Okay, so there seems to be some stalwarts here. My ancestry research seems to have revealed that Harrison Lewis had a child with his daughter Melissa Lewis in 1874. This seems to have upset some people, mainly because they don't seem to want to handle it. Some people on this list, such as Brenda Lewis Simpkins and me, are descendants of this union. The Augusta Lewises are a complicated family, and most of the lies about the family have been debunked, like the Portugal claim, which appears in detail in book 4 of Pioneer Lewis Families by Michael Cook, pages 599-608. I scanned these, and will send them to anyone who asks. Just to let you guys know, my ancestors are John and Matilda Lewis, both of Floyd and Pike Counties, Kentucky. >From what I can make out, especially from my genetics, John Lewis was the first son of Thomas Lewis and Elizabeth Galloway. The ancestry family trees show her dying in 1806, but my research shows her having moved to Bracken County, where the Lewises who started out in Floyd and were descendants of Gideon Lewis, moved later on. They probably divorced, which given my ancestral research, was just as common back then as it is today. Thomas Lewis claimed, in 1860, to have been born in Portugal. There is only one Lewis family to have claimed that, despite Mandy Colgan's and other people's claims, and that's the Donegal/Augusta Lewises. In 1728, the landlords in Donegal tried raising rents and apparently John Lewis refused, and fought back when his landlord, a scottish presbyterian named Mungho Campbell, tried driving him out, and he killed him and his bailiff in the process. John took refuge in a family friend's house on the Boyne, then fled to Portugal, then to Philadelphia, then to Lancaster PA (refuge for many Presbyterians who were also welsh), then, to the Shenandoah Valley, bringing a contingent of Ulstermen with him (History of Monroe County, West Virginia pg. 22 and 26) in 1732. Charles Lewis is said to have been born then or 1736, both important dates for settlement, but I've always wondered if he was born earlier, and the family was fudging the date. Either way, he seems to be John's son, so there isn't dispute about paternity. The birth year of Thomas is given as 1771 and 1774-the first is prolly his real birthdate, the second , mentioned in the census, is most likely the death date of his Father, Charles Lewis, who died at sunrise on the road to Point Pleasant.. Thomas is not listed in the will of Charles, so that might explain some misunderstandings about him. The claim Mandy Colgan, Kathleen Noah, and Brenda Simpkins have advanced is that he (Benjamin) was either : 1. covering for black ancestry, which they then supplant by saying he was the mulatto son of Edward Lewis 3rd of Mecklenburg, or 2. Thomas claimed Portugal since his parents were involved in shipping (Brenda states this in an email to me). I checked #1 with Mr Adkins, who runs Afrigeneas.com, and he states it is pure bull. He said the people who were half or fully black and tried to cover it, said they were "portegee", were mostly illiterate, and well known to be so. He also looked at the 1860 entry and stated my ancestor must have been educated and telling the truth, since none of the mulatto or black people claiming that would know the actual name of the island, etc. I used to be a racist, and this was kinda disheartening. The mulatto thing would have vindicated my having stopped being racist, and fixed a lot of problems. Now I was left with nothing. However, a long, beer-guided search through the Annals of Tazewell, specifically pg 240-241, showed Benjamin to have been the hubby of Rachel McGuire, who died in 1830. A book done by the WPA in the depression stated a William Lewis did an assessment of land in Kanawha in 1837, when the will of William Maguire was settled. William was the brother of a Benjamin Lewis, grandson of George Lewis, who was mentioned in Charles Lewis' will. The land was to go NOT to Benjamin, but his children-and the firstborn of Benjamin of Pike was Matilda. This would explain why John and Matilda moved to there, Wayne County West Virginia, one of the most beautiful places on planet earth, in my not so humble opinion. I checked too, and Benjamin supposedly settled on Stratton land in Pike. Solomon Stratton had died, and his heirs split up their land, and William Maguire's wife and mother were both Strattons of the same family (pg. 400, A Book of Strattons) , which would explain why he went there. Free or cheap land seems to be a major draw for my family. Mandy Colgan, in 2002, pulled it out of thin air that Thomas and Benjamin were brothers, in this post to ancestry.com ------ There is no proof given of that at all.. She just seems to have made it up. Judge Stephen Lewis of Wayne county told me over the phone he remembered that Benjamin had been proven to be George's grandson, and that Brenda had started claiming this (Mecklenburg) a few years back, which mystified him. I think she did this cuz Mandy Colgan was trying to make it sound like some Tidewater Lewises had black ancestry, and she jumped on the bandwagon to cover for incest. So, I think Thomas is the son of Charles Lewis ap John Lewis of Donegal, and Benjamin Lewis is the grandson of George Lewis also of Donegal, who came over the sea and into the Shenandoah with him. The Monroe county book says the eldest son of the grandchildren of John Lewis were named John too (check), and he led 30 ulstermen in his invasion of Augusta from PA (probably 30 families). On ysearch.org, my test is v-v-b-w-p, and matches with a Hylton/Bates, of Wise county who was adopted as his Father was, and I think he might be Lewis, due to the fact it's right next to Pike. It also came back matching a Marshall, but most especially a Lewis, Murl Jean Lewis, who thru his own given information and my checking it seems to be descended from John Lewis through Andrew, his son. Years ago, I was told we were NOT really Lewises. My ancestor, Francis M. Lewis, was the son of Francis Marion Marshall, I was told. His wife's Father, Harrison Lewis, came by one day, and saw the house was a mess, and the kid being neglected, took him back home as his own. I was also told she dropped him off at her Dad's house, since she couldn't care for him herself. A few weeks back, my aunt Pauline claimed she was at home when she became pregnant from the Marshall guy. If I keep asking , eventually I'm sure they'll say an alien spaceship put him there, using a reverse tractor beam, and it would be from the Marshall galaxy, but it's not there anymore, so stop looking right now. Dang kids, can't leave well enough alone. When I was a kid, we didn't have genetic testing, didn't ask questions, and we did just fine. But I am pretty sure, they did know the truth, and know it now. They are just afraid of it. Each time I asked about this in WV, my relatives got weird looks on their faces, and stated people did not often leave the hollow when choosing partners, or something like it. I also saw this in the news and web sites later. I also met many women who stated their Dads had tried or did have sex with them, which freaked me out. I figured, it didn't apply to my family, so I didn't bother listening. If men expected that their oldest daughter take over for their wives when they died, why did I need to know that? I was told Francis M was named after Francis Marion Marshall. I have checked, and according to the Marshall DNA project, that Marshall line is #61017. My genetics do not match up. My mother stated a well known tale of my Grandmother fooling around on my Granddad, but my genetics do not match up with anyone else in Wayne county, and she did that >5 years after my Dad was born. But, mine do for the Donegal Lewises. In WV vital records online, Melissa Lewis is stated http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1694151&Type=Birth and http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1743436&Type=Birth to have been born on October 4, 1856, mother Mary (Wooten) Lewis. When I went to the Wayne County courthouse in 2002, I found that Harrison Lewis, age 50, claimed Francis to be his son in 1874. In the 1880 census, Melissa is listed as a daughter at home, keeping house, and Frank's age is 6, with a line through it, and then 4, and then grand is added before son. In this record, near the bottom, from WV VRR,- http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1730974&Type=Birth http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1694258&Type=Birth it states that my and Brenda's ancestor, Francis M. had Harrison Lewis as Father, Melissa Lewis as mother. So the official record states that. The marshall line I do line up with, is not the same one as the Marshalls of Wayne, not even close-think it's off by 6 or 8 places. Jacque Baker pointed that out to me, and he paid for kit #61017 to be done. But I match 23 of 25 with Murl Jean Lewis, meaning with a common last name, we have a common ancestor 8-10 generations ago. John Lewis would be 10 generations back for me, 9 for him, and would match that timeline. I was told my un-named female ancestor married 5 times to 5 different men, and had 5 children, none of whom were the children of the men she married, nor the same man. In the 1900 census, it gives Alexander Moore as her hubby, and she states she has had 5 children, 4 who lived, a more or less perfect match. http://search.ancestry.com/iexec/Default.aspx?htx=View&r=an&dbid=7602&iid=004123469_00188&fn=Alex&ln=Moore&st=r&ssrc=&pid=62967929 I was also told by Osbourne that not all marriages after the first one were recorded, since that was a sin, so records can be "sparing". I have been given endless lies about how she died, none substantiated by fact. One woman emailed my mother after I posted online about the book of Hebrews where it says sins are paid for by repentance or blood, and she stated Melissa married a crazy preacher in 1902 who murdered her stating the same thing. I was also told by my uncle Curt Crabtree that people in Wayne are not averse to lying at all. I think he is right. He also said not to believe anything you hear, or half of what you see. I still think he is right. I think Harrison Lewis was Francis' real Dad, the genetics point to that, and so do official state records. Brenda and Kathleen Noah state otherwise, but hey, look at the records yourself and search ysearch.org using my entry-what comes up? Donegal Lewises. I'd welcome any other evidence, but even Kathleen does not mention Melissa being Harrison's daughter on her tree when I checked it, and you can see in WV VRR records yourself that she is. And she is also listed as Francis' mother, not head of household, not adopted mommy, but his mother. And Harrison as his Father. This is further backed up by the genetics tests. Any other explanations I'll check, but what do you all really think? I looked in archive.org on the KYOWVA website, and it had a link to Brenda's site, with the Donegal Lewises listed together with the Lewis crest, which I have as a background on my computer. So, I am pretty certain Kathleen Noah, Colgan, and Simpkins lied. Simpkins claimed she had a copy of the marriage certificate for Thomas, but when I offered to mail her a scanner to scan it and send me a copy, she never emailed me again. Noah has never written me back. Now, yesterday, I got an email interchange between the both of them, just making statements, as if that were proof or something. But those of you who clicked on my links, what do you think? BTW, I did speak to a woman named Eldean Wellman about it, and she and I have come to the same conclusion-we accept our ancestry, right or wrong to other people. I love my ancestors, I could care less if they did something wrong. My whole life, I have always stood for something, and every last one of them did too, to the point of dying for it or making a lot of someone elses die for it. That's the American Way. I stand by my lineage, my family, right or wrong. They survived in the harshest environments I have ever heard of, ever. I am proud to be descended from them, and I'll be damned if I am gonna lie about who they are, just because somebody with low self-esteem and a penchant for lying can't accept it, or handle it. I remember being in Wayne County, in winter, with snow, and like 90%+ humidity, and I cannot even imagine what it would be like to live there with a wood fired stove. My Dad said the wood was wet one year, and the parents slaughtered a pig, which heated their cabin for 2-3 days. I still have have my Dad's traps he used to catch food for his family in High School. Harrison Lewis had a child with his daughter, Melissa, in 1874. If anyone else has anything else to prove something else, please go ahead and show it to me. But I'm sick of the rampant lies. If you can't handle the truth, there's always a liquor bottle with your name on it in a bar somewhere. Probably my ancestors mighta brewed it. But please stop repeating obvious truth and drawing unsubstantiated conclusions. Can we at least give our ancestor's the honor of being honest about them and ourselves? BTW, Brenda Lewis' Dad was Arthur Lewis, son of Frank Lewis too- http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&db=1920usfedcen&rank=1&new=1&MSAV=0&msT=1&gss=angs-d&gsfn=frank&gsln=lewis&msrpn=3103&msrpn__ftp=Wayne+County%2c+West+Virginia%2c+USA&dbOnly=_83004006|_83004006_x%2c_83004045|_83004045_x&pcat=35&fh=0&h=37946492&recoff=1+3+14 and , who died---in1958, my Dad said due to eye cancer. He used to visit my Grandpa Basil and his kids, and when the kids misbehaved, he'd take off his eyepatch covering the cancerous hole, and make them stare into it. He married Lesta Marie Smith, and had twins and Brenda later in 1949----. Her Grandpa is my Great Grandpa. Frank made whisky, was shot by the sheriff before 1930, I have the key he used to let himself out of the jail cell at night. He paid off the sheriff with money and liquor. When I went to the county clerk in 2002, it was on the wall, one just like it, exactly. I have spoken to Howard Osbourne, and he laughed his head off when I told him Frank's tombstone lacks a death date, and that he said he died of cancer in Huntington in 1949, after being taken there by wagon in winter. He laughed and laughed, and he is the head of the Wayne County Family History society, and stated that they obviously fudged the death date. Quote from telephone conversation : "Hahahaha, they have a tombstone, but not with a death date, they put the stone there hahahaha, without the year they put it down there, hahaha?" The family story goes, the people tell it, with straight, flat faces, and state that back then, anyone could pay off the sheriff, and swear out a warrant. When the man showed up on his porch, called out by the sheriff, the sheriff would claim he had a gun and shoot him dead in the head. His (Frank's) marriage certificate online has a curious set of additions on the side, adding up to 60-and Osbourne said it was because they faked his death certificate. He said it happens. The reason why Frank's birth is listed as 1875 on his tombstone and the marriage certificate (I think) and the state records is so if anyone checks them they won't find the record and the fact Harrison is his Dad. Also, the tombstone is made of a stone the man who did my Father's "Son" footstone said was not used until the 1980's (he’s a Ferguson too, same family as the man who fudged the death certificate). It's obviously patched up at the bottom with hand applied pieces of concrete-obviously after the original one. If anyone wants to see it, it's at the Mt. Vernon site of the old Methodist church there, as you go around the curve, you make a right and go up the long draw to the right, and after it tops the hill, he's halfway down the hill on the right, next to his son Oscar M. Lewis. Another Lewis child is also buried there. If anyone wants a pic of the jail key, just email me and I'll send it. If anyone wants the truth, please just follow the link and references above, and my test results and matches on ysearch.org. I have also found that the Marshalls I do match up with were Quakers in Ireland, and that one Quaker family, by the name of Dodd, produced Susannah Dodd, who married Robbert "Bobby" Marshall, the #61017 line, and I have not totally ruled out that possibility. I'd like to believe it too. Anyone here, can you prove it?