Place Name Index for Joseph Vick of Lower Parish, Isle of Wight County, Virginia and His Descendants

Joseph Vick of Lower Parish, Isle of Wight County, Virginia and His Descendants by John D. Beatty and Di Ann Vick is an indispensable reference I use for tracing Joseph's descendants. One thing I wish the book had, though, is a place name index. When Americans contact me with a question about their Vick line they usually include at least one reference to a location where their Vick ancestors lived. If their Vick ancestors lived in the southern U.S. the chances are excellent that they were descendants of Joseph.

Not being able to find easily the pages in the book where a location is mentioned slows down my search for how the person fits in the Vick family tree. To solve this problem, I have started putting together an index of place names in the book. The index should be ready in time for the July 2009 Vick Family Newsletter. If there is enough space in the newsletter I will include it in that issue. If there is not enough space in the July issue (because of the news from the reunion) I will put it in the October 2009 issue. So if you would like a copy of the index, it will be available soon.

Now, if I could just find some good reference books for the other Vick families.

Learning to Preserve and Share Vick Family History

On April 27, 2009, I will begin a five week course titled "Introduction to One-Name Studies." The course is offered by the Guild of One-Name Studies. The Guild says the "five week course will cover the history and study of surnames, what a one-name study consists of, how to get started, how to collect and analyse data from the core records and about the practical aspects of running a One-Name Study such as how to publicise your study, data protection, publishing findings and conclusions, and making sure your study is preserved for others in the future." I cannot wait to see how much I learn from the course and to put this new knowledge to work. I have been a member of the Guild for a couple of years, but I have a lot to learn (especially about British records).

I am also taking an online course in Microsoft Access (a relational database program). Access should give me another tool I need to help organize the mountain of data I am collecting. While I use a family tree program (Personal Ancestral File or PAF), I am missing a way to tie the data together on people that I cannot seem to place in a tree (or to spot that the data is on someone already in one of my trees).

By integrating the Guild course with Access I hope to do a much better job of helping to preserve and share our Vick family history.

Vick Family History Books

Are there any good Vick family history books or short histories about the Vick families other than those I have listed below? While I am interested in books about the Joseph Vick of Lower Parish, Isle of Wight County, Virginia clan I am especially interested in books or short histories of other clans both in the U.S. and in other countries. The list below was largely gleaned from the book by Beatty and Vick.

· Robert Arthur, Vick of Vicksburg [New Orleans, LA: Typescript]
· John D. Beatty and Di Ann Vick, Joseph Vick of Lower Parish, Isle of Wight County, Virginia and His Descendants [Los Angeles, CA: Genus Publishing, 2004]
· Dorothy Phelps Cole, Nitta Yuma king cotton [Nitta Yuma, MS: The Author, 1974]
· O. Vick Hines, Vick Families Descendants of Joseph, VA, 1675 [Sulphur Springs, TX: Unpublished]
· Ruth Vick O’Brien, A Genealogy of the Families and Descendants of William P. Vick I: 1791-1840; Agnes Bottoms Vick, 1833-1907; William P. Vick II: 1837-1902; Jesse Parker and Lucy Joyner Vick Parker: Married 1845 – 1792-1970 [Washington, D.C.: The Author, 1970]
· James Morris Perrin, Reverend Newitt Vick, Founder of Vicksburg, Mississippi, His Ancestry, Relatives and Descendants [Hammond, LA: The Author, 1990]
· James A. Vick, Robert, Son of the Virginia Immigrant Joseph Vick: An Account of Some of His Descendants [Waco, TX: The Author, 1990]
· John Leonides Vick, A Short History of the Vick Family [Typescript, 1967]
· Samuel B. Vick, Sr., Samuel B. Vick, Jr., and Lorrayne Vick Donnell, The Great Family of Joseph Vick Before 1675 to 1987 [Jackson, MS: Privately Published, 1987]
· Melba Wood, My Maternal Ancestry II [Chesterfield, IL: The Author, 1987]