WaveFan09 50 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 anybody know where the last name Votley comes from??? im really interested as to find out where some of my family hails from Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcecilgolf 11 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 Google it and go from there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluefieldRocks 14 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/Fact.aspx?fid=7&yr=1880&ln=Votley according to this, your family ancestors are from new york Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcecilgolf 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 If they are originally from New York, then you are probably Dutch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigD4VT 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Go to www.rootsweb.com or www.ancestry.com (pay site but some stuff is free) and type in the name of your oldest known Votley ancestor, such as your grandfather or great grandfather. Chances are one of your distant cousins has already researched the line (or at least part of it) and posted it to one the the websites mentioned above. The further back you can go for a starting point the better chance you will have. Warning... genealogy information submitted to the web is notoriously unreliable. People are impatient and lazy so when something doesn't quite fit... they try to make it fit. The best place to research your ancestry is at the courthouse. Start with your grandparents marriage records. It will tell you where they were born and who their parents were... which will lead you to your great grandparents, then 2nd great and so on. That will take you out of Buchanan County to wherever your ancestors came from but the Library in Grundy should be able to order microfilm through inter-library loan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EH31 2,533 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Can i find out if i'm related to paris hilton? lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLU 10 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 I think BigD is correct on the reliabilty of that on the net. Every name you put in there show the majority of the families from NY. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigD4VT 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Celebrities, especially from a family like hers, are usually well researched and documented. It wouldn't be hard to find out if you are related to her. Myself, I'm a direct descendant of Sarah Boone. She was my 6th great grandmother and the oldest sister of Col. Daniel Boone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigD4VT 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 [ QUOTE ] I think BigD is correct on the reliability of that on the net. Every name you put in there show the majority of the families from NY. [/ QUOTE ] You have to remember that America was confined to the North East and Mid Atlantic in those days. Pretty much everyone in the present United States can trace their roots to someplace between Massachusetts and South Carolina depending on when their ancestors immigrated. New York's Ellis Island was the point of entry for the largest immigration in American history. My ancestors were all here before Ellis Island so my roots lead to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcecilgolf 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Takes a lot of research to find out your ancestory, espcially hard since records back in the day weren't that accurate. Mine is really not that hard, Thomas Witten is my 7-great grandfather and he built Fort Witten at Crap Orchard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLU 10 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Cool. I thought it may have been Ronald Reagan! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigD4VT 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 He was the first permanent white settler in what is now Tazewell County. Records from that period are scarce mostly because we were part of Fincastle County {which no longer exists) but also because we were once part of Montgomery, Russell, Washington and Augusta counties. Record keeping also wasn't very thorough or consistent prior to the early/mid 19th century. I can say that you can easily trace your Tazewell roots as far back as 1800 when the county was formed. Unlike most counties Tazewell has never lost a record. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hacker 82 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Recordkeeping was always a challenge. A lot of our eastern counties saw records destroyed in the Civil War. Also lots of counties throughout the country had courthouse fires over the years that destroyed lots of useful data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigD4VT 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 That's very true. Buchanan County has lost records to flooding. Russell's entire marriage register #1 is missing. I'm not sure if it was lost to fire or something else. Record keeping started to get better (at least for marriages) in the mid/late 1800's but reporting of births and deaths wasn't required in Virginia until 1910. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WaveFan09 50 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 [ QUOTE ] http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/Fact.aspx?fid=7&yr=1880&ln=Votley according to this, your family ancestors are from new york [/ QUOTE ] now thats awesome because My Grandmother is from Buffalo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMan 3,569 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 [ QUOTE ] Takes a lot of research to find out your ancestory, espcially hard since records back in the day weren't that accurate. Mine is really not that hard, Thomas Witten is my 7-great grandfather and he built Fort Witten at Crap Orchard. [/ QUOTE ] HOLY CRAP DUDE! We are distant relatives!!! My aunt has our family tree researched back several hundred years...Thomas Witten is right there in the thick of it...I'm not exactly sure what relation I am to him but definitely related and there are lots of stories of "Granny Witten" (my mother's, aunts', and uncles' grandmother) in my family (she was a direct decendant of Thomas). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcecilgolf 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Haha, that's pretty hardcore. My Dad's entire side of the family is all Witten's. I know the family tree is mapped out somewhere, my Great-aunt Mildred Witten is hardcore devoted to the Tazewell County Historical Society. I will see if I can find it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLU 10 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Sounds like a hardcore kind of family! I have heard that name alot, they run thick in Taz. Co. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcecilgolf 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Yeah, Thompson, Witten, , and a bunch I can't think of are very common around here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigD4VT 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Here are some of the earliest settlers. Most of us can trace our roots to at least a few of them. Early County Settlements and Settlers 1769 -1773 Abb's Valley Iaaac BLANGY Absalom LOONEY Capt. James MOORE, Robert POAGUE Baptist Valley John DESKINS, Thomas MARTIN, Richard PEMBERTON, Charles and James SCAGGS Bluestone Samuel FERGUSON, John HARMAN, Benjamin JOSLIN, Thomas MAXWELL, James OGLETON Burke's Garden Thomas INGLES Clear Fork of Wolf Creek John RIDGEL The Cove John CRAVEN, David WARD Crab Apple Orchard Samuel CECIL, John GREENUP, Thonas WITTEN Deskins Valley Richard ONEY, Obadiah PAYNE Head of the Clinch River Henry, Mathias and Jacob HARMAN Jeffersonville Area (Tazewell) John BRADSHAW, Elisha CARY, Benjamin, Chrisley and Thomas HOUSLEY, John, Thomas and William PEERY Locust Hill William WYNN Morris Knob William GARRISON North Fork of the Clinch William BUTLER, Jesse EVANS, John TAYLOR Thompson Valley John HENRY, James KING, Samuel MARRS, Joseph MARTIN, John and Archibald THOMPSON Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLU 10 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Where do you fing this info.? i would like to trace the Mcdowell-Mercer area ..... The library as mentioned before? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigD4VT 11 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 The best thing to do is start with yourself, then your parents, then grandparents, go as far as you already know then start asking your parents and grandparents what they know. After you have all of that you can go to the courthouse of the county/counties where those people were married and search for the records. It will tell you where they were born and who their parents were. That will lead you to two more marriage records. I'm not familiar with Mercer but McDowell has a good archives room. Those counties have only been around since 1860 though and you will probably end up doing some research in Tazewell. The library is good for published resources (that won't help you much until you get really far back) as well as census transcriptions, obituaries, cemetery indexes, newspapers etc. They can get microfilm of records from other counties through inter-library loan. The Craft Memorial Library in Bluefield has the Daily Telegraph on microfilm back to the late 1800's. Tazewell has the Clinch Valley News. You can also search the name of your oldest known ancestor at rootsweb.com. If anyone has researched him/her it will open the floodgates. Just be cautious because like I said, it's not all reliable. It's a good starting point though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluefieldRocks 14 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 My last name is Taylor, and thats a pretty common name. It would be extremly hard to find any info on my relatives Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigD4VT 11 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 Wouldn't be hard at all. My most common line is Mitchell, and there were at least 3 separate lines of them in the area, but I have them documented 6 generations back. All you have to do is what I said above with the marriage records. You can fill in the blanks with birth, death, census, probate etc. records but the marriage certificates are the way to trace your direct lineage. At least until they dry up around 1800. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLU 10 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 I have been researching now, and this takes too much time!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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