Introduction
This
is the genealogy of three families.
First
is the Roseberry-Sutton family formed by the marriage of Charles Wesley
Roseberry (1893-1984) and Elizabeth Clarey Sutton (1892-1973), my paternal
grandparents.
Second
is the Keister-Foster family formed by the marriage of Walter Henderson Keister
(1870-1938) and Ida May Foster (1877-1944), my maternal great-grandparents on
my grandfather’s side.
And
third is the Howell-Burnop family formed by the marriage of Elbert Eden Howell
(1878-1964) and Bertha Burnop (1883-1956), my maternal great-grandparents on my
grandmother’s side.
Each
of these families lived in Radford, VA.
With few exceptions I found that my ancestors have lived in the Carroll,
Floyd, Montgomery and Pulaski County areas of Virginia for about 200 years and
some lines went even further back to the very founding of non-Indian
settlements in this part of the Shenandoah Valley. From there the different lines lead to Germany, England,
Scotland, and Ireland. Virginia was
formed in two waves. The first were the
English who landed and built Jamestown in 1607. There I found the Godbey, Hanks, Daux and Whitt families. The second were the settlers from Germany,
Scotland and Ireland who landed north of Virginia in Pennsylvania and moved
south down the Great Indian Warpath which they named the Shenandoah
Valley. Among the many families coming
into Virginia by that route were the Keisters, Duncans, Carpers and Howells.
The
ancestors of the three families include soldiers of the Revolutionary War, the
War of 1812 and the Civil War as well as survivors of Indian massacres. But the real heroes turned out to be the
farmers who formed the backbone of our country.
This
website is divided into three sections, one for each of the families. Each of these sections begins with an
ancestry report showing the direct line of ancestors. Each is then divided into further sections devoted to each
surname. Each surname usually has up to
three parts. One is called the
Generations. This is the direct line of
ancestors for that surname. The second
part is The Family History. Here are
collected as many records as I could locate with an emphasis on census and land
records. The third part lists the
descendents of the earliest found ancestor for each surname which branches out
into many more families than just the direct line leading to the original three
families. For each surname I have tried
to collect as much information about that family in Virginia and include as
many members as possible. This is so as
I find new information, I can sort out who is referred to more easily. For the reader of these pages, this means
your ancestors may be included even if they are not part of my direct line of
ancestors.
In
many ways the descendant lists are the most informative for those searching the
site. These are footnoted pages leading
to all the sources. From the present
back until 1750-1800, I have used as much original research as possible but
it’s only fair to point out that earlier than 1750 is based on mostly secondary
sources. There is an excellent court
record with eyewitness testimony describing the death of Thomas Godbey in 1628
and some other early Virginia records but some information is from books that I
feel are authoritative and some is from the Mormon records, The World Family
Tree, Ancestry.com and other internet sites.
There is nothing wrong with these other sources but the distinction
always has to be made between primary and secondary sources. Sometimes the first ancestor of a surname is
a hypothesis from my research. I
believe I have made it clear whenever this is the case.
My
gedcom has been uploaded to several other sites hoping to reach people with
other information on the families. It
is on the World Connect Project at Rootsweb, GenCircles, Gendex, Ancestry.com
and has been sent to the Mormon Church.
The “Southwest Virginians” site however has much more information in the
“Family History” sections for each surname.
What I’m trying to build is a site with thousands of the earliest
settlers of southwest Virginia. If you
restrict yourself to only your direct relatives you miss many interesting
cousins and relations. I’m trying to
have as complete a history as I can get on each of my families for a couple of
reasons. First, this allows the
researcher to determine just who a given record is referring to and second,
this creates a web of interrelated families including thousands of people which
means as others find these individuals in their families, they discover they
aren’t related to just one but rather they are related to a whole
community. I hope this stimulates a
useful exchange of information and an ever growing database.
I
use “The Master Genealogist” for my database and I heartily recommend it to any
and everyone. This program
automatically creates many reports that can be saved in the Microsoft Word
format (among many others) which allows the user to edit them. I also use the Family Tree Maker program
and recommend them for thousands of family trees in their World Family Tree as
well as hundreds of CDs containing primary documents.
ROSEBERRY-SUTTON
/ KEISTER-FOSTER
/ HOWELL-BURNOP
Major
Surname Index / Complete
Index