Updating with thoughts for 2022 A democracy requires two parties. That is the whole idea. Voting for one or the other. Not hating the other. The “other side” is not demonized but embraced like a spouse.

Actually the tears coming out of Colin Powell’s eyes election night 2008. I had them too, tears of joy, and for me it was not only, but wonderfully also, that this country had elected a Black president but also this Black man and all his family are wonderful — all the former first family and all the in-laws — all of them.

But the tears streaming down Colin Powell’s face made me cry more than anything that election night. There was a sense of elation that something wonderful was happening; the country had grown and moreover there were more people out there than I knew who thought like me, seriously liberal for all intents and purposes.

There had been the talk that Colin Powell should run (I certainly would have campaigned and voted for him) long before we heard of the senator from Illinois, but there were a variety of reasons offered to explain his not running: His wife didn’t want it – there were “worries” about his and his family’s safety, and — according to Google AI — he said he lacked the passion for politics and campaigning.

After President Obama left office I also heard a tear-filled Van Jones talk about how often he felt those same “worries” for Obama. I still dare not breathe and I still tear up, but now it is over the awful way our dear President Obama was treated.

I first came to believe in Senator Obama when he spoke at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Sitting in my living room, I found myself not only clapping at what he said but finally standing to clap (in my own LR — I embarrassed myself). The icing on the cake was to have a cousin email to let me know the senator was my 8th cousin once removed. I died and went to genealogy heaven.

During that 2004 speech I exclaimed to my husband: “HE – is the president.” And I was not surprised to see him take the country almost coast to coast (with only a few missing pieces in between), but of course I was holding my breath until the final declaration that he had won!

When they walked out to say hello as the first family-to-be, I want to say I felt it in the air. I think the world rejoiced with us. I think the world saw hope also for a time of unity and peace such as the world had never seen. … And then it started. Well, no, it started started during the campaign of course with the nasty stuff that was said. But right off the bat, Mitch McConnell said something to the effect that he would do NOTHING to work with Obama.

After his second election I still had hope. He made it and I was yelling hallelujah, and of course a lot of time and events had passed since the first election, but that is a story for another day.

But Colin Powell knew how ugly it might be — would be, if he ran and more so if he won — and it hurt us to see the poor treatment of the finest first family to ever grace the office. I think this is why Colin Powell did not run; I think he knew America very well and just how mean some of its people could be.

I miss President Obama (and all his family).

In researching genealogy online, most people try to stay away from politics, but all that began to change. On AncestryDOTcom, many people proud to have President Obama on their trees added a picture with an O and were proud to note that this person or that was an Obama ancestor.

But some clearly did not like being related to President Obama, and reacted when they found out with negative comments on scans, pictures and illustrations of one sort or another.

Our — Obama’s and my — MRCA (most recent common ancestor) is David Lewis, and Grand Pa David had been loved by his genealogy-researching descendents for many years. He is one of those ancestors who has so many descendants that “everybody” can have him on their tree if they add the in-laws.

And he is one of the countless ancestors who turns up on what are called falsified trees. Whether it is intentional or because someone accidentally copyed a tree that is wrong, poor Grand Pa David — like 1,000s of ancestors — is attached to the wrong parents. He appears on one tree or another attached to about a dozen different parents, a few of whom never even existed. Entirely too many folks have attached gedcoms and merged family files, adding relatives from the new AncestryDOT trees, until the files are divorced from truth. The Jacob Money-John Money merger is a famous mistake and the Robert Money-Robert Monnett is another.

Almost any and every early colonial ancestor appears on trees with multiple spouses and multiple parents, and there is no changing anyone’s mind. Never mind that the Lewis colonial families — and the other families named above — have had wonderful and conclusive DNA research completed to identify which Lewises belong to what Lewises.

This works the same for identifying the family of any patriarch. And it is the exact way to prove who a family is. David Lewis has a record which says his father was named John Lewis. In colonial Virginia at the time, in his parish and the next two parishes, there were at least four known men named John Lewis. The existing records are not complete and there easily could have been others at the same time. Existing records show who owned land, or paid taxes, or worked in a parish, but not all of those records survived to today. There are many counties where the records were lost in fires or floods, and the county where David Lewis and John Lewis lived IS one of those so-called “burned counties.” Many records have been lost in other ways.

Many want to make David the son of John Lewis of Warner Hall or John Lewis of Poropotank Creek but I happen to believe he was the John Lewis of the Pamunkey River who lived near Matadaquin Creek in what became later St. Paul’s Parish and Hanover County before moving west to establish the first land patent in what is now Charlotteville, Virgina.

Please read the pieces on y-DNA. This test traces a man’s father’s father etc. back through the ages, making it the perfect test to identify a direct paternal ancestor.

The Lewis Surname y-DNA project was one of the first. Today the project has almost 1,000 members and many families, including ours, used DNA to identify and group families. Two branches of our Lewis family have male Lewis descendants who tested and, through this early work, we know at least who we are not related to.

The works the same for every family. We know that David Lewis (born circa 1690 – died 1779) had several male sons who had male descendants. So from each of those sons, we research the known male descendants down to a living Lewis male and have that person test his y-DNA.

Because so many trees have errors, to establish the y-DNA of an ancestor you must test the descendents of at least two sons and hope they match. In the case of our David, we had a male Lewis from David’s son John Lewis (1728 – 1782) and a male Lewis from David’s son David Lewis Jr (1726 – 1787), They do match each other.

With John Lewis of Warner Hall (best known as the husband of George Washington’s great-aunt Elizabeth Lewis nee Warner), we had a male Lewis descendant from Fielding Lewis, a known grandson of John Lewis through son John Lewis IV, and from   a descendant of John’s third son Robert Lewis. They matched each other.

But the two Lewis families did not match each other. So we can say for certain that we know who John Lewis of Warner Hall was, and that we know who David Lewis was and that the two male lines are not related.

The debate still rages about who fathered John, and this is often the focus of people building family trees. Often they become too preoccupied with name collecting and end up missing out on fascinating information about the generations who came later.

If this and these Google maps should not be used I will remove them. Every time I have asked them about using anything, they just say make sure their name is on it and that is great.

We might not ever solve the mystery of John Lewis’ father, but we know much more about the life of the son David Lewis, who received the first land patent west of the Rivanna River. Thanks to deeds, estates, transfers and old wives tales — coupled with records of who later owned of some of the old Lewis property and the magnificent research of Bernard Peyton Chamberlain — we can know where Grand Pa David lived out his life and died in Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Virginia. At the time David Lewis received the patent, the land was part of Goochland County.

Bernard notes in his book “A Good Life” that there has long been speculation about three main Lewis families — John Lewis of Warner Hall (whom Bernard notes he is related to); one of his sons Charles ‘The Byrd’ Lewis who was raised at Warner Hall and lived not far away; and the famous General Andrew Lewis of Amelia and Nelson Counties. This gentleman lived just south of what became Albemarle (Bernard notes he is related to him also) and is believed by some to have been related to David Lewis, though Bernard does not voice any support for that idea.

But Bernard does know that the property he grew up on — called Birdwood — was originally the property and original homestead of David Lewis. His research shows that the Lewis house was ‘above the spring,’ which today sits just below the clubhouse for the University of Virginia’s Birdwood golf course.

Bernard believes the Lewis house was located on a flat plateau which is today the practice  putting green for the golf course.

Near Birdwood there is another plateau and one can look out and see Lewis Mountain. This property was purchased by David Lewis’ brother Abraham Lewis. When Abraham moved to Pennsylvania, he sold this land to David Lewis.

Just west of Birdwood Golf there is the Boar’s Head Inn, now a popular upscale retreat. This property was owned by the daughter and son-in-law (also nephew) of Grand Pa David, Anne Lewis Terrell and her husband Joel Terrell Jr, and at the time was called Terrell’s ordinary. Thomas Jefferson stayed at the Boar’s Head while the Terrell’s ran it and noted so in one of his letters. Today the inn has a lunch room restaurant that is still part of the original inn, located in a room that Anne and Joel worked and lived in.

https://www.boarsheadresort.com/our-resort/history

Some of the research into the locations of the Lewis properties came from later owner, Bernard Peyton Chamberlain. He recorded some of his research in his book “A Good Life.” He grew up on the property bought by his father shown as number 5 on the map. He later bought and lived in until his death on a property known as Midmont shown at number 1 on the map.

Midmont

How does this all fit together? This is the patriot’s (Colin Powell’s) love of country and the country he loves, this is the president’s family (and mine also), and this is Charlottesville.

As for all the mistakes in the Lewis research, let the men in white jackets take me now. It is maddening, seeing all the trees with information that is not correct. But there does not appear to be anything to do about it except to keep sharing what is correct with folks as much as we can.

 

Some additional notes:

There is a 1688 list of “residents” of early Colonial Virgina has been thought to be many things. Our best family researcher believes the list may identify the participants at a meeting and the John Lewis shown as “sitting” beside a David Crawford may have been our ancestor.

The list of names is cited in June Evans’ book “Men of Matadequin: Three Hundred Years from New Kent County (Virginia).”

Ms. Evans notes that similar lists have accompanied or been written on maps, and this list might identify property owners in geographical order upriver from the James to the York to the Pamunkey River. If we look at the list and a map in that light, we might see the list in a new way.

This map section is from “The Diary Of Robert Rose” and was prepared by the Reverend Robert Fall.

Closer crop of page 22 with our folks:

more…

Cousin Joan descends from Jesse Pitman Lewis; she located Jesse’s obituary from a newspaper and also two large articles about an estate sale which listed the property, including the house which is decribed as an extensive brick house.

It is understood that Faulkner House, which now houses the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, was Jesse Pitman Lewis’ property. The next owner is known to have added the two brick wings to the house so the central section must be what Jesse built. 

There are more newspapers where the house was advertised:

I still have not found video of Colin Powell that night and I do hope there are lots of folks who have given him all he needs for his ancestry, since I am a bit long in the tooth for this now.

But there is video of Jesse Jackson’s eyes:

One of the greatest days in American history AND herstory.

And I owe Secretary and Mrs Colin Powell a genealogy story. I will try to write one; I believe it might include a few other neighbors of ours.