By Joanne Ostergren Yates

For years we faced a "Brick Wall" in the genealogy of the Forrest Jay Mitchell family of Richmond, VA. It's name was Robert Evans Mitchell! My cousin, Betty Jean, and I have been looking everywhere, in Courthouse records, the Library of Virginia, RootsWeb, old letters, family notes and collections, old Bibles, anywhere we could think to look, trying to find our great, great grand parents on the Mitchell side.

We knew our great, great grandfather was Robert Evans Mitchell, from family stories and his headstone in Hollywood Cemetery. We knew his wife's name was Jane Somerville Strode, buried beside him in Hollywood Cemetery. But--where did they come from? Who were their parents? Did they have more than one child? We only knew about their son, Forrest Jay Mitchell, who was our great grandfather.

A posting on RootsWeb, seeking information on the Strode family, brought a response from a lady in New York. Her son in law is a Strode, and she had found the Fredericksburg, VA Census from 1850 in the Library in New York City. These Census records had been confiscated by the North during the Civil War. The records showed that Jane Somerville Strode was born in Fredericksburg, VA. Her parents were John A. (possibly Aubrey) Strode and Jeanette Cooper. In 1850 Jane was 14 years old, and had three siblings. Jane was married in Richmond, VA, 1860, to Forrest Jay Mitchell.

The lady in New York put us in touch with a distant cousin, George B. Strode, in Atlanta, GA. He had further information on the Strode family. According to his notes, Jane Somerville Strode Mitchell was living in Salisbury, North Carolina during, or just after, the Civil War. (We have been looking for any information on Robert Evans Mitchell's actions during the Civil War, but have not yet found anything.) He had been looking for the Mitchells to connect the two families. According to his notes, after the death of John Strode, Jeanette became either the wife or common law wife of George Henry Bolling Fitzhugh. Jeanette's children were Henry Aubrey, Medora, and George. They were given the surname of Strode, possibly because of the unmarried status of their mother.

Henry A. Strode grew up to found the Kenmore School, Medora married a Mr. Weymouth and moved to Richmond, VA, and George was drowned at a young age in the Rappahannock River. Henry's son, Basil Strode, became a doctor in Richmond, Virginia.

In going through old notes from a great aunt named Mitchell, we found that our great grandfather, Forrest Jay Mitchell, had siblings. A sister named Margaret "Maggie", and possibly a brother. We found a wedding notice from an Atlanta newspaper that mentioned the daughter of Maggie Mitchell, named Somerville. We also found three photos: two of a lovely woman named Somerville, and one of a beautiful white house in Lakeland, FL, with the caption - Home of Somerville, wife of Judge Edwards. It was suggested by another researcher that we contact a retired detective in Florida. The detective's daughter went to her college, found an obituary for Somerville Booth Edwards, from which we discovered the name of Maggie Mitchell's husband, John Sinclair Booth, her in-laws, and where they had lived in the 1920's. Somerville was a 1910 graduate of Winthrop University, Rock Hill, South, Carolina.

I gathered up my courage one evening, and called the gentleman, who was shown in the obituary to be the son of Somerville Booth Edwards. To my great relief, he was interested in finding his mother's Mitchell side of the family, and was delighted to talk with me. After receiving materials from him, showing several generations of ancestors, the brick wall began to crumble! We have since shared family tree charts, and discovered that there are many mutual surnames on our respective trees: Creigh, Evans, Sinclair, in addition to Mitchell.

Then, surfing the Web, checking information on RootsWeb, I came upon the name of Margaret Surbeck, of Sioux City, Iowa, also related to us through the Mitchell's. She had information that she was willing to share about the Mitchells and other relations in Ireland. Together, we have traced the Mitchell's, the Creigh's, the Evans (Welsh), Strode, Sinclair, and other lines back to the 1600's. The Scots/Irish lines mostly came from Carnmoney, County Antrim, Ireland.

Published and Copyrighted, February 28, 2003 © Betty Naff Mitchell
Last updated on January 31, 2005