Sturgills in America

Stodgill, John

Events

Parents

Families

Narrative

John and Elizabeth went first to Morgan Co. WV (then Greenbrier Co. VA) but after 1818 John moved on to KY where he married a second time. Elizabeth died in WV. -p. 30

John Stodghill and his wife Elizabeth Harvey probably made their first home on the 250 acre farm he bought in Orange County. VA (area now Green Co.) in 1760. In 1769 he sold this farm and part of the land he had inherited from his fathers estate to John Shackleford and probably moved to Greenbrier Co., VA (now Morgan Co., WV) at that time. John continued to appear on the land tax rolls of Orange Co. through 1818 as he still owned the 200 acres his father James had purchased from Zacharia Taylorin 1732. When he sold this land in 1818 he was living in Morgan Co. WV.

The problem of unraveling the geneaology [sic] of the Stodgdill -Sturgill - Stodghill families has been compounded by the fact that the name was spelled so many different ways during the first two centuries of the family in America. Much time has been spent in analysis of tax, deed and census records to determine if some of these different spellings were referring to the same person. The following, recorded in the "British Mercantile Record 1775-1803" (the Dunn and Bradstreet of the time) answers some of the questions. Some other researchers have found it difficult to accespt the evidence that the Sturgill families of NC and SW Virginia were direct descendants of the earlier Stodghill family of VA. The credit record following shows that they were the same family.

BMR 1775-1803, Volume 6, page 156, entry #4

JOHN STURGILL, Orange Co,\. VA, L5.14.11 1/2, by account with Donald Scott & Co. (pg 32) He is called John Stodghill in a clain of John Glassel and his name was always pronounced STURGEON. He moved to Greenbrer Co. in 1789-90 (?) in good circumstances and from the last account still lives there, well able to pay his debts.

-p. 34

Source References

Ancestors