Mightier Acorns

Journeys through Genealogy and Family History

A parody of a family coat of arms designed with acorns as elements, with the motto "ex gladnis potentioribus" Latin for "from Mighty Acorns"
From Mighty Acorns

Category: Virginia

Families that lived in the state and left records behind there.

  • Wavetops: James McCullough (Sr.) (1757-1838) When John McCullough died in 1766, he left four orphans without family or support in Rowan County, North Carolina. The courts bound each child to an apprenticeship, each with different terms. In her 1991 Ph.D. dissertation, Johanna Lewis1 noted that of 52 orphans placed as apprentices before 1770, only one…

  • No, not that one – the older one I feel like we all say this a lot, but: Don’t accept unverified research until you’ve checked out the sources. I don’t know who did the research on my Clark family before I started looking into genealogy, but I was given a tree that showed Amos Clark…

  • Teasing meaning from the absence of evidence (part 3) Previously, in Still Finding James Callin, we looked at the Revolutionary War muster rolls, examining whatever they could tell us about him, and we talked about how they loosely support the statements made in George W. Callin’s 1911 Callin Family History. James, last noted in the…

  • Teasing meaning from the absence of evidence (part 1) I owe a ton of thanks to two cousins for their part in getting my Callin Family History published: and John K. Callin. Joan is my 3rd cousin, 1x removed; John is my 2nd cousin, 1x removed. Our nearest common ancestors are William Callin and Elizabeth…

  • Going four generations back to find another line This surname can be found among my Sixteen great-great-grandparents. We have to go that far back to find the first Hale: Alice A Hale (16 Apr 1865 – 24 May 1942) Alice was the maternal grandmother of my grandpa Bob Callin. Alice’s first husband, Allen Greenlee, was…

  • Going four generations back to find another line This surname can be found among my Sixteen great-great-grandparents. We have to go that far back to find the first Bellamy – my maternal grandfather’s paternal grandmother: Sarah Jane Bellamy (17 Dec 1836 – 22 May 1920) Sarah is named in The Bellamys of Early Virginia, by…

  • A Quick Overview of my work under this surname When I was new to genealogy, I did what a lot of people do: I uncritically relied on the work of others. A lot of what I know about the Huff family came to me via the late Max Huff. Unfortunately for me, by the time…