Today we bring you another installment of our Big Find Friday series. While we love those “Eureka!” moments where a patron finds the exact, obscure document that unlocks an entire family history in one fell swoop, occasionally the historical record keeps a stingy grip on its secrets. This post shows that sometimes a patron’s “big find” is the Library of Virginia itself.
Donna Potter Phillips of Spokane, Washington, visited us in May 2014 for the National Genealogical Society’s conference. While here, she hoped to find evidence of the 1725 marriage in Williamsburg of her ancestor Marquis Calmes (b. 1705, Stafford County, Virginia) to a “fine English lady,” Winnifred Waller, and learn the identity of Waller’s parents. “Alas, I accomplished neither,” Phillips wrote to us afterward, prompting optimistic archivists to shed forlorn tears. Ah, but wait! She didn’t stop there, adding, “But I surely had a great time looking.”
As Phillips exhausted the resources of not only the Library of Virginia, but also Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg and William and Mary’s Swem Library, she was able only to determine that her ancestors did not marry at Bruton Parish. Undeterred, she proclaimed herself “comfort[ed] to know the ‘final score’ from a reputable source.” She closed by sharing that “I happily looked at everything on the Waller family that your great staff could dig up for me. Even though I struck out, it was a fabulous experience to research in your library and I wish you were not 3,000 miles away so I could come back soon!”
If you’re in the neighborhood, come and see for yourself what Phillips discovered here at the Library of Virginia – no matter the result, the search has rewards of its own.
Click here to tell the story of your own “big find”!
-Jessica Tyree, Senior Accessioning Archivist
