Bill & LaVonne Lee |
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The Ancestors and Descendants The Ancestors and Descendants of Lt Colonel Leven POWELL (1737-1810)
contains 132 unique Family Group Sheets, starting with the immigrant
Walter POWELL (1622-1695), Leven POWELL's Great
Grandfather, through eleven generations, to current times. Nearly 300 POWELLs
are included in the study (over 500 if one counts wives who took the
name of POWELL) and over 1400 names are listed in the full-name
index. Each group sheet includes citations to references used on
that group sheet, and a complete bibliography follows the study.
NOTICE:
ALTHOUGH ALL COPIES OF THIS BOOK HAVE BEEN SOLD OUT, A GREAT DEAL OF
POWELL INFORMATION FROM THE RESEARCH THAT WENT INTO THE BOOK CAN BE
FOUND AT
OSWALDRelations.com. AS ALWAYS,
MANY THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST IN OUR RESEARCH, AND MAY YOUR SEARCHES BE
FRUITFUL AND REWARDING.
BILL and LaVONNE LEE Introduction To Historical Background
For many years I have been interested in the genealogy and history of
my family and that of my wife, LaVonne. Then, in 1987, at age 50, I left
my paying job as Director of Information Systems for a multinational
manufacturer of electronic components to spend full time doing genealogical
research of my family, LaVonne's family and others on a fee basis. In the
research I had performed before that time I had discovered that knowledge of the
extended family is lost over time as members of the family move on to greener
pastures in another locality or state, sometimes moving several states away.
These family members are soon forgotten and records of their life's
accomplishments and disappointments are lost forever to some members of the family. With this
in mind, LaVonne and I began researching selected family names - recording every
occurrence of those names in public records across a wide area, and publishing
the results of our findings. To date we have nearly 20 books published
with the results of that research, and material for at least 20 more.
Leven POWELL's two-story, Federalist style, stone house, just east of
Middleburg, Virginia, is still standing and in good repair. In 1991, and
again in 2004, I had the opportunity to visit this house, which is still in use
as a private residence. The village of Middleburg has managed, to this
date, anyway, to stave off the advances of today's population and modern
expansion, and is a quaint step back into the past. Really amazing, when
one considers the town's close proximity to the DC Beltway. A trip to
Middleburg is highly recommended.
One member of this extended family was Katherine HEPBURN (see Page 157), the
Academy Award winning actress. In her book ME, she describes
her relationship to the family, their prominence in Virginia, and their eventual
fall from affluence, as well as an historical footnote, thusly, "Dad's mother
was a member of the very distinguished POWELL family. As with other
families in the South, they had been quite impoverished by the Civil War."
And so, this once illustrious colonial family, like so many families, has become
part of the landscape of normal American life, as we know it today.
Methodology
Although not doing an indepth study of the POWELLs, I have always
kept my eyes open for literature on the family, and when I have been in areas
that I knew the POWELLs lived, I have visited courthouses, cemeteries and
libraries. Most notable of those areas are Saline County, Missouri, where
my mother was born; Henderson County, Kentucky, where my branch of the POWELLs
settled briefly; and Leven POWELL'S home area of Loudoun County, Virginia.
Through the years I have
spent considerable time in libraries. Those where I have looked for POWELL
data include The Family History Library in Salt Lake City UT, the Missouri State
Historical Society Library in Columbia MO and The Library of Virginia in
Richmond VA.
A large portion of the information in this book came from published material
that is referenced on each page and itemized in the bibliography. Without
these books it would have been impossible to prepare this book. Each of
the referenced works contains information on a particular part of the family.
This book brings together these works into one genealogy within one cover,
with still a lot of parts of the family uncovered. Perhaps others will
publish their knowledge of their part of the family and will use this work to
someday prepare an even more comprehensive and complete history of the POWELL
family.
A word of caution on this type of compilation must be noted. Although
every attempt has been made to minimize errors in interpretation and
transcription, it is impossible to be 100% accurate. The same can be said
for every secondary source I have used. The end result may he a hodge
podge of inaccuracies. So one should not accept this work as gospel, and
not do research of their own along the way. Another danger in accepting
other's work as the final word is that one does not know who copied who. I
have cited sources of information on each page, although it is impossible to
cite each and every piece of data. For serious researchers this book will
make an excellent source for doing further research and a great starting point
for Where and When to look for What.
While discussing the Ws of historical research I will mention that I am a
big proponent of the five Ws - Who, What, When,
Where and Why. In my research those five Ws are
what I am looking for. One can not always find them, but when I do find
them, I report them. The Why is the hardest to locate, and when
using secondary sources such as published books one is totally at the mercy of
what the author or compiler was able to locate, or felt was important. For
that reason, in a good many instances, all I have given is the name of
offspring, with no dates, locations or anything else. In several entries
all I have is a name and a date - no locations. That was all I had to work
with, so that is all I have reported. Classic examples of only names and
dates are Family Bibles. Although great references, and considered by many
to be a primary source, altogether too often, all that is recorded is a name,
date and event. No location.
Some of the information in this book comes from a first hand knowledge of
my own. I have indicated that fact on the pages where that is the case.
This book is laid out as a series of Family Group Sheets (FGS). The
traditional FGS lists the male of the family first, but my format lists the
POWELL member of the family first, whether male or female. I have
not carried any degree of detail lower than a POWELL. For instance, if the
mother was a POWELL she has her own sheet, but if she married a SMITH (or any
other person with a surname different than POWELL), her children would be listed
on her group sheet, but would not have a page of their own. In other
words, every group sheet is headed by a POWELL, male or female, never a
SMITH, a JONES, or any other surname. This can be seen best in the
Contents.
Another thing that is quite vivid in the Contents, where I have paginated each
of the second and lower
generations, is that the sheets are presented in a top-down approach, exhausting
all that is known of the oldest child down to all descendants of that child,
then back to the next oldest, and so on.
There is a great deal of repetition in the group sheets. All that is known
about a child, except for his/her offspring, is reported on the page of
his/her parent, then repeated on a page where he/she is a parent. In two
instances of the POWELLs included in this study, first cousins, both with the
name POWELL, married each other. In these two cases the group sheets are
not only doubled, but quadrupled, as each POWELL has a group sheet of their own.
If this is confusing, don't worry about it. You will see what I mean as
you study the book.
The references cited at the bottom of each page indicate sources used for some
piece of information on that page. As stated above, it would be impossible
to cite each individual piece of information. In some instances a dozen or
more sources may have been used for information displayed for just one person.
The index is a complete full-name index for all names in the book that have an
Identification Number in the left margin, and includes entries for both maiden
name and married name for females. This is making the assumption that the
time-honored tradition of the wife taking the name of the husband is followed.
There are no hyphenated names in the index. Persons with the same name are
indicated as different people in the index. For example, there are seven
different Mary POWELLs in the book, and seven Mary POWELLs in the index.
The abbreviations are those most common in genealogical circles. The
obvious ones are:
abt..........about
Ch....................Children
m............married
Gratitude and Dedication
My interest in where I came from started at a very early age when I
was but a small boy. As I grew into manhood other priorities took center
stage, and my interest in family history waned somewhat. Then, sometime in
the early 1970s I met my Great Uncle Bill POWELL (Page 64). Uncle Bill sensed my
interest in genealogy and dug up some old notes that his sister, my Great Aunt
Bess, had made. Aunt Bess had it pretty much on target, as I have since
verified. Perhaps not even knowing the historical significance of Leven
POWELL, she had her lineage back as far as him. I thank my Great Aunt Bess
(if I ever met her it was when I was a small boy and don't recall at this time),
who kept those handwritten notes and passed them on to Uncle Bill. And I
thank Uncle Bill for then passing them on to me.
As time permitted I pursued filling in the blanks with treks through cemeteries,
hours spent in libraries and searching out and buying books related to the
subject matter. I also had the opportunity of meeting many POWELL cousins.
A great deal of the information in this book came from visits and correspondence
with these cousins over the years. I thank these POWELL relations for
their patience with my inquisitive mind and the information they passed on to me
for this book.
A special thanks goes to my wife, LaVonne, who has traveled just about
everywhere with me these last 35 years and who has made valuable research
assistance and suggestions along the way.
I also thank Michelle JAEGER for taking the time to find me and giving me the
last needed push to put this book in a recognizable format ( I hope). I
still am mystified as to how she found me. I am no secret and am not in
hiding, but there are lots of Bill LEEs in this big crazy World.
A final word about my Mother, Martha Lou (POWELL) LEE ( Page 50). She was
not the least interested in the history of her family. To her the past was
the past, and was best forgotten. Having dug up a lot of bones in the last
several years, I can understand her feelings. However, despite all the
obstacles and heartbreak she had endured over her lifetime, I am a much better
person for her love and her influence on me during my lifetime. For this I
am most thankful, and I dedicate this work to her memory. Despite her negative
feelings on what I was doing, I think she would have been proud of this book.
Thank You, and ENJOY!
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
Countless unpublished sources make up this study. They are
specified as to particulars in the footnotes and include letters, interviews,
cemetery inscriptions, Family Bibles, periodicals, newspapers, local histories
and city directories. Government documents include U S Census Returns,
documents from the U S Department of Justice and various records from county
courthouses. These include probate records, civil and criminal court
records, birth records and death records.
Published Sources
Alcock, John P. Five Generations of the Family of Burr
Harrison of Virginia 1650-1800. Bowie MD: Heritage Books,
Inc., 1991.
Hardy, Stella Pickett. Colonial Families of the Southern States of
America. New York: Tobias A, Wright, 1911.
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