Talk:Edward Hill (Virginian politician)

more work needed

I'm having difficulty identifying his wives and family, especially figuring out which women were wives of which generation. For what it's worth, ancestry.com's not hugely helpful in that era. Plus, Edward Hill is barely mentioned in the three sets of Virginia genealogies (the Genealogical Publishing Company's compilations of articles in the William & Mary Quarterly, Tyler's Quarterly and a third common source I'm blanking on right now while also dealing with a balky touchpad and keyboard).

Now before me is Martha W. McCartney's Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers, 1607-1635: A Biographical Dictionary (Genealogical Publishing Co. 2007). Page 59 mentions Causey's Care plantation (a/k/a Cleare, which was founded by Nathaniel Causey, inherited by his son John Causey who sold it to Walter Aston I in 1634 and gave it the Causey's Care name. It descended to Walter Aston II, whose widow Hannah married Edward Hill of Shirley. She either married this man or his son. Then page 387 mentions Hannah Boyle who came to Virginia on the 'Bona Nova' in 1620 and married Edward Hill. They were living with their daughter Elizabeth in Elizabeth City in February 1624, before this man's prominence. That predecessor Edward was buried in May 1624 and Hannah remarried her neighbor Thomas Spellman, who represented his stepdaughter when settling her father's estate, but died by March 1627. Spellman named his widow Hannah as heir to his real and personal property and gave their daughter Mary his property in England. That Hanna Hill Spellman then remarried, to Alexander Mountney of Accomack County, who died by 1644. Hannah was still alive in 1658 when she testified in a court proceeding but died before November 1659. (p. 508) For what it's worth Thomas Spellman had 50 developed acres in Elizabeth City in 1625, and his brother Henry, an interpreter, had been killed by native Americans in 1623. (p. 660) Since Spellman was only administering that Edward Hill's estate for his stepdaughter, IMHO that Edward Hill could not have been the father of this man.Jweaver28 (talk) 20:37, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I edited this article yesterday, after further research and consultation with a genealogist familiar with Virginia colonial records, who helped determine that this Charles County Edward Hill was not the son of the Jamestown Edward Hill because of the primogeniture inheritance issue, as well as his absence in the census conducted in 1625. Charles City County records were burned in the Civil War, but some court order books survived, the earliest dating to 1655 (i.e. after this man began his careers as planter and burgess). The lack of genealogy research on this family important in the 17th century seems due to Edward Hill III not passing Shirley plantation to a son, but rather to a daughter and powerful son-in-law (John Carter (Virginia colonial secretary), a wikipedia article I added back in March). Considerable indexing has been done of existing Virginia colonial records in the last couple of decades, hence my citing a published index rather than the original source (original research being against wikipedia guidelines). For what it's worth, as was the case in the last two days this week, minutes after booting this laptop and signing onto library wifi to check my email and edit wikipedia, I received a robocall (this one labeled spam risk and from an 888 number apparently linked to a cell phone, unlike the repeat and mostly nominally Virginia callers of the previous days who use web dialers which may be from anywhere--google limits information available about them to one page of results, mostly Turkish websites). Yesterday's first email check also produced a familiar Asian-accented robo voicemail on my late father's web-based Chicago line. While I don't know whether this man's documented land patents were issued on the basis of imported indentured servants or slaves, the voicemail solicited real estate "in your neighborhood" on behalf of an unlicensed entity -- despite my having discontinued that line many months ago. I doubt wikipedia's current or prospective Codes of Conduct affect AI bots connected to data broker allies of tech giants.Jweaver28 (talk) 21:29, 26 January 2023 (UTC)