Keeping up our Waddill Appearances

Charles City, or "Cha'les Citeh," as it's said in my ancestors' non-rhotic dialect, is a place steeped in American history and interwoven with my own family story. Situated between Richmond and Williamsburg, Virginia, Charles City County was first established as Charles Cittie in 1619.

I was in high school when I took my first trip to the Library of Virginia with my mom to look into our proud connection to the Waddill family from Charles City County, Virginia. 

There at what has now become one of my happiest of places - y'all really need to take a trip to the Library of Virginia! - I had my first experience of learning about my ancestors from a printed book. I felt like royalty: "You mean we come from these people? And someone wrote a book about them!?" I suppose everyone wants to feel like they come from some higher more sophisticated stock than the lot they've been given. And that's how I felt all those years ago holding The Majors and their Marriages written by James Branch Cabell and published in 1915.

And as I've learned more about my Waddill side, the more I've wanted to hold on for dear life for some of their famous connections too. Because I, like Hyacinth Bucket, have some intrinsic interest in Keeping Up Appearances too.

So what is my connection to the Waddills and why did James Branch Cabell write a book about them? Since I have two Waddill lines, let's take a look into the life of Edmund Thomas Waddill.

Early Years

Edmund Thomas Waddill was my maternal grandfather's maternal grandfather - or put another way, my 2x great grandfather. He was born on 19 Sep 1844 in Charles City County, Virginia to Samuel Waddill and Sarah Irby Stagg. 

He was born first, followed by Mary Alice, William J, and Sarah. His mother passed away in 1864 and the following year his father married Henrietta M Bradley, and in 1870 his youngest sister Annie Virginia was born.

During the Civil War, he served (according to his wife's later widow application) with the Confederate Topographical Engineer Department from Ruthville in Charles City County. By 1870, he's listed as a laborer living with his father, but by 1880 he's listed in the census as being a storekeeper employing his brother William as a clerk in the store. He was a merchant "on the up and up!"

Married Life

It wasn't until 19 Jan 1882, when Edmund was 37 years old, that he finally married. He chose Elizabeth Avery Waddill, his 17 year old 4th cousin whom he married in Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Though she was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, her paternal side had deep ties to Charles City County - along with Waddill connections, her family was also descended from the Majors and Marables. On her maternal side, she was a Cabell, Syme, Meriwether and Avery - families deeply connected to Virginia gentry. 

Edmund and his wife Elizabeth had ten children, with two passing away as infants or young children. The names they gave their children reflect a clear pride for their ancestors and the importance of their family history: Samuel Cabell, John Lamb, Elma Leigh, George Major, Edmund Thomas, Julian Avery, Patrick Henry, and Sarah Alice. Ancestral surnames abound, while some are named directly for ancestors or famous cousins. 

Patrick Henry Waddill, for example, was named for Elizabeth Avery Waddill's 2x great grandfather's little brother, the famous Patrick Henry. And it was this connection that I had always grown up hearing about, though no one was quite as precise in recounting the story. "We're Patrick Henry's cousins!" was all I knew until I investigated the story for myself. My mom was even named Patricia in his honor.

My great-grandmother - Sarah Alice Waddill - was the youngest child of Edmund and Elizabeth. She born when Edmund was 58 and Elizabeth was 37. The photo above is of the three of them in front of "The Glebe," their family home in Charles City County.

Later Life & Death

In lieu of attempting to retell his later life, I'll share instead his obituary in full. This was his moment in the limelight, his moment "In the News." He passed away on 8 Oct 1916 in Richmond, Virginia and his obituary was published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch from 10 Oct 1916, on page 3.

"The funeral of Edmund Thomas Waddill, who died suddenly at his home, 911 Lamb Avenue, Barton Heights, Sunday afternoon, was conducted at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon at Bethany Church, Charles City County, by Rev. O. E. Buchholz, pastor of the Overbrook Presbyterian Church, of Barton Heights. Mr. Waddill was seventy-three years of age.

Mr. Waddill leaves a widow, who was Miss Lizzie Waddill; two daughters, Mrs. L. B. Adams, of Charles City County, and Miss Sarah Waddill, of Barton Heights, and six sons - Cabell Waddill, of South Hill; John Waddill, of Giant, Cal.; George M. Waddill, E. T. Waddill, Avery Waddill and "Pat" Waddill, of Barton Heights. He is survived also by two sisters, Mrs. George Hubbard and Miss Annie Waddill, of Charles City County. Mr. Waddill was a first cousin of Judge Edmund Waddill, Jr., of the United States District Court, and of Samuel P. Waddill, clerk of the Henrico County Circuit Court.

Only a week before his death Mr. Waddill moved to Barton Heights from Charles City County, where he had been a merchant and farmer for many years. He was a Confederate veteran."

The obituary mentions several things worthy to note. First, Edmund was buried at the family church, Bethany Presbyterian, in Charles City County. He had only moved away from Charles City County the week before, to Barton Heights, a town that had only a few years prior been incorporated into part of Richmond. It was an up and coming area, and the family wanted the world to know their connection to a famous judge and circuit court clerk. 

Their home no longer stands, but some of the old homes from that period still stand in the neighborhood. Even Overbrook Presbyterian moved out of the neighborhood a few decades later. 

*****

Most families have a ancestral legend, an origin story, of famous connections or roots in royalty. For me, the stories were always about my family's connections in the Waddills of Charles City County. We no longer have first cousins as federal judges, and barely anyone has heard of the Waddills or Cabells anymore. The family homes are no longer in our family, and everyone has moved away from Charles City. But I'm still happy to keep up my Waddill appearances. After all, my ancestors weren't the only ones to write about their family connections...I make a habit of that myself, too!

What legend did you grow up hearing about your family? Are you descended from or related to someone famous?

This post was inspired by the week 13 prompt "In the News" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

Indie Lee Ogburn

Indie Lee Ogburn. I love everything about my great-great-grandmother's name.

It's fun for me to find a unique name, like that of another one of my 2x great-grandmothers, Edmonia Harriet Stratton. The hope is that it will be easier to research someone if their name isn't so common. That there won't be such a mystery surrounding them.

And mystery abounds when it comes to my Grandma Nora's family. There has always been this cloud over my understanding of her past, like a sheet keeping me from seeing what lies behind it. But Indie - my grandmother's grandmother - is shedding some light on the mystery that surrounds my Grandma Nora's family. Discovering Indie is an encounter with part of Nora. For me to understand what lies behind the mystery, I have to get to know Indie Lee Ogburn. 

From Brunswick to Dinwiddie

Indie Lee Ogburn was born in either 1864 or 1865 in Brunswick County, Virginia to James A Ogburn and Martha Elizabeth Smith. All of her grandparents were born in Brunswick as well, a county situated on the border with North Carolina. Besides the Ogburn family, she was also descended from the Browder and Smith families, all of which have deep roots in Brunswick.

Indie was the third child born to her parents, and she had eight younger siblings! In 1870, the family was still living in Brunswick County but by 1880, the family had moved northeast into Dinwiddie County to a small town called Darvills.

Now, there's some question as to when Indie was actually born. From 1880 on, she lists her birth year as 1865. But there's reason to believe she was born late 1863 or early 1864. Indie's sister Lucy - whose birth record shows she was born August 1865 - was listed as 4 in the 1870 census while Indie was listed as 6. So Indie must have been born a year and half or so before that. Unfortunately, there seems to be a gap in birth records from Brunswick County from 1863 and 1864.

Life in Dinwiddie

On 2 March 1887, Indie married James Thomas Vaughan at Rocky Run Methodist Church in Dewitt, Dinwiddie. Considering both families were living in Darvills at the time, I'm not sure why they went 11.5 miles east to get married instead of to the Methodist church around the street. This is another one of those stories I'd love to figure out.

She married well, it would seem, because her husband proved to be an industrious man! James was a farmer and blacksmith - which seems industrious enough to me. But he also ran a general store, a grain and lumber mill, a funeral home, and the post office! On 28 February 1908, their home burned - which made the local paper - but they were able to rebuild a home which still stands today.

Indie and James had ten children, three of whom passed away as children. Indie's husband James passed away on 20 December 1919 in Darvills at the age of 54. Their grandson Edgar Thomas Vaughan understood that he died somehow in an accident at his mill. His death certificate simply says he died of apoplexy - a sudden loss of consciousness and paralysis, generally meaning a stroke.

Personality and legacy

From what I can gather, Indie was a character. She must have been a tough cookie, someone who came from a large family and created a new one of her own. She helped her husband with his many business pursuits and worked to make sure people paid their debts to their family. As Indie was nearing the end of her life, she began to suffer from Alzheimer's or dementia and she passed away on 12 April 1944 in the county she had called home for most of her nearly 80 years.

Part of Indie's legacy, unfortunately, is a strained relationship with her daughter - my great-grandmother - Josephine (Josie) Lee Vaughan. At some point, Josie was disowned as Indie wrote her out of her will. While I don't have access to Indie's will at the present, I suspect the problem may have had to do with Josie's marriage. Josie seems to have eloped at the age of 15 with my great-grandfather Grover Steven Hite. They went down to Warrenton, North Carolina to be married by a Justice of the Peace on 28 May 1915, and their marriage record even lists Josie as 18 years old instead of her actual age of 15.

I can't be sure, but I suspect Indie held a strong grudge. And even though Josie moved back to Darvills where her four children were born, they didn't stay for long. Josie died after suffering for four months with pelvic inflammation and puerperal sepsis on 27 July 1927. This fact itself is curious. Puerperal sepsis is a common postpartum infection, which would imply Josie had been pregnant recently. But her youngest child - that we know of - was born three years prior. There's more to this story, I suspect.

Grover took their three girls (including my 7 year old grandmother) to an orphanage in Richmond and he raised his son himself. Since my grandmother grew up north in Richmond, far from her Darvills family, she was never very connected to them. Interestingly enough, Grover remarried in the last year of his life - 1943 - to another of Indie's daughters (Erma) who had also been widowed.

Indie's family was a large one. In the photo above, from about 1976, Indie's grandchildren (including my Grandma Nora) gather at the old home in Darvills. One of my Grandma Nora's first cousins, Preston Parham - who's also in the photo - recalled that moment long ago as a little boy, when his cousins were driven away to the girl's home in Richmond. 

It's only been through genealogy, the wonders of modern technology, and a bit of Indie's stubbornness that her descendants have once again been able to reconnect. I've visited Indie's home, I've gotten to spend time at Josie and Grover's graves, and I've benefited from the determination of other descendants of Indie's who are working to keep alive our ancestor's memory. 

*****

Indie Lee Ogburn was a strong woman. She managed her home, she managed her family, she managed her businesses. And perhaps her strength and determination also translated into a cold stubbornness once she had made her will known. At the very least, it didn't help hold her daughter Josie close despite their personal differences. And that trickled down as my Grandma Nora seems to have later identified Darvills with pain and loss. I still wonder though if Nora ever got to develop a relationship with her grandmother Indie before she passed. 

While some questions may forever remain unanswered, Indie has certainly helped me paint some of the picture of my Grandma Nora's past. And all of this reminds me of the importance of family, and the clarity that no feud or disagreement is worth decades of lost relationships.

Does the number 12 represent anything in your family? Do you have an ancestor who had nearly 12 children or does anyone have an anniversary, birthday, or death date on the 12th?

This post was inspired by the week 12 prompt "12" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

The Evolution of Family

Family is an adaptable institution. Or rather, we're adaptable to it's changing and evolving place in our lives.

As a genealogist, I make it my purpose to dive headfirst into my own family's history and the histories of many others...and yet, I don't often think about the varying roles family has played in my own life.

As my family has evolved, morphed, broken and formed anew, so too has my appreciation for family in all its beautiful diversity.

When I was a child...

When I was a child, I loved like a child. When I was a child, my understanding of family was narrow and limited. But as I've grown, so has my family! So humor me for a minute, as I quote St. Paul:

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:8-13

When I was a child, I limited family to my family of four. When I became a man, I embraced the family that God put in my life.

When I was a child growing up in Chesterfield, Virginia in the 90s, family meant my dad, my mom, my sister, and me. And then there was Maggie Antionette, our beautiful and devoted Rottweiler. We weren't a perfect family, but we always knew to say "I love you," and to give each other a hug and a kiss every day. These were the only people I knew to say "I love you" to, the only people I knew were unequivocally my family. My imperfect family. But, my family nonetheless.

First cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents...those all seemed like extended family. I don't know if it was just our odd family dynamic, but I rarely saw them. My parents' first cousins lived minutes away, but I never met them until I was an adult. When I was a child, my family was a family of four but then it became a mosaic.

Family Mosaic

No mosaic would be beautiful without broken stones. And so it was for what became my mosaic of a family. Between divorce, remarriages, the births of nieces and a nephew, my family has grown through breaks and reformation. The family of four became a family of...well, quite a bit more! And, I'm all the richer for it.

I went from being the baby of the family to a big brother a week before my 15th birthday! I went from Sam to Uncle Sam a year and a half later! Not much later, I gained two more sisters, and a big brother. In the precise world of genealogy, where we know the difference between a first cousin twice removed and a second cousin once removed, we also have to know when not to distinguish between step, full, and half. They're my siblings. They're my parents. They're family.

This big kid is the baby I'm holding earlier!

The Body of Christ

When I became an Orthodox Christian in 2005, I couldn't have imagined just how much the Church would become another family. One big fat tight-knit world-wide family.

Whether I was in Egypt or Palestine, Lebanon or Greece, India or Kenya, I was at home. Where nationality raised walls, Christ tore them down. When I seemed a tourist, a simple "Christ is risen!" after Pascha (Orthodox Easter) or making the sign of the cross would make me a brother. 

And then I went to seminary!

There's nothing quite like an Orthodox seminary to make brothers out of a group of strangers. We prayed together, we studied together, we argued, we laughed together, we became family.

The Church has also given me sacramental family. I may not have a son of my own, but I have my adorable godson Teddy! He came out of the waters of baptism and into my arms - SUCH a powerful moment for me! I'm also the godfather/sponsor to Maria, John, Caleb, and Justin. And now I'm the koumbaros (wedding sponsor) to Thomas and Elizabeth. My Church family is growing, y'all!

As my family grows around me, I've also been discovering how big my family has been all along.

Long Lost Family

It wasn't until I dove into family history that I found just how big my family has always been.

The further I research my family, the more cousins I add to my tree, the further back I take a family line, I see that my family is gigantic! And with each passing day, I get new DNA-proven cousins, too! Some of these DNA cousins I would have never found without the help of science. Many are adoptees, or the descendants of children of unknown parentage. And yet others DNA has connected to me when their research hadn't gotten far back enough to discover our shared ancestor.

Plus, there's the genealogy family that gathers at local, state, and international conferences each year. And the online community that connects through genealogy companies, FamilySearch, blogs, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Not all of us are biological family, but we're all family in our shared love for family, for stories, and for connection.

*****

From my childhood conception of family, to my mosaic family, to my church family, to my new-found family discovered in genealogy research, I've grown to discover I have quite the large family.

How has your perception of family changed during your life? Has genealogy taught you to view family differently?

This post was inspired by the week 11 prompt "Large Family" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!