Kembro

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Bibles and Brick Walls

Does every genealogist have a serious brick wall? One they’ve worked on for years? In case you’ve forgotten, Thomas Winston Kimbrough was born according to a source or two, in Louisa County Virginia in 1796. Born to whom is the unanswered question! He married and subsequently moved to western Kentucky around 1819 where he lived until his death in 1868. In our search for T. W. K.’s parents we have become familiar with a wealth of Kimbrough information.  Through investigating multiple Kimbrough families and trying to reconstruct information from burned counties we have come across large number of descendants. We’re hoping by posting information to help others climb over their walls, someone may have the footholds for ours.

The family of Thomas Winston was large and members lived in several Kentucky counties and some in Tennessee. One of the items is the following Bible Record that was found on PERSI. I carefully reviewed the copies of pages we received and transcribed them, as you will see. If you’d like to have copies of the originals I worked with I’m happy to email them to you – they’re too ugly to post.

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Transcription of copies of Kimbrough Bible 1820

This Bible was undoubtedly from the family of Meridith Garth and Mildred Ann Maria Terry Kimbrough. Meridith was the oldest son of Thomas and is well documented in a variety of ways. No one mentions his grandparents, however.

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Furthering the search

For a number of years we have been working on our brick wall in the Kimbrough line. Who is the father of Thomas Winston Kimbrough – born 1796 in Virginia, died 1868 in Kentucky. This has been a longstanding family mystery and better genealogists than I have tried to solve the puzzle. I have hope ONLY because I have access to so many more resources now, thanks to the internet and the fact that we can and will travel to Virginia this spring.

In preparation for  this trip I have begun to search every repository I can find: Library of Virginia, FHL, ancestry, etc. etc. to try to make some inroads and develop a hypothesis or two about who, when and where. I have the when and a couple ideas about where. It’s frustrating to run into records gaps – there are many – from colonial times, but there are also a lot of folks who have documented various records. It’s tempting to believe many of the “trees” that I have reviewed, but I have found so much misinformation that I’m skeptical. When I solve this I want my evidence to be as solid as possible. I’m learning a lot as I work this problem and am grateful to so many for their time and help.

As a “give back” I plan to post all of the research on www.kimbroughgenealogy.com – whether it applies to this particular family or not. I’ve already amassed scores of references to many Kimbroughs, Kembros, Kimbros, and a few other surnames that may be of help to others. The copies of the Kimbro-Kimbrough Quarterlies that we have will be posted there. Stay tuned if you’re interested. I’ll post on our trip, beginning in May, and share what I’m learning.