Becca and Stephanie's Family History Extravaganza : Everything is awesome when you're part of the Rebephanie Team!

First of all, we apologize for not blogging last night. We were exhausted and quite honestly, too discouraged.

A brief overview of yesterday: we finished up at the Library of Virginia. We were able to find 3 historical and geographical records from the colonial Episcopal churches in Virginia. We garnered a lot of information about Little Fork Church, St. Mark's Parish, and Bromfield Parish. We had already determined, based on a record of 1744, that Timothy was part of St. Mark's Parish (Little Fork Church was part of this parish).

When we were finished looking at those records, we talked with some experts there about indentured servant records. They told us that if we didn't find what we were looking for in the sources we mentioned, we probably wouldn't find anything. Alas, we had already researched said sources and found nothing. Enter discouragement.

We left the Library of Virginia. I had the idea to go up to the Rappahannock Library since we were aware of a possible record there. We got to Fredericksburg, which is a beautiful little town in Spotsylvania County, and spent some time researching in their family history room at the local library. Again, we found nothing new. As you can tell, we've done quite a bit of research.

After striking out, we wandered through Fredericksburg, but apparently everything around there closes at 5, so we got back into the car, feeling downtrodden, and drove back the hour to the hotel.

At midnight, inspiration struck Becca. She pulled out her topographical map of current Culpeper County and we began researching the boundaries of Bromfield and St. Mark's Parishes. We compared the current map to a map we took a picture of 1776 Culpeper from the Culpeper Museum.

St. Mark's Parish was formed in 1720 by Alexander Spotswood. Over the next 30 years, the parish had grown quite a bit, and in 1752, it was split into two parishes: one being St. Mark's Parish, the other being Bromfield Parish. Bromfield Parish and all of it's records no longer exist. From this analysis, we came to the conclusion that Indentured Servant Timothy's land fell within the boundaries of Bromfield Parish, as did many of his neighbor's whose names we have found in several land deeds.

We then compared the two maps (current and 1776) trying to find the location of Bromfield church by looking at landmarks that are still around. By 12:30 I (Stephanie) was no longer making sense because I had taken a Melatonin quite a bit earlier. We decided to go to bed, but felt we had a general idea of where Bromfield Parish was located before it disappeared.

That brings us to today. My "barometer" as Becca calls it (meaning, I start crying out of nowhere) was off the charts, which meant it was going to be a good day! This morning we decided to go back to Fredericksburg. We went to the Rappahannock Heritage Center where they had a record of the Nalle family. We knew this family was a neighbor of Timothy based on information found in a land record. Timothy's name was mentioned in their family history so we were hoping it would give us another lead. We found the record but it ended up being another land record. However, we didn't have this land record before so it was a new piece to the puzzle. Since this didn't take us very long, we decided to do some touring before heading to Culpeper for more research. We took the trolley tour around Fredericksburg and enjoyed the sights, and not so much the humidity.

After the tour we wanted to get back to business so we got in the car for the hour trip over to Culpeper. We went straight to the Culpeper County Library to search the local history section. A very nice librarian showed us the room and the records they had for the time period we were looking for. The books they had were books we had already searched in. We told her we were trying to find the location of Bromfield church. She immediately went to get a map that had both historic and current information on it for Culpeper County. She then pulled out a file that had newspaper articles on Bromfield Parish from the 1930s. We of course were very excited that these even existed so we starting reading them right away.

We discovered that Bromfield church was only used for 40-50 years and the building fell into disrepair and was eventually burned...and all its records with it. We also learned that a Baptist church, named F.T. Baptist Church, is located very near the site of Bromfield church. In 1930 a marker was dedicated as a memorial to the Bromfield church. We had learned prior to the trip that one of the preachers at F.T. Baptist Church was William Mason. We have a marriage record for William Holdaway, one of the sons of Indentured Servant Timothy Holdaway, being married by William Mason in 1798. Since Bromfield Church had possibly ceased operation, we felt it was natural to assume the family would have gone to the next closest church, being F.T. church. As a quick side note, the articles also mentioned that George Washington attended the Bromfield church when he was in the area to survey the land. So it is very likely that Timothy and George Washington knew each other, as they attended the same church and were both surveyors.

We were so excited that we immediately left the library in search of this historical marker (as you can see in one of the videos on Facebook!). After an hour and a half of driving around in search for this, we realized we needed to go back and look at the maps that we so eagerly left without taking pictures. When we got back to the library, the lady was really nice and gave us the maps again. We took pictures and decided to look up F.T. Church to see if it was still standing. Lo and behold, it is!! We put that address into the GPS and headed out for a second look.

We found the church and walked around the property. It was gorgeous and a neat experience to be where one of Timothy's sons was most likely married.

According to the maps and articles, the Bromfield church marker was supposed to be very nearby. We drove, and drove....and drove some more. But to our misfortune, we never did find it. We drove for a good hour in search for it. But strangely, Becca and I didn't feel discouraged.

We would now like you to introduce you to Timothy Holdaway, our 5th great grandfather, whom even though we still don't have a lot of actual facts on, we have come to know and love.

Here's what we do know: He arrived in America in 1728 as either a convict or as a poor young, indentured for a set amount of years to Alexander Spotswood. After fulfilling his servitude, he obtained his first tract of land in 1734 in the amount of 163 acres. We have record of him paying his tithes in 1744 in St. Mark's Parish. Throughout his time in Culpeper County, he bought and sold land, and at one point in his life he had 1100 acres. We also know from court documents that he was a land surveyor. At some point he married a woman named Bridget. They had at least 8 children, 4 of the girls listed in his will: Anne, Abigail, Elizabeth, Phebe, Timothy, Henry, Charles, and William. We know that three of his sons fought in the American Revolution, with at least one of them enlisting at the very beginning of the war. He died in 1791 in Culpeper, leaving all of his belongings to his wife and 4 daughters.

Here, an ordinary man, with little to no means, came to America to better his life. Through the few facts that we have, we know this to be true. Throughout the day today, we felt very strongly that Timothy was taking this journey with us and guiding us to the information that we needed. At one point, Becca and I got talking about how he really left a legacy for his family that has been passed down to us. He was a hard worker, determined to make his life, and his family's life better. We have seen this in each generation of Holdaway's since. We also discussed how we both got the strong feeling that we have done every possible thing to find his information and both felt an overwhelming feeling of peace. We both agreed after having this peaceful feeling, that is was Timothy's way of telling us that we can "lay him to rest" and focus on his son. As we were driving back to the hotel tonight, I had a strong impression and thought come to my mind that Timothy is happy that we have found him, and more importantly, come to know him as a man, rather than a name.