William Lewis - ANCESTORS OF WILLIAM LEWIS

I have unsuccessfully been researching for ancestors of William Lewis in primary documents and have found no records and would like to enlist the help of the managers and anyone interested in this individual in tracking down such information.

There are family trees which report him as the son of a William Thomas Lewis and report him having a middle name of Thomas. In order to back up this claim they post the William Lewis born in 1761 as William Thomas Lewis Jr.

https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=pipkinancestr...

The problem with this record is that William Lewis never used a middle name of any sort in any document - land records - the Rev War application - will - birth records at a church and he never attached a suffix of Jr. to his name.

I believe the connection of William Lewis born in 1761 to William Thomas Lewis and Mary Self has been fabricated out of a well intentioned attempt to connect this William Lewis to the "Warner Hall" Lewis family.

I will provide an additional post using the Y-DNA from descendents of the Warner Hall Lewis men and a descendent of this William Lewis to prove that he is not related to the Warner Hall Lewis family, but first I want to address how this connection was made.

The association of a William Thomas Lewis as the father of the William Lewis born in 1761 appears to be based on a record that has been mistaken as a bible record but is in fact a separate hand written note that was created in 1983 to document the ancestry of John B. Garris born 12 December 1895. It is not intended as a documentation of the Lewis family as it is unconcerned with documenting any children who are not ancestors of John B. Garris. Because of the lack of supporting documentation and the distance in time between when this document (1983) was created and the dates being documented back to 1691 it should not be used as a primary source document and the connections in this hand written note should not be accepted unless there is other corroborating evidence to prove a relationship.

The trail in the note appears to be accurate with respect to the Lewis family in the trail back to William Lewis born in 1761, as this trail is well documented with land records, wills and military pension filings. What does not have supporting documentation is the connection between William Lewis and William Thomas Lewis and his wife Mary Self. The Chain of John Lewis Jr. to William Thomas Lewis appears correct, but the flaw is that the John Lewis Jr that is the father of Thomas Lewis is not a Warner Hall Lewis.

This link contains the note.

http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/ref/collection/p15012coll1/id/59370

The four page handwritten note that was prepared in December of 1983 - I do not know who the writer is that included the note with the Bible records. The note claims the information it contains was "documented" and was compiled by a Dr. Grover C. Dale who was married to a Casey and "is said to likewise be a relative of ours".

The note is included as a separate item related to a Bible that was published in 1889 that belonged to a Jim Lewis of Dudley NC. The Bible contains no events related to people with the Lewis last name that precede the publication date of the Bible. and has no contemporaneously recorded information related to the Lewis individuals included in the four page note.note.

The handwritten note starts with the following paragraph:

"The Lewis family is of Welch descent. It is said that our Lewis line originates from Hwfa ap Cynddelw, Lord of Llys
Lifon in Anglesey of Ancient British descent. This man was the founder of the first noble tribe of North Wales. We
descend from him."

Obviously this information is highly speculative and there is no documentation that connects this Lewis family with its proposed origins. This is the first error that the writer of the note commits as the writer is trying to force this Welsh ancestry of the Warner Hall Lewis family onto the William Lewis from Contennea born in 1761.

The second error is that the writer made a leap of faith that the John Lewis Jr that is listed in the note was a Warner Hall Lewis. In fact he was not. The listed John Lewis Jr is the son of a John Lewis (with no Warner Hall connections) and Lydia. This John Lewis Jr. married Elizabeth O'Bissell. John and Elizabeth had a son Thomas Lewis that married a Rebecca Thomas and they had a son William Thomas Lewis just as the documentation states.

Where the third error/leap of faith occurs is that there is no documentation connecting the William Lewis born in 1761 to William Thomas Lewis that is the son of Thomas Lewis and Rebeccah Thomas.

After the statement concerning Welsh Ancestry, the note continues with the following:

John Lewis, Jr.
Thomas Lewis and Rebecca Thomas b. 1691 christened 26 July 1691 Christ Church Parish, Virginia

William Thomas Lewis and Mary Self b. 8 February 1721 d. before 1790

*William Lewis and Sarah Utley b. 6 September 1761 d. 6 October 1841 Married 29 October 1787? American Revolutionary
War -private-

Urban Lewis b. 26 June 1786? d. 13 Aug. 1846 and Susan Casey b. 1 Jan. 1787 d. after 1860 census

(Captain) John L. Lewis b. 1814 and Abigail Herring b. 1814
confederate Officer

Elder John R. Roberts b. 26 July 1835 d. 18 Nov. 1913 and Edna Lewis Sanderson Roberts b. 11 Feb.
1840 d. 30 Oct. 1930

Joseph B. Garris and Martha (Mattie) Roberts b. 1866

John B. Garris b. 12 Dec. 1895 and Josie Melvin Garris b. 15 Nov [illegible]

What is troublesome is that the note is an incomplete listing as it does not list all the children of a particular Lewis individual. The purpose is to provide the minimum amount of information to provide a trail of ancestors for John B. Garris b. 12 Dec. 1895.

The second page of the note provides details the Garris family to get to John B. Garris.

The third page of the note provides the detail of how the Roberts family ties in with John B. Garris.

The fourth page of the note provides the details of how the Casey family ties with John B. Garris.

I am guessing, but the writer of the note may be a descendant of John B. Garris as they are not concerned with establishing the ancestry of the owner of the Bible Jim Lewis.

This is the information about William Thomas Lewis.

William Thomas Lewis