Is there a project that covers these pre-1700 people? Westray and Tomlin families in Isle of Wight, Virginia Colony

Question

I want to help contribute to the deep genealogy on our shared tree.

1.) Geographical region and time period:   Isle of Wight, Virginia, 1600s through 1800s

2.) Some example names and dates:   Matthew Tomlin and descendants, William Westray and descendants, the Bridger family

3.) Source(s) for my information on them:  

1.  Full text of Isle of Wight Records on archive.org

2.  Early American Immigrants by George Cabell Greer

3. John Thomas Boddie, Boddie and  Allied Families available on Ancestry.com

and others.

I've been adding profiles and sources and  keep getting the message to ask if there is a WikiTree project that would cover these people? So I finally am doing so. I'm in the Virginia Project and Isle of Wight County Project.  

Do I need to do anything else?  If you are working in these areas or on these families, I'd love to collaborate!!!  :)

Comments

I, too, have two early families Pre-1700s in Virginia, one (Tucker) in Isle of Wight and I just want to thank you for this post and directing me to the obvious Wiki Project. Also researching Petworth/Petsoe Parrish, Mock Jack Bay, Mulberry Island: Nettles, Vicaris/Vicars, Wyatt. I hope I can contribute to the project as well.

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Isle of Wight County, Virginia

This is the project page specific to Isle of Wight.  

I used to live in Virginia, but left about 1991.  I wish I could move back to once again be able to easily visit my ancestral places.  

Answer 1

Aside from the projects you are already a part of, the US Southern Colonies Project would most likely be of interest. The Southern Colonies project has a sub-project for Colonial Virginia.

Answer 2

Hi Kathryn,

Thanks for contacting us about Matthew Tomlin.  I was unable to locate William Westray nor Bridges family.  Perhaps you could edit your question to provide links for these people and tag your question to link it to at least on of the people?

We have the Virginia Project for work on Virginia profiles (pre or post 1700), please join us if you have an interest in Virginia:

• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:Virginia

Your suggested source, Full text of Isle of Wight Records on archive.org, is a great primary source.  The Early American Immigrants and Allied Families appear to be tertiary sources.  Such tertiary sources are ideally used in combination with primary or secondary sources.  If you look at either tertiary source, they may refer to sources that you may be able to locate in order to find some additional primary or secondary sources to use.  Please give full information on a source and a link (e.g., to page an archive.org) to the source online whenever possible.  For a book that is recent (post 1923), there probably are no links to the contents, just the book info, like on Google books.  For sources that are not available online or are paywalled, it would be great if you could add any pertinent quotes from the source.  For example, when sourcing a deed, you can provide some quotes from the deed book entry to help others that don't have access to the deed.

Please note that we have standardized on "Colony of Virginia" for pre-1776 instead of other variants (e.g., never use British Colonial America) as best representing how someone of that period and place would refer to where they live.  Locations on Wikitree are entered on the basis of the timeframe they are from.  Please also correct any abbreviations you find to not be abbreviated in place name locations.  United States should only be used post July 4, 1776.  This is as shown in the spreadsheet of locations linked from here:

• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:North_American_Place_Names#US_Historical_Place_Names_-_New

We also have sources by county of Virginia listed here:

• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Virginia_Counties_and_Parishes

This includes counties like Isle of Wight where Matthew is listed as born:

• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Isle_of_Wight_County%2C_Virginia

Most of these county pages presently only have a link to the helpful page for that county on FamilySearch.org.  Please feel free to edit our county pages to add more county specific sources, especially for online ones.

Binns is also a good location for Virginia late 1700 tax records, but when sourcing, please include link to the page and the date, so the person can be more readily found on the tax page.

Here are examples Virginia and US History project profiles showing what to strive toward in profiles you work on:

• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Watkins-4174
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Alcott-73

You need not contact us again for pre-1700 Virginia profiles unless you have questions or need help. 

I'm happy to provide assistance as you may request in the future for Virginia, as this is my area of some expertise.  I'm also pretty knowledgeable about DNA if you have questions there too.

Thanks.

-Wiliam

Answer 3

For anyone who is on Facebook, we have an Isle of Wight Virginia genealogy page. I set it up about a year ago, because it's such an old county, and there were no groups about it.  We now have about 700 members and everyone there is friendly and helpful.  C'mon over, if you do Facebook.

Lynn Bensy (moderator of the group)

Answer 4

There's a large number of UNINDEXED Isle of Wight records on Family Search.  Some of the books have indexes in the front, but not all of them.

https://www.familysearch.org/search/image/index?owc=https://www.familysearch.org/service/cds/recapi/sord/collection/2034267/waypoints