A Guide to the Eva Eubank Wilkerson Genealogical Research Files, 1944-1963 Wilkerson, Eva Eubank, 1884-1965 42858

A Guide to the Eva Eubank Wilkerson Genealogical Research Files, 1944-1963

A Collection in
the Library of Virginia
Accession Number 42858


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© 2006 By The Library of Virginia. All Rights Reserved.

Processed by: Jessica Tyree

Repository
The Library of Virginia
Accession Number
42858
Title
Eva Eubank Wilkerson Genealogical Research Files, 1944-1963
Extent
4.05 cubic feet (9 boxes)
Creator
Wilkerson, Eva Eubank, 1884-1965
Language
English

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Eva Eubank Wilkerson Genealogical Research Files, 1944-1963. Accession 42858. Personal papers collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Charles Wilkerson, Richmond, Virginia, 28 September 2006.

Biographical Information

Eva Lee Eubank was born on 11 October 1884 in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, the third of eleven children. She received her early education at a small school that her tobacco-planter father set up for his family and other neighborhood children. Unable to send all of his children on to higher education, he refused to send any of them. Determined to continue her education, Eva Eubank moved in with a relative in a nearby town and attended an upper-level school there. In 1902, she took a summer teaching course at the University of Virginia. She later returned to Mecklenburg County and began teaching at her old neighborhood school.

Beginning in 1907, she spent two years teaching at a one-room schoolhouse in King and Queen County, near St. Steven's Church, and taking short summer courses at the teacher's college in Fredericksburg. In May 1909, she married John Wilkerson, the brother of Eubank's teacher friend, Bessie Wilkerson. The couple eventually had four daughters and two sons, and moved several times, staying in and near Tappahannock, Essex County, Virginia. During the Depression, Eva Wilkerson and her three younger children left the Center Cross farm where the family had been living and moved to Tappahannock. She there took on a project indexing Essex County court records for the Works Progress Administration. This work inspired her to compile Index to Marriages in Old Rappahannock and Essex Counties, Virginia, 1655-1900 , which was published in 1953. After relocating to Richmond in 1948 to live with her youngest son, Charles Wilkerson (1921- ), she began a new career as a professional genealogist, continuing this work until 1963. Eva Eubank Wilkerson died in Richmond in July 1965.

Scope and Content

Genealogical research files, 1944-1963, of teacher and professional genealogist Eva Eubank Wilkerson (1884-1965) of Richmond, Virginia, chiefly consist of research files on numerous Virginia families. These family files are largely composed of Wilkerson's research notes, and often include letters from the client requesting the information. Much of the material in Wilkerson's notes is quoted directly from various primary sources such as wills, deeds, and marriage records, and occasionally from published reference works. As Wilkerson did not keep copies of her actual responses to clients, the information collected here is entirely in note form and consequently can be difficult to use. Other materials include research resources, such as an index to marriages and an index to deeds, both from unspecified localities; correspondence regarding research into unnamed families; personal budget information kept by Wilkerson, 1944-1946; and miscellaneous research notes on topics including Bladensfield Plantation in Richmond County, Virginia, and Goode's Bridge in Chesterfield County.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged into the following series:

Series 1. Family files Series 2. Research resources and other files

Contents List

Series 1. Family files, 1944-1963 .
Boxes 1-8

Files on families or groups of families being researched by professional genealogist Eva Eubank Wilkerson (1884-1965). Files consist chiefly of Wilkerson's research notes, and often include letters from the client requesting the information. Some of the resources Wilkerson frequently consulted in her research include primary sources such as wills, deeds, and marriage records, and miscellaneous reference works; much of the material in her notes is quoted directly from these sources. As Wilkerson did not keep copies of her actual responses to clients, the information collected here is entirely in note form and consequently can be difficult to use. Miscellaneous research notes on scattered families and topics including Bladensfield Plantation in Richmond County, Virginia, and Goode's Bridge in Chesterfield County are filed at the end of the series.

Arrangement: Wilkerson sometimes recorded notes about several families on the same set of papers or in the same notebook. Often, the various families are related. In other cases, they are found together only because Wilkerson was working on more than one project at a time. The original groupings have been maintained, and labeled according to the names contained therein (e.g. "Howell-Brown-Lewis-Willis"). The order of names in a grouping's label is typically determined by their order of appearance in the notes or correspondence. The groupings are then filed alphabetically by the first name in the label (Howell, in this example). Therefore, not all family names can be located by scanning the file names alphabetically (e.g., Brown, Lewis, and Willis are filed under Howell in the H's). This being the case, patrons are encouraged to use the "Ctrl+F" (Find) function to do a keyword search for names, in case they are not listed in alphabetical order. The names in parentheses listed after some of the file groupings are those of the clients requesting the research.

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Series 2. Research resources and other files, 1944-1962 .
Boxes 8-9

Research resources include an index to marriages and an index to deeds, both from unspecified localities. Other files include correspondence regarding research into unnamed families and personal budget information kept by Wilkerson, 1944-1946.

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