After putting it off for a while, I made a start on the Davis family page. I have a lot of information already, but putting it together is a challenge. I think I’ll have to start with a few people and build things out from there. I started with the origin of our Davises in Virginia, telling the old story of the three Welsh Davis brothers that reputedly founded our line. Our earliest named Davis was John Davis of Isle of Wight county who was said to have been the son of one of the original three brothers.
I want to find some more information on the shadowy John Davis and his father and uncles. We know they settled in Isle of Wight county, and John moved to Gloucester county with his family sometime before 1800, possibly as early as the 1780s, and acquired some property named Oak Lawn. We have some family notes and a tree prepared by John W. C. Davis (my great-grandfather’s brother) that indicate that John Davis married Elizabeth Edwards. Perhaps that explains the Edwards part of Williams Edwards Davis’s name, but what about the Williams part? I’m going to have to take a day off and go to the Isle of Wight courthouse, and most definitely to Gloucester. OK, maybe I don’t have as much information as I thought I did.