Wisteria

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring  Will be to arrive where we started  And know the place for the first time.                                -From T. S. Eliott's Little Gidding Every so often I get the opportunity to spend a weekend steeped in research. The definition of “steep” is: to soak in water or other liquid, as to soften, cleanse, or extract some constituent: to steep tea in boiling-hot water; to steep reeds for basket weaving. to wet thoroughly in or with a liquid; drench; saturate; imbue. That's exactly what I do, saturate myself in the research. The other part of the definition holds meaning for me as well. When I research, I not only soak up knowledge, I also try to extract something from it. So I think it is very fitting to say that I steep myself in research. This past weekend I steeped myself in soaking up knowledge of the Watts fa...

On 21 May 1788, Moses Fontaine took a deposition from Mary Watts for a chancery suit brought by Reuben Abney against Dr. Walter Bennett saying "that she had been for twenty years a practitioner of the obstetrick art and is a neighbor to Doctor Walter Bennett six or seven years...”  http://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/case_detail.asp?CFN=083-1790-026 Halifax Co. (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1753-1911. Reuben Abney against DR Walter Bennett 1790-026. Local Government Records Collection, Halifax County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia. It has taken me some time to process the information about Mary Watts who was previously unknown. It has been my experience that there is a genealogy corollary of sorts in that one will find lots of proof of a line for which there is already an abundance of evidence but less for a line that does not. Therefore, I at first was inclined to say that with my luck, she was not part of my family. But now analyzing the records w...