Benjamin’s Brick Walls: Who are Gilbert Lewis’s parents?
@Benjamin J. I have also share your question with the Wales Genealogy Group in hopes that they might be able to help you.
@North Carolina Research @Family History Research @Wales Genealogy Research
Greetings, my name is Benjamin Jones. I am a descendent of Gilbert Lewis Sr and Rebecca Elizabeth Winborne through their youngest son Gilliam. I have been working on my genealogy for a while now and I’ve managed to go back at least seven generations on most of my family tree branches, including the Lewis branch(my mother’s mother’s paternal side of the family). I have gone back to Gilbert Lewis, and tried for a long time to find his parents but I wasn’t ever able to. I learned from his probate that he had five children(four sons and a daughter); Guilford, Caswell, Elizabeth Jane, Gilbert, and Gilliam, but as for his parentage I haven’t found any proof to validate it yet.
I have seen two possibilities as to who Gilbert’s parents are, and one of them is prevalent on Ancestry while the other was proposed by someone on FamilySearch who I messaged later. They told me that their genealogy was private and didn’t want to share it with me.
The first possibility and the one I keep seeing on Ancestry is Robert Lewis and Charity Tucker, and I do think it’s more likely than the second. I can see why based on what I’ve found out about the couple, but there are a couple of things I noticed that don’t make sense to me that I was wondering if you knew the answer to. The first thing is that Gilbert isn’t mentioned in Robert’s probate but I think that if this relationship was correct it could be because Gilbert died before Robert.
The second thing involves a man named Gibbons Lewis. This guy is definitely a different person than Gilbert despite their approximate birth years being the same(around 1805). While Gilbert married Rebecca Elizabeth Winborne in 1826 and died in 1846, Gibbons married a woman named Mary “Polly” in about 1837 and died in 1855. I have four children listed with him. There isn’t a whole lot of information on him outside of that though, which makes me question which of them was related to Robert and if either of them actually were. My interpretation of Robert’s 1853 probate and census records lists the following children.
1: Alvin Lewis
2: Bennett Lewis
3: Sarah Lewis? & husband Thomas Narron?
4: Alfred Lewis
5: James Lewis
6: Harriett Lewis(she is on census with Robert and Charity along with Alvin)
So are either Gilbert or Gibbons related to Robert and if one of them is his son which one? And what of the other?
The second possibility of Gilbert’s parentage is truly an enigma to me. A FamilySearch user named 17891121NC posted that Gilbert’s parents were Jacob Lewis and Gail Zachary. She is supposedly a descendent of Guilford Lewis who had posted something about his son Fitzhugh which was intriguing. However, there is no proof for her assumption of Gilbert’s parents that I can find at all. As I mentioned earlier, that user told me that the genealogy was private a long time ago, which doesn’t make finding anything on Jacob any easier. I haven’t been able to find a probate or will for Jacob or Gail, or Welsh birth records or anything at all. I felt it would be good to let you know about her since you have done a lot of research on this line and maybe we’ll be able to find the answer to this one day. There is nothing about Jacob on Ancestry either. I’ll give you a link to the FamilySearch IDs of both sets of parents if that helps.
Set 1:
Robert Lewis(1787-1853; LC8Y-2H6)
Charity Tucker(1788-1854; LC8Y-2QC)
Set 2:
Jacob Lewis(1773-1844; M2VL-SW8)
Gail Zachary(1783-1857; L1CK-Q38)
Notes about set 2: Both are said to be born in Wales and to have married in 1799 in the town of Zion Crossroads in Louisa county Virginia. I haven’t found proof of this either. If you are able to help with me with my research, that would be amazing! Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Benjamin Jones
Best Answers
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Did you know that the library offers a free 20 minute consultation?
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Benjamin,
You have got a lot of good information on the Gilbert Lewis family on Family Tree LC8B-6K2. It looks like you may benefit from additional records for Nash county. A great place to start looking for additional records is in the Family Search Wiki where you will find a page for Nash County. https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Nash_County,_North_Carolina_Genealogy
You have already looked at the Gilbert Lewis estate files but may benefit from reading other estate files for people with the surnames of Lewis and Winbourne. I'd be especially interested in learning how Guildford Lewis is related to the family of H. D. Lewis and Griffin Lewis. Guildford is named in the records of H. D. Lewis which was administered by Griffin Lewis in 1867. H. D. Lewis died about 1805.
Work in the Nash county tax records, probate records and land records. Let those local records and the information in them guide you to discover your Lewis family rather than jump to unsupported conclusions made by other researchers. Jacob Lewis has no sources so focus on Gilbert and his wife and children. Learn more about them and the people around them in the records.
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Answers
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@Bryce David Howell I didn't! Thanks for informing me! What kind of questions do they answer? Anything goes pertaining to subject? I'll definitely have to take a look into this. Thanks!
Sincerely,
Benjamin
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I believe they will be able to answer most if not all of your questions, although they may have to point you in the direction of someone who specializes in what you are looking for.
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