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Introduction

The Wilks family is dear to my heart, for my mother was a Wilks. She was one of seven children, and her father was the youngest of ten who survived childhood. Our family has been having reunions in Texas for sixty years, since "the boys" came home from the war WW II.

Mother, Reta Vird Wilks Ross (1911-1994), was the daughter of William Wesley Whiteside Wilks (1884-1946) and Erie Catharine Taylor. His parents were Benjamin Carroll Wilks (1827-1919) and Martha Harriet Young. Benjamin was born in Lauderdale Co., AL, son of Philip Wilks (ca1807-1831) and Alcie Marrs . Philip's parents were John Wilks (Jr.) (ca1775-1836) and Barbary Newman from Bedford Co., VA; and John Jr's parents were John Wilks Sr. and Elizabeth Mead from Loudoun Co., VA.

John Wilks (Sr.)'s father Francis Wilks (ca1700-1783) was our immigrant ancestor. He had first a land grant in 1735 in Bucks Co., PA, in 1735, and second, a Northern Neck grant in 1739 in what became Loudoun Co., VA, 1739.

About 1950 my maternal grandmother, Erie Catharine Taylor Wilks, wrote the stories she had heard from her father and father-in-law about their family history. Reading my mother's carbon copy about 1960 piqued my interest, "Wouldn't it be fun to see whether we could prove whether this is true?" And it has been an adventure! to follow backwards the footsteps that led them from England to Texas, and visit the places where they lived.

Reta Vird Wilks Ross	Wm. Wesley Whiteside Wilks	Benjamin Carroll Wilks

John Wilks Sr. (ca1734-1806) was probably born in Bucks Co., PA; taken to Loudoun Co., VA, by his father; moved ca1773 to Bedford Co., VA, raised a large family there (nine children known), and removed after the Revolution to Oglethorpe Co., GA. He was a Loyalist, arrested among some "citizens of the commonwealth induced to the the oath of allegiance to the King of Great Britain," pardoned in 1780 by an Act of the Virginia Assembly. His son Samuel served the cause of freedom, but they seemed to bear no ill feelings after the war.

John Wilks, Sr., was the son of our immigrant ancestor, Francis Wilks (ca1710-1783), who received a land patent in Bucks Co., PA, 1732, from William Penn's son M. O. Penn.

Wilks/Wilkes DNA Project

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