A Walk Through Various Errors in the Edwards Genealogies of Westmoreland Co., Virginia

Seldom has a single genealogy been so riddled with mistakes and faulty research as the Edwards family of Westmoreland County, Virginia. Compounding the problems of scarce colonial records was an outright fraud in the 19th century that left genealogists and historians copy-pasting bad information for over a century, and some rare, heroic souls trying to fix the mistakes as far back as the 1930s. With this post, I'd like to show where genealogists went wrong, and hopefully illuminate the real origins of this Edwards family.

While a number of fake "traditions" swept quite a few Edwards ancestors into this hot mess, it seems the Edwards family of Westmoreland County, Virginia may be the most impacted. These early gentleman planters spread out into Spotsylvania, King George and Stafford Counties by the 1730s. But by the 19th century, genealogists were already confusing them with unrelated families all over the Tidewater. In each case, the erroneous claim can be identified by its total lack of supporting evidence.

Identification for the origin of the Westmoreland branch seems to follow one of two major theories: one that posits them as descendants of an immigrant to Surry County, Virginia in the early 17th century, another, inspired by the Edwards Fortune scam, claims they descend from a Welsh clergyman and his sons who supposedly immigrated in the mid-18th century.

Despite their prevalence in journals, newsletters and in genealogies all over the internet, both theories are demonstrably false.

The Surry County Theory

The 1910 book "The Beall and Edwards Families and Their Descendants" by Albert S. Edwards seems to be the first source that goes off the rails. The author, who seems to be preoccupied with demonstrating the prominence of his ancestors, posits that every single Edwards in Virginia descends from John Edwards, a clerk of Surry County. After listing early descendants from locations as diverse as Spotsylvania, Jamestown, King William, Brunswick, Surry and Northumberland, he proclaims "they were all grandchildren or great-grandchildren of the immigrant, as their locality proves."

Working from this incredibly low standard of proof, an article in Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol. 17 No. 49, asserted in 1919 that William Edwards of Westmoreland County was the son of William Edwards and Ann Harrison of Lancaster County.  The author cited only a "manuscript" written by a "prominent member of the family." Further research reveals that this manuscript is the 1895 book Leaves From the Chancellor--Cooper--Fitzgerald--Edwards Tree by C. W. Chancellor. Chancellor introduced the William Edwards-Ann Harrison hypothesis and posited the family's origin in Northumberland County, but appears to have incorporated both an "immigrant brothers myth" as well as the Edwards estate fraud into his poorly-supported hypothesis, leaving the quality of his work in doubt.

In 1925, the Edwards-Harrison theory was repeated in the notorious "Edwards Heirs," a monthly publication explicitly written to support the claims of the Edwards fortune scammers. It similarly posits William Edwards of Westmoreland, father of Hayden, Robert, Benjamin, Rebecca, Martha, Mary and Jeanette Edwards, as a son of William Edwards and Ann Harrison of Lancaster County, Virginia.  This earlier William was supposedly an immigrant to Virginia in 1635 aboard the ship "Ye Merchants" and was awarded large tracts of land in several counties. Once again, no evidence or sources, and the book erroneously claims that Robert Edwards of Westmoreland "died without issue" even though he had at least one documented daughter.

A genealogy called "The King Family," written in 1949 by George M. G. Stafford and based on research by Goode King Feldhauser (1863-1939), a great granddaughter of Gen. John Edwards King (1757-1828) elaborated on this theory considerably. By the author's account, this genealogy is based largely on notes gathered from the letters of older family members in the Edwards/King family, written as early as the 1820s. It may be accurate as far back as the mid-18th century.

But evidently without family sources to work from for the earliest generations, Stafford researched the family's early history himself, claiming the Edwards line "can easily be traced" back to medieval Welsh forbears from Denbighshire. Elaborating on previous mistakes, he gives this account of the Edwards direct line down to John Edwards of Westmoreland County:

John Edwards of Denbigh, Wales img. to Northumberland County Va., early 17th century.
John Edwards Jr., vestryman of Lancaster, Burgess of Surry Co. married Frances Cole.
William Edwards (d.1673), Burgess of Surry in 1653 m. Dorothy Withers.
William Edwards Jr. (d.1722) married Ann Harrison of Surry County, Va.
John Edwards married Jane Arrington of Westmoreland, Prince William and Spotsylvania County VA.

This "lineage" is essentially a tossed salad of random people named Edwards from Tidewater Virginia. The earliest immigrant is so early he must have been a Conquistador. John the vestryman wrote in his 1667 will that all his children were still in England, so he could not have been father of a Burgess in Surry County. Claims made for their relationships are entirely unsupported, either by "tradition" or other means, and cannot be corroborated through official contemporary records. Even worse, it directly contradicts better research.

Most importantly, Ann Harrison, the supposed mother of John and William Edwards of Westmoreland, cannot be found in any contemporary record; a deed in James City on April 6, 1709 notes the wife of William Edwards of Surry as "Elizabeth Harrison Edwards." In 1906, the William & Mary Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 published a research piece that stated that William Edwards, Burgess of Surry County, Virginia (1615-1673), son of an immigrant William Edwards (d.1624), had son William (d.1698), who in turn had William (d.1722) who married an Elizabeth Harrison, daughter of Benjamin, who "according to the inscription on her tombstone, died at the age of 17."

Edwards genealogists apparently didn't think it was a stretch for a 17-year-old to be mother of both William and John Edwards, nevermind the fact that she would have been far too young to have given birth to men who became fathers around the time of her death. According to the William & Mary Quarterly, William Edwards remarried after Elizabeth's death and had several children, none of whom are the John or William Edwards of Westmoreland.

Some have figured out that the Edwards lineage is a mess and made a concerted attempt to sort it out with real documents and a skeptical mindset. Among these was the great George Harrison Sanford King, who wrote a well-supported research piece titled "The Edwards Family" in the Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol. 32, No. 101, October 1934.

He starts off "it is only because so much has been written incorrectly about the Edwards family, that I shall attempt to set forth some of the facts more recently discovered and which I hope will be of interest to many." Carry on good sir, carry on.

He begins with Haden Edwards (1716-1803), a well-documented son of William Edwards of Westmoreland County. He then starts digging into the "tradition" that William was from Lancaster County, son of John Edwards of "Northumberland House" in Northumberland County, Virginia. He notes: "I can find no documentary evidence which would prove this." The source, he indicates, was Rev. Horace Hayden's book "Virginia Genealogies," which claimed that John Edwards had William Edwards of Westmoreland County, who married Mary Hayden. As usual, no evidence or argument is provided by Hayden, and we are left to conclude it was merely an assumption based on incomplete information.

Given that there is no Ann Harrison, wife of William Edwards, and Elizabeth Harrison Edwards was far too young to be the mother of John and William Edwards, the only reasonable conclusion is that all of these lineages that claim the Westmoreland Edwards family descends from the Surry one are patently false.

The Welsh Clergyman Theory

While the irredeemably sloppy "Surry County" theories can at least be written off as honest mistakes, the Welsh Clergyman theories are downright fraudulent, and seem to be completely interchangeable based on the claims of different descendants to the supposed Edwards fortune. This theory claims that the Westmoreland and related Edwards ancestors descend from Welsh immigrants in the mid-18th century.

The Edwards legends evidently began influencing published genealogies with "Old King William Homes and Families" by Peyton Neil Clarke, 1897.

Clarke writes that Ambrose Edwards of King William County, Virginia (d.1810) was the son of an unnamed clergyman who immigrated from Wales with his sons Robert, John and Ambrose in 1745, and that Robert went to New York and was founder of the "Edwards Estate" while John went to South Carolina, and Ambrose settled in Virginia. The entry cryptically notes that nothing further is known about this founding "clergyman" including where he settled or where he is buried.

Naturally, genealogists have had a difficult time corroborating this information. The "Genealogical Magazine" Vol. 5 from 1897, laments that no one has been able to locate any records for Ambrose Edwards or his brothers in England. That's because they never lived there, of course, and their alleged clergyman father never existed. This is where later Edwards fortune scammers inserted the fictitious "Thomas Nathaniel Edwards," a man whose name was pulled from a secret "family bible" that no one has seen and whose existence has never been confirmed by any other source.

Another "tradition" mentioned in a 1974 written work titled "The Family: From Virginia to the Pacific" claims that Uriah Edwards of Spotsylvania County, Virginia came from Denbighshire, Wales in 1735 and immigrated to New York with his brothers John and Robert Edwards. These are all said to be the sons of John Edwards, who had brothers Robert, Hayden and Thomas, all of course from Denbighshire. Note how Uriah has magically replaced Ambrose as the third brother, and how this time they all went to New York, not just Robert. The genealogy erroneously gives Hayden's birth as 1687 (there is only one Haden, born in 1716), but gives the correct names of some of the other Edwards relatives of Westmoreland County, which can be verified with documentation.

This genealogy gives Uriah as one of twelve children, all without a source, documentation or even an argument. They are listed as: Uriah, Robert, John, James, Henry, Richard, Anneke Jane, Elizabeth, Benjamin, Mary, Rebecca and Mildred Edwards. Henry and Richard appear to have been borrowed from the Northumberland Edwards clan, and Anneke is said to be "of a Quaker family," which this family certainly was not. To his/her credit, the unknown author seems skeptical of their own information and peppers the text with question marks.

Some Edwards descendants modified the legend to suit their own ambitions. While most of the "Edwards fortune" scammers gave Robert Edwards as the alleged shipbuilder (or buccaneer in some sources) of New York who was deeded most of lower Manhattan by George III (or by Queen Anne, in others), a newspaper account from the Denver Post dated Aug. 1, 1901 swapped out Robert for Uriah. It seems none of the Westmoreland clan are immune to the curse of the Edwards fortune. You can see the cringe-inducing article here.

The "Edwards fortune" fraud did immeasurable damage to Edwards genealogy, and the insertion of the fictitious Thomas Nathaniel Edwards, named in Edwards Heirs, cemented the various stories about the Edwards legacy, drafting Edwards ancestors from Maryland, Virginia and even North Carolina into the chaos. The aftermath of this trainwreck can be seen on multiple family trees across the internet. Thomas Nathaniel Edwards can be found in more than 2,600 trees on Ancestry.com alone, despite the fact that not one clear document supporting his existence has ever been confirmed.

In summation, one thing can be said about the various Edwards genealogies of the last 122 years: they are almost all wrong. Many were clearly inspired by a hoax, but some were just poorly researched. Genealogists from a century ago had an obsession with royal lineage, heraldry, prominence, and demonstrating relationships to founding fathers and U.S. presidents. Early Edwards genealogists seemed hell-bent on connecting their ancestors with the wealthy and prominent Harrison family of Lancaster County, ancestors of U.S. presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison. Anywhere they found ambiguity they inserted fame and fortune, leaving a mess of inaccurate information in their wake.

The tragedy here is that the truth of the Edwards family of Westmoreland is fairly simple, and easily supported with deeds, wills, parish records and court orders.

The evidence suggests they descend from Meredith Edwards, who was transported to Maryland by John Filer in late 1675. In October 1694, Meredith bought property in Westmoreland County, Virginia, along with a probable brother, John Edwards. Another potential brother, Robert Edwards, had arrived as early as 1668 and died in 1682 at age 42; John, who had been there since at least 1665, had at least one son ("John Edwards junr." of Westmoreland), and was evidently still living in January 1724.

If Meredith and John Edwards were indeed brothers, they were not from Wales, but appear to have been Englishmen of Welsh descent. A revealing letter penned to John Edwards in March 1673 was recorded in the order book of Westmoreland County. It was written by William Tucker, merchant of London, and in it Tucker refers to John Edwards as his cousin, affectionately signing off "your loving kinsmen." Given that the Tuckers were a London-based family, this suggests that the Edwards clan of Westmoreland descend from the London merchant class as well.

Meredith Edwards wrote his will shortly before his death in 1712 naming his four children as John, William, Thomas and Eleanor. As early as 1716, his sons began migrating north along the coast, buying up land in King George and Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Willam's son, Haden Edwards, was baptized in St. Paul Parish Church, Stafford County in 1716; Thomas Edwards was named as a landowner in a deed in Spotsylvania County in 1722, appearing in a number of King George County records through 1755; and John and William began appearing in King George court together in 1723 and John bought land in Spotsylvania County in 1731, later purchasing a lot in Fredericksburg, presumably to use as a town home. This John Edwards is likely the John Edwards of the mythologies.

William's children continued to fan out further north into Stafford and Loudoun Counties; John's children settled in Overwharton Parish, Stafford County, where Ignatius first appears as a landowner in October 1730. A Meredith Edwards died in Overwharton Parish in October 1749, the unusual name cementing the family's connection to their immigrant ancestor in Westmoreland County. This same Meredith Edwards was named "administrator of the goods and chattels of John Edwards, deceased" in a suit in King George County in 1747.

The records are clear that William, Thomas and John Edwards of Spotsylvania/King George were related, and the same men from Westmoreland County. We know William migrated into King George/Stafford County because the baptism of Haden Edwards states the father as "William Edwards of Washington Parish"-- the aforenamed parish is in Westmoreland County. "William and Mary Edwards of Westmoreland" were also summoned to court to serve as witnesses in King George County in 1733.

When John Edwards was sued in King George County in 1723, William Edwards served as his security; and when John died in 1743, both William and Thomas Edwards filed suits over his estate. Even a brush with celebrity proves the migration: Augustine Washington (father of the first president) sued John Edwards in Westmoreland in 1721, and sued him again in King George in 1724.

In the 1740s and '50s, Andrew, Robert, Haden, William and the above mentioned Meredith Edwards of Stafford County made a number of appearances in King George County court. This firmly roots the Edwards clan of Stafford in Westmoreland. And we have a very old family account from Goode King Feldhauser that Elizabeth Edwards King of Stafford was the daughter of John Edwards and Jane Arrington of Westmoreland. Given that this marriage is corroborated by a detailed genealogy of the Monroe family, it is likely reliable.

We also know that this Elizabeth Edwards King had a son named Weathers King who sold land to Haden Edwards (son of William) in 1784 (Stafford County deeds), showing another connection between the William and John Edwards children. Elizabeth's son, Robert King (d.1814) is also buried alongside Jesse Edwards, proven son of her brother Ignatius, in the tiny family cemetery called King-Roles in Stafford County. And finally, Ignatius's daughter, Jemima was born in March 1737 and baptized at St. Paul Parish, in the same church as her father's (probable) cousin, Haden.

Thanks to AncestryDNA, there is also more than enough genetic evidence to indicate that all of the Stafford County Edwards families of the 1730s-1750s are related. I invite any Edwards descendant to take a test and have a look for yourself.

So to quickly summarize what this family should actually look like:

John Edwards (c.1685 - bef. Dec. 2, 1743) m. unknown wife, c. 1705. Given their son had a Catholic name, she may have been from Maryland. John's estate was probated in King George County, Va.

1. Susanna Edwards (c.1706 - c.1767) of St. Paul Parish, Stafford County, Va.
2. Ignatius Edwards (bef.1709 - Oct. 15, 1750) of Overwharton Parish, Stafford County, Va.

 

With second wife, Jane Arrington (b. c.1700 to Thomas Arrington and Elizabeth Monroe of Westmoreland County), married in 1718 according to "The Monroe Family" by Payne & King, 1933.

1. Elizabeth Edwards (c.1719 - 1792) of Overwharton Parish, Stafford County, Va.
2. Meredith Edwards (c.1720 - Oct. 16, 1749) of Overwharton Parish, Stafford County, Va.
3. Andrew Edwards (c.1723 - July 1788) of Overwharton Parish Stafford County, Va.

4. Robert Edwards (c.1725 - aft.1756) of Overwharton Parish, Stafford County, Va.
5. William Edwards (c.1728 - Nov. 9, 1813) of Overwharton Parish, Stafford County, Va.
6. Bridget Edwards (c.1735 - aft.1758) of Overwharton Parish, Stafford County, Va.
7. Thomas Edwards (c.1739 - aft.1809) of Fauquier County, Va. and Buncombe County, NC 

Thomas Edwards (c.1739 - aft.1809) of Buncombe County, NC clearly belongs in the John Edwards family group; Andrew Edwards and Thomas Withers, brother of Andrew's second wife's first husband, are both named in his marriage bond in Fauquier County, Virginia in April 1760.

William Edwards (c.1687 - aft.Nov. 25, 1746) and wife Mary had only two confirmed children, Haden and Benjamin, both named in a conveyance of Westmoreland County in 1746. According to older traditions, Robert was his son; however, it is important to note that Robert's wife, Sarah, served as executor of Meredith Edwards in 1750, so Robert is more likely John's son. Other strong candidates include Mary Edwards who married Charles Wells at St. Paul Parish in 1733 and had children named Hayden, Benjamin and Eleanor; and John Edwards who married Elizabeth Cartwright in St. Mary's County, Maryland--John's son, Jonathan Edwards moved to Loudoun County, Virginia in the 1790s.

1. John Edwards (c.1710 - c.1770) of St. Mary's County, MD
2. Mary Edwards (c.1712 - 1771) of Stafford County and Prince William County, Va.
3. Haden Edwards (Mar. 16, 1716 - July 13, 1803) of Stafford County, Va.
4. Benjamin Edwards (bef.1725 - 1803) of Loudoun County, Va.

Some early sources list his children as Hayden, Robert, Benjamin, John, Rebecca, Martha, Mary and Jeanette Edwards, but the accuracy of these sources is not known.

Thomas Edwards (c.1695 - 1774?) named his five children as William, Mary Sargent, Franky, Thomas and Alice Edwards in his June 1, 1774 will in Westmoreland County. His daughters are named as Mary S. Cowles, Alice Cowles and Franky Wickliffe in his probate papers in 1782.

 
With wife Alice Serjeant (b. Jan. 4, 1725 in Richmond County; widow of Downing Howell, d.1750; named wife of Thomas Edwards in a suit in King George County court in Nov. 1755):

1. Mary Sargent Edwards (Cowles) (c.1754 - aft.Oct. 1782) of Westmoreland County, Va.
2. Franky Edwards (Wickliffe) (1756 - Dec. 13, 1822) of Greenville County, SC

3. Rev. William Edwards (c.1760 - bef.1807) of Westmoreland County, Va. 

4. Capt. Thomas Edwards (Jan. 25, 1762 - Aug. 7, 1832) of Greenville County, SC
5. Alice Edwards (Cowles) (1764 - c.1830) of Fauquier Co., Va. and Franklin, TN

Capt. Thomas Edwards of Greenville County had a granddaughter named "Frances Wickliffe Edwards." Franky Wickliffe noted in her will in 1818 that she lived on property adjacent to "Thomas Edwards Jr."

Note that the Thomas Edwards who died in 1774 has not been confirmed as the son of Meredith Edwards, who can only be confidently traced to around 1744 in King George County. See this post for more discussion on this hypothesis.

Well there you have it.

The commonness of the first names as well as the surname Edwards, the confusion over the Edwards scam as well as the scarcity of good records in colonial Virginia, make this a particularly difficult family to untangle. But it is possible if you go back to original records and hold fast to careful, accurate documentation. Always remember that the most important question in genealogy is "where is it from?"

Thanks for reading.

Researched and written by Jason M. Farrell