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The starting (and often ending) point of many Wilson genealogies is the “Wilson Book”, compiled by the family of William Surber Wilson of Kentucky after his death in 1981.  He collected almost 50 years of research about the Wilsons of Kentucky and Virginia going back to James Wilson, Sr.  There is a surprising amount of information for the pre-Internet era he was working in – that’s probably why it took him so long! Although we can lay our hands on the sources of much of his tree, some of it appears to be based on family stories he was privy to.  Some of what he didn’t document seems to be of as much interest as what he didn’t, given all his research.  For instance, he doesn’t claim to know the maiden name of James’ wife Martha, nor his birthplace, nor his parental connections.  There are many trees that attempt to connect James Sr. with other James Wilsons in Virginia based on readily available records with his name and matching timeframe only, so it seems reasonable to assume Surber might have had access to the same documentation and dismissed it (as I will be doing in subsequent posts).  It’s also interesting that one of the mistakes I can find concerning my direct line was a reasonable conclusion given the available records, involving a connection which took me considerable work and research to unearth.  To wit, the son James of Thomas, son of James Sr. is identified as marrying Martha Hix in 1789, with no subsequent descendants listed.  While this James was the most likely candidate to be my ancestor, who was one of the first to migrate to Kentucky, it was puzzling why Surber didn’t make the connection.  In fact, it took studying and comparing many years of tax records in both Virginia and Kentucky, looking at Thomas’ will, and finding the deed showing the sale of the land that James of KY inherited from Thomas to show that our James was *not* the James that married Martha Hix (indeed our James married a Delilah) and was undocumented by Surber.  But once again, that is another story that isn’t really pertinent to the unknown details surrounding James Sr.

It is intriguing that James’ will refers to him as James Wilson Sr.  Most people might assume that there was thus a James Jr., but the only sons mentioned in the will were Thomas and Moses.  As a result, it appears a number of people have assumed his (presumably) older son was actually James Thomas Wilson, Jr.  However, Thomas never appeared in any deed or tax list under that name.  Also, in his own will in 1816 he refers to himself as Thomas Wilson Sr. (and in fact he did have a son named Thomas).  Another thing to note is that in many older tax lists and censuses, the use of Jr. and Sr. didn’t necessarily denote a strict father/son relationship.  In many cases, it just distinguished between older and younger men in the same list.  James grandson James (son of Thomas) was of age by 1779 when he appeared in the tax lists, so it is possible that he was considered to be the Jr. in 1777.  Yet another alternative is that there really was a son James Jr. that had either died before 1777 or was otherwise not included in the will.  So to sum up, the possibilities are:

1. Thomas was actually James Thomas.  This is belied by the fact he never went by James in any other records, and referred to himself as Thomas Sr. in his own will.
2. James Jr. was James Sr.’s grandson, who might have been of age in 1777.
3. James Sr. did have a son James Jr. who was not listed in the will for some reason, such as death or being estranged.

James’ will is the starting (and sometimes ending) point for most research into him.  I don’t have a known copy of the full text, but the highlights are (as abstracted from “Henry County Will Abstracts Vol. I & II 1777-1820”, p. 1):

Written 1 April 1777, Probated 21 July 1777

Wife: Martha

Sons: Thomas, Moses

Daughters: Martha Baley (Bailey), Ann Broshears (Brashears)

Slaves: Sarah, Seal to Martha, thence to Thomas at her death; Adam – to Martha, thence to Moses at her death

Executors: wife and sons

The Inventory of his estate was taken in August 1777:

Cattle, sheep, furniture, tools, 3 negros