When conducting genealogical research, one can never tell when the next priceless gem will come along; maybe a long-lost cousin connection, an unexpected DNA match, a critical court house document or a family heirloom.
To run down new leads on Baldwin's origins, I recently joined several Facebook groups specifically dealing with genealogy and the history of areas where our ancestors lived out their lives. Through one of these groups, it only took about a week before I had the pleasure of connecting with Lee Pearson of Manassas, VA. Lee descends from Baldwin's second family (Judith Creel line). The sequence is Baldwin > Wormley > Henry Franklin through his mother, Ella Catherine Lunceford. He recently contributed a guest post on his boyhood home in Haymarket, VA.
Although I am not connected directly to Wormley's line, I've always been fascinated by that given name. In my experience, Wormley was not used elsewhere in Baldwin's lines. But I have come across this name in other Northern Neck families with the spelling "Wormeley". Not to mention that it also was a surname (see Elizabeth Wormeley). Multiple connections of the Ball family with our early Virginia lines continues to keep up my hopes of one day connecting Baldwin's origins to the Northern Neck counties.
Here we have scans of the front pages of Wormley and Mahala's family bible that Lee was able to recover from the household of his grandmother, Mary Margaret (Ball) Lunceford (click for larger views):
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| Marriages |
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| Births |
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| Births (cont.) |
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| Deaths |
As a kid growing up just south of Manassas, we were taught early and often of the significance to the Civil War of the Battle of First Manassas. Field trips to that park were a common childhood treat. So when I read the death entry for
Joseph Blackwell Lunceford (aged 20), passing that day in July of 1861, it became very real indeed. I didn't know of any of our clan being killed at that first decisive battle of the war (also known as
The Great Skedaddle). Joseph was a private in Company-C, 8th VA Infantry, and before the conflict worked for the Berkeley brothers in Haymarket who later became company commanders in the 8th under Colonel Eppa Hunton.
We already know of my Great-great grandfather
Elijah Chilton's time with the 43rd Virginia Cavalry (Mosby's Men), and of his cousins service in the 8th (topic of a future post). But this was the first time I had heard of Joseph Blackwell. Lee tells me that he was shot through the heart while approaching the Henry House. He is believed buried in a mass grave at Groveton about a mile from the old Stone House.
Also listed is the death of Joseph's brother
William A. Lunceford (aged 21). He died later in the war fighting in the Valley Campaign with the 6th VA Cavalry at Newtown (today's Stevens City). Although the exact day cannot be determined from the bible entry due to page damage, he passed some weeks later in a Winchester hospital either in October or November of 1864. An entry on Find-a-Grave cites 12 Oct 1864 but the US Death Index gives his death as 12 Nov 1864. His burial is at the Stonewall Confederate cemetery in Winchester, VA (section VA-95).
This discovery of a priceless family heirloom so close to Baldwin's time makes me wonder how many other important items may be out there in private hands just waiting to be found or worse yet, lost to time. If you have any documents, photos or artifacts relating to our family that may be unknown to others, please scan/photograph them and make arrangements to pass them down to your descendants. And if that information can further our family's genealogical story, please send me a copy for the archives and perhaps consider writing a post about them on Bull Run Mountain Memories.
