken notice. :-) And thank you for the questions. Even if you
can?t take this on yourself, perhaps the answers may help someone
else.
As I said, my sister has done most of this work on this so far, so I
checked with her on the places you mentioned, and she said yes, she
knows about those sources.
In addition to those you mention, she has also exhausted the LDS
(Mormon) Mesa, AZ History Library, looked through books and
microfiche, and painstakingly combed through everything they have in
the Virginia aisle - VA land, marriage, and cemetery records, Tyler's
Quarterly, Cavaliers and Pioneers, etc. She did say that, of course
that local Library doesn't have EVERY source, nor does the online
service and in fact, many people do make the trek up to the big LDS
library in Salt Lake City, but she hasn?t done that ? yet.
Also, she has a list of books and documents that might be leads, but
hasn?t been able to actually hold them in her hands to see, and some
she hasn?t been able to locate at all. She has been on a list at
Amazon for some of them, and routinely checks abebooks (a rare &
out-of-print book dealer). She has bought a couple of volumes for her
library that did NOT yield good results. But she also bought the
"Rogers" CD for $20, and that did contain a treasure ? it had one of
John Underwood's books scanned onto it ? which had John Rogers married
to Mary Byrd with notes in the margin saying "No! Wrong!"
Being at work she gave me this information from memory, and says when
she gets home she?ll get out her list of the books she has not been
able to find. If/when she does, I?ll post it here in a further
clarification in hopes that someone might be able to locate a copy of
one or more of them for sale, or find someone who has it/them or
access to them, and would be willing to look up a reference. Of
course, we?d be willing to pay for their time and costs. One title she
recalls is ?Kith and Kin,? by a Mrs. John Sampson.
As she said and you might imagine, it is very tantalizing and
frustrating to know that there might be a mention of one?s ancestor in
this document or that book, and then not be able to lay one?s hands on
the actual piece of paper. As it is, none of our family resides in the
area, so if no one here is able to help us, and we can?t find a
Virginia-based genealogist, then our next step will likely have to be
one of us getting on a plane and heading out to Virginia to comb
through courthouse and Library of Congress records ourselves, which of
course we?re hoping to avoid if possible.
So thanks again for the questions! Fire away if there are any more,
and I?ll also post back if/when I get that list of books.
Best,
Byrd
|
