Last week, I made a break through on one of my brick walls.
You see, I have a line of WOMACKS.
My 3 x Great Grandfather, Lewellen SNEAD from Halifax County, Virginia, married a Rebecca WOMACK from Halifax County, Virginia, on 20 January, 1849.
Rebecca's parents were Abraham and Tabitha Jane(nee HUDSON) WOMACK.
Abe was born in 1755 and the speculation is that Abe's father was also named Abraham WOMACK.
This is were this line of WOMACKS ends for me.
This WOMACK line comes off my mother's maternal Grandfather's lines of VASSAR and SNEAD.
But last weekend, while searching around on my mother's paternal grandfather's mother's line of DRISKILL(or DRISCOLL) I made a find.....which led to another unexpected find.
My 2 Great Grandmother, Mary Agnes DRISKILL, was born in Halifax County, Virginia in 1838. Mary Agnes's Great Grandfather was named Daniel DRISKILL born 1730 in Campbell County, Virginia.
He married a woman named Ann WOMACK born in 1745 in Campbell County as well.
So it seems I have 2 lines of WOMACKS on my mother's side of the family. It could be that these 2 liens are actually the same line but I have yet to connect Rebecca's line to Ann's line of WOMACKS.
There is much WOMACKS in AMERICA research already done as well as a fair amount of questions, undocumented info and speculation among the WOMACK information stretching from America back to the British Isles.
Even so, I have been able to connect Ann's branch back into a well documented part of the line.....one of the first WOMACKS to come to the New World, William WOMACK from either Lincolnshire or Norfolk, England. This Womack is purported have come to Virginia in his teens or early twenties(1640's) and eventually died 1 Aug 1697 in Bristol Parish, Virginia Colony(a Crown Colony by the time this ancestor arrived). Still not sure on whether during his lifetime this Parish was considered in Charles Cittie or in Henrico County. If this William WOMACK is the one who is purported to have owned land in the Bermuda Hundred then it's Henrico County.
This William WOMACK had a son named ABRAHAM and as families were apt to name their successive generations after themselves, it's possible my other WOMACK line(the SNEAD/WOMACK line)with 2 Abrahams that I know of)is also connected to this WOMACK(on the DRISKILL side of things)line.
But I digress.....
Anyway, I started filling out the tree of WOMACKS with siblings/ancestors on this line from documented source material and on a branch sprouting from my 6 x Great Grandfather, Richard WOMACK JR.(William's grandson), instead of following his son/my ancestor James WOMACK, I started down his son/my ancestor's sibling Richard WOMACK III's branch.
While my branch of the family tree pretty much stayed in Virginia, Richard III's branch meandered around the South--from Virginia, to South Carolina, to Louisiana, to Georgia, to Texas, back to Louisiana, to Texas, to Arkansas, and back to Texas and finally the line led me to Oklahoma.
Richard III's 4 x Great Granddaughter was a woman named Abbie Lillian WOMACK.
She married a man named Charles Bailey MEEK from Arkansas and they settled in Oklahoma.
Nothing special here, except Abbie & Charlie MEEK were the grandparents of James Scott BUMGARNER.
You may know him as James Garner the actor.
Or from this tv series of the 1960's HERE.
(That's Adam West in this clip, pre-Batman days.)
Jim went on to star in the popular series The Rockford Files in the 1970's, a series of very popular tv commercials in the 1980's for Polaroid, as well as 50 Hollywood films throughout his long career.
He died last month on the 19th of July at 86.
I use to love to watch the Rockford Files with the Hubs when we were young, as well as in movies. I always thought James Garner was a good actor.
I had no clue back then that Jim was my 8th cousin through our shared ancestor, Richard Womack, Jr., born in 1674 in the Colony of Virginia.
You just never know what you will find when you start researching your ancestry!
Sluggy
I am really enjoying your genealogy posts. I have been helping 2 ladies who contacted my ancestry tree this week and although there is no connection I do know of the folk that they are trying to trace.
ReplyDeleteThere was also a spooky thing this week. I collect CVDs (Cartes de Visite or Cabinet Photographs) and came across one with the name and date of birth on the reverse. Never being able to resista bit of research I looked it up and decided to contact anyone researching the person on ancestry to see if they would like to have a scan of the photograph to add to their tree. The first person that I came across had the ancestry note at the side that I had had 5 previous messages from this person. I contacted the person only to discover that my little photograph was of a relative on my DH's Grandfather's 2nd wife!
Very exciting to be related to James Gardner I must admit that I noticed the name Hudson near the top of your post and thought that that was going to be the connection.
I also noticed the odd spelling Lewellen - at home in Wales this would be written as Llewellyn. Wonder if this relative of yours might have had a Welsh connection?
We have not found anyone very famous yet although DH's grandfather, as mentioned above was educated at home and his governess was a cousin to the now Sainted Cardinal John Newman.
It is always said in UK genealogy that because of the sheer numbers involved by going back so many generations most folk are related to Kind Edward III. I aspire to tracing my line to another King. I need to check my sources but my great-grandmother was named Ellen Wesson and she came from Tipton in what was South Staffordshire, England, Elvis (The King)'s ancestor was also(?) Ellen but maybe Martha (?) Wesson and she came from Titpton County in one of the Southern States. Lots of checking needs to be done.
Good Hunting!
Awesome!!!! I was a HUGE Rockford files fan too! He was such a great actor...
ReplyDeleteVery cool! You've gone a LONG WAY BACK!!!
ReplyDeletePeace <3
Jay
Neat research, you may be your own cousin. In law school we figured out husband and wife can be brother and sister.
ReplyDeleteI've already discovered that my maternal grandfather's sister(my great Aunt) married a man descended from a man who our line is also descended from, so she and her spouse were cousins and never knew it.
DeleteI've found a set of 6x GGrands who I am descended from by way of two different maternal lines as well.
I always joke that my mother's parents had to leave south Central VA to find their daughter a man to marry who wasn't related to her. lolz
I wonder if you are related to Bobby Womack?
ReplyDeleteThis is all verrrry interesting. I loved James Garner!