Finding Willoughby Whitehurst

    Willoughby Whitehurst is my third great grandfather. I had never heard his name growing up. I’m trying to remedy that situation for my children and grandchildren. I didn’t get serious about my genealogy until about 1990, but when I got bitten by the genealogy bug, I got a good case of it. Unfortunately, my father, Jesse Radcliff Whitehurst Jr, died that year. He would really have appreciated my discoveries. For over 15 years I spent much of my free time trying to find my fathers and mothers as George Washington called them. It wasn’t an easy thing to find your ancestors at that time. Much of my research was done by getting involved in discussion boards, trying to find searchable transcribed copies of census records, and going to the locations where I thought my ancestors had lived and search through courthouse records which I often learned had been buried and many of those records were never restored. Roots Web was started in 1993 and it was a great resource and ancestry became genuinely useful in 1996. Prior to that ancestry sold databases and other research tools. That seems so long ago.

    When I got started, I contacted by daddy’s half-brother, Lonnie Whitehurst, in Columbus. We knew that my great grandfather, Thomas Willoughby Whitehurst, grew up in Pike County, Alabama, but that was all that we knew about our Whitehurst line. Lonnie had been trying to find out about his great grandfather, who we thought was named Jim Whitehurst. 

    On Thomas Willoughby Whitehurst’s death certificate, my grandfather, Jesse Radcliffe Whitehurst Sr., stated that Thomas Willoughby Whitehurst’s father was Jim Whitehurst and that his mother was Jane Kilpatrick. After much research, Lonnie concluded that Jim Whitehurst had probably died during the Civil War, maybe at Chickamauga. Other Whitehurst researchers encouraged me to look in Henry County, Alabama. I found a transcribed copy of the Henry County, Alabama US Census. While scanning down the list, I found William Whitehurst listed with his wife, Jane, and four children, a daughter Frances E. age 7, and three sons, Thomas W. age 5, William W. age 3, and James J. age 6 months. This looked like a possible match. I was so excited that I felt my heart was going to leap from my chest.

    With the help of other Whitehurst researchers, I was able to confirm that William Whitehurst is in fact my 2nd great grandfather. William died sometime before April 14, 1851 and Jane married James Wadsworth which led my grandfather to refer to his grandfather was Jim Whitehurst. Finding William Whitehurst lead me to Willoughby Whitehurst, my 3rd Great grandfather and allowed me to join a substantial group of researchers looking for the father of Willoughby, Pelatiah, and John Wesley Whitehurst. That is where I was stuck until I found a copy of Diane Whitehurst Collins' book, The Whitehurst Family of Princess Anne County Virginia and Pitt County North Carolina.