Edwards Genealogy of Colonial Virginia

I see this stuff over and over again in public trees, posted and re-posted by the thousands. If there's anyone pulling their hair out over these things, here's some red flags to look for that will strongly suggest you're looking at weak research: People in the 17th and 18th centuries with middle names . Yes, some people did have them. But most didn't. Bad genealogists seem to love adding middle names to their colonial ancestors, even if no middle name appears in any record for the individual. Evidently, if they find records of people that are confusing or inconsistent--one guy is named William Smith and another guy from someone else's genealogy with the same wife is named Robert Smith--they will simply add the new first name as a middle name: William Robert Smith. VOILA. Problem solved! People in the 17th and 18th centuries with birth and death dates . This mostly pertains to the colonial south, where parish records are few and far between. ...

Having a recent discussion with a professional genealogist, I felt it necessary to make absolutely clear, with careful documentation, that the John, Thomas and William Edwards who appear in Westmoreland, King George and Spotsylvania Counties between 1708 and 1755 are brothers, and the sons of Meredith Edwards (c.1655-1712) of Westmoreland County, Virginia. Given that William Edwards of Westmoreland is the ancestor of several prominent American politicians, including John Edwards (1748-1833), the first elected senator from Kentucky, Haden Edwards (1771-1849), an early Texas revolutionary, and his son, Haden Harrison Edwards (1812-1865), a Texas legislator, there is some historical significance in getting this genealogy right.  A theory that posits that William Edwards of Westmoreland County was the son of William Edwards (c.1680-1722) and Ann Harrison of Surry County has been widely accepted for several decades. This theory evidently originated from the Register of the K...

Until very recently, I believed Gerrard (bef.1738 - 1810) and John Edwards (c.1725 - c.1801) of Fauquier County, Virginia were sons of John Edwards Sr. and Jane Arrington. Gerrard's son, Elijah's estate was administered by a "Thompson Edwards" in 1838, and since Ignatius, son of John Sr., had a proven grandson named "Thomson Edwards" in the 1787 tithables of Stafford County, I figured that was enough of a connection. John Edwards of Prince William/Fauquier was called "orphan boy" in an order of 1744, which made sense if his father died in 1743. But alas, I was working with erroneous assumptions. The evidence suggests that Gerrard and John Edwards, though probably related, actually belong to a different family. Firstly, it seems clear these men are likely brothers. Gerrard Edwards appears in the Fauquier County tithables list of June 1759, with John Edwards appearing just four households away. Living with John Edwards are two tithables, James a...

Many Edwards genealogists digging into the colonial period have come across the name "Thomas Nathaniel Edwards." He is usually said to have born in Wales on October 14, 1690 and died in an unknown location in February or November 1781. Some entries call him "Sir" and say he was from a wealthy family that owned an estate called "Edwards Hall" in Wales. He is said to have been a merchant nobleman (or clergyman) who immigrated to the colonies in the mid 18th century with his wife and children and lived everywhere from New York to Georgia. Descendants claimed he was a loyalist during the Revolution and that his son, Robert Edwards, leased out land in June 1778 that was illegitimately sold to Trinity Episcopal Church in New York City, a lease for which the family was owed money. The resulting "Edwards Fortune" case even ended up in court several times and was dismissed every time. Though these claims were largely debunked, the legend of Thomas N...

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 ...