Hello:

I am Jim Etheredge. You have reached a geneology Website for the Etheredge family in North America. If you are an Etheredge (or Etheridge or Ethridge) with earlier ties in Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, or the Carolinas, this site probably includes part of your own history, beginning with Thomas Etheridge II who arrived in the 1640s. (Another Etheridge line was introduced into New England about 1720 and descendants moved westward in the 1800s.)

Some related families included in this project are Beck, Berryman, Brackin, Carpenter, Carruth, Davis, Evans, Finney, Janes, Masterson, Morrison, Neal, Quillin, Sanderson, Slayton, Stell, Taliaferro, Uptain, and Walker.

This site includes information for my family - my two sisters Hazel Rea Janes (1908 - 1987) and Blanche Evelyn Morrison (1916 - 1990) and our descendants. We were the children of John Berry Etheredge and Maude Belle Morgan. We grew up in Town Creek, Alabama, a small crossroads town of several hundred people, in the early years of the 20th century. Our grandfather was Benjamin Thomas Etheredge ("Benjamin Thomas Etheredge - Saddle-Bag Doctor"), who was born in 1859 near Wolf Springs, Alabama, began his practice there in 1886, and moved his family about eight miles north, to the larger town of Town Creek, in 1897. Grandad married Martha Clementine Sanderson in 1879. They had three sons: Thomas Miller [called Miller] (1883 - 1947), John Berry (our father, 1887 - 1955), and Grant Blaine (1895 - 1941); and six daughters: Alda Ola (1880 - 1946), Martha Clementine (1888 - 1889), Madge Hydson (1889 - 1906), Imogene Gertrude [called Gertrude] (1892 - 1965), Helen [pronounced Hee-lin] Clementine (1897 - 1968), and Sybil Gwendoline (1902 - 1939).

The family photograph, above, was taken about 1899 in Wolf Springs, Lawrence County, AL. Across the back row (l to r) are our Grandmother (Martha Clementine Sanderson), Helen Clementine (age 2), our Grandfather (Benjamin Thomas Etheredge), and Madge Hydson (age 11). To the left of the picture is Thomas Miller (age 16). Across the front row (l to r): Grant Blaine (age 5), Imogene Gertrude (age 8) and our father, John Berry (age 13).

Our first house (in Town Creek Alabama) survived until the late 1980s.

In June, 1964 Mom recorded memories (Mom, 1964) about growing-up in Alabama.

Our Etheredge (Etheridge) line began in North America when Thomas Etheridge II, a Yeoman, came to Virginia and received a grant of 200 acres (in 1647) in the vicinity of Norfolk, VA. He was born in England: the ancestral church of the Etheredge's (Etheridge's) (with records of baptisms and burials) was All Hallows (left, dating from about 900 AD), in the village of Wood Green on land within the legal jurisdiction of Tottenham Manor. (At the time, Woodgrene (the original spelling) was a small hamlet of about 15-50 persons (about 100 in 1800.) Today, it is a suburb of greater London that can be reached by the London subway, Piccadilly Line.)

The medieval spellings Edrich, Ederich, Ederiche, Ederyche, and Edirich became Etheridge in the 16th century; our ancesters were associated with Tottenham Manor at least back to 1376, the earliest written record that I located.

In Virginia colony, the original grant of land to Thomas Etheridge II expanded to 1,080 acres. Today, part of the earlier holdings are the location of Etheridge Rd. - and also three housing developments, Etheridge Manor, Etheridge Woods, and Etheridge Meadow near the city of Chesapeake, VA (23322-3846)

Younger descendants of the Etheredge line might be interested to locate our history in the context of historical events. For example, the London Company for Virginia (the venture capitalists of their day) who established the first Virginia Colony in Jamestown (one of its stockholders being George Etheridge, a London merchant and gentleman.) The rapid westward expansion from the Virginia colony (David Hackett Fischer and James C. Kelly, Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2000)) brought Etheredge's across into Tennessee and Alabama (and further westward) as well as to the Carolinas. [The venture capitalists of the London Company for Virginia miscalculated and lost their money because of unanticipated costs of Indian wars, but that's how we got here . . . .]

In the 20th century, the recession of 1921 shaped our lives. Our father, John Etheredge, owned a prosperous general store in Town Creek. Typically, he sold to farmers on credit, against their next crop. But the national recession forced the price of cotton so low that it did not pay farmers even to harvest their crops. They could not pay my father, and we lost all of our assets except the house. We moved to Sheffield and then to Russellville ("Memories of Russellville 1922-1926)." Then, the land of opportunity was Detroit, Michigan where Henry Ford and the new automobile industry were creating jobs and prosperity. My Dad came north, looking for work. My mother came north with the rest of us in 1926: we drove in a model T and had 17 flat tires along the way (not uncommon in those days). En route, I saw my first traffic light in Nashville, Tennessee. When we arrived, our next door neighbor was Frankie Lou (Natho) Lenz.

It was in Detroit where my sisters and I met our future spouses (Ruth and I were introduced by Don Marquis). Later, during World War II, I enlisted in the Navy, which brought me and Ruth to Washington, DC where we settled and our two sons (identical twins) Lynn and Lloyd were born in 1946.

I spoke about the background of my research into our history ("How I Got Started") at a Byrd family reunion, when we were visiting Alabama in the early 1990s.

Etheredge geneological information is published in "The Etheridge Family of Norfolk County, Virginia," Historical Southern Families, Vol. XIV, Mrs. John Bennett Boddie (Ed.). (Baltimore, MD: Geneological Publishing Co. 1970., pp. 21 - 165 and continued in vol. XV (1971), pp. 1-143; I published "Etheredge and Related Families of Northwest Alabama and Other Southern States" in vol. XXIII (1980), pp. 42-88. These volumes were reprinted in 1998 (vols. XIV and XV) and 2000 (vol. XXIII) and have been available for $12.95 - $15.50 (paperback) from www.genealogical.com (search under Boddie). The ISBN numbers of the reprinted editions are 0-8063-0450-2 (1970), 0-8063-0499-5 (1971), 0-8063-4525-X (1980). They also sell a CD version of the entire series, keyed to major geneological software programs, which may be suitable for searching and adding material. The following material is a 1989 revision circulated in typescript. It includes copies of wills and additional background material.]

I have divided the research into five sections:

• "Introduction"
• Chapter 1: Early English Roots of the Etheredge Family, pp. 1 - 12.
  • Other Interesting Etheredges of the 17th century, pp. 13 - 14.
  • Appendix: Contents, p. 15.
    • Copy of William Etheridge's Will of Dec. 26, 1576, pp. 16 - 17.
    • Copy of John Etheridge's will of June 18, 1575, pp. 18 - 19.
    • Copy of Robert Etheridge's will of Jan. 26, 1566, pp. 20 - 22.
    • Copy of Thomas Etheridge's will of Feb. 6, 1612, pp. 23 - 24.
    • An Historical Sketch of Tottenham Manor, p. 25.
    • Excerpts from Tottenham Manor Court Rolls in which the name "Ederiche" and variant spellings appear (1376 - 1578), pp. 26 - 33.
• Chapter II - Etheredge Ancestors 1640 - 1913, pp. 34 - 72.
  • The "Etheridge" Ancestral Line, pp. 34 - 37.
    • Copy of the Marriage License of Maude Belle Morgan and John Berry Etheredge, October 14, 1907
    • Pedigree Chart of Maude Belle Morgan (1888 - 1986)
    • Pedigree Chart of John Berry Etheredge (1887 - 1955)
    • Pedigree Chart of Greenberry Etheridge I (ca. 1810 - 1831)
    • Pedigree Chart of Jeremiah Etheridge I (1708/10 - 1754)
    • Pedigree Chart of Susan Catherine Grimes (1832 - 1891)
  • Notes and References, pp. 38 - 72.
• Chapter III - Etheredge Relatives, Descendants of Greenberry Etheredge II, pp. 73 - 94.
• Name Index, pp. 95 - 98.