The Oral History

Previous Post: The Family of the Immigrant Ancestor

As with a lot of families, there is an oral history that has survived through the centuries about our immigrant ancestor. The oral history tells us the immigrant ancestor's name was William Meeks, and that he is from England. The main source for this oral tradition was a story written down by Dr. Priddy Meeks sometime in the 1870s. Dr. Priddy, was born in South Carolina in 1795, he was the son of Athe Meeks and grandson of William Meeks (d. 1797). Dr. Priddy tells us:

"William Meeks came from England, he had two sons, John and William. They lived in Virginia.
William Meeks married and had three sons, Priddy, Athe and Jesse. His wife died; he married again and had two sons, Middleton and Nacy. They lived in Georgia. My father had two sisters that I remember, Candice Williams and Susannah Mitchum. My father, Athe Meeks married Margaret Snead and had ten children.”

This note has been widely used by Meeks researchers, and has often been taken as absolutely correct by most researchers. At the time it was written down, Dr. Priddy may have been the oldest surviving member of the family. However, Dr. Priddy never knew his grandfather William, much less his great grandfather. He never knew his uncles Littleton and Nacy, (he didn't know the correct pronunciation of Littleton either). His father died when he was only 17 years old, and any family members that knew more about the history of the Meeks family had passed away before 1860. So the items of the above quote, that Dr. Priddy wouldn't of had first hand knowledge of, needs to be considered as an oral history and should be scrutinized.

When studying the life of Dr. Priddy Meeks, we can conclude that the only first hand knowledge Dr. Priddy had from the above quote was the names of his parents, and uncles Priddy and Jesse, and his aunt Susannah. The rest he would've heard through stories. Documentation as shown that he was correct about his grandfather, but records and ydna evidence has shown that he was most likely wrong about Littleton and Nacy being his father's half brothers.

Throughout the generations, oral histories/stories can evolve and change. What once was true can morph into something that isn't entirely accurate. The name of an ancestor us usually not forgotten through stories I generally accept the given name of our immigrant ancestor to be William. However, it is common for generations to be skipped when talking about an ancestor four or more generations back. Dr. Priddy Meeks thought the immigrant ancestor was his great grandfather, but it is possible William is older than that. The subject of the ancestor coming from England needs to be debated also, since ydna evidence places our ancestors squarely in the lowlands of Scotland.

The tradition that William Meeks is the immigrant ancestor displayed itself again among the descendants of Athe Meeks in the early 20th century. In 1920, The Latter-Day-Saint Biographical Encyclopedia ran a story about William Meeks who was born in 1848 and was the great grandson of Athe Meeks. He claimed the following:

"His great great grandfather was William Meeks, who with his wife Sarah came to America in the Mayflower in 1620"

This shows a classic example of skipping generations with oral traditions. William's (b. 1848) great great grandfather is the oldest provable member of our family, William Meeks born in 1725 in Virginia. About 100 years after the Mayflower landed in Massachusetts. But we see from this, that the tradition of the immigrant ancestor being named William Meeks was still strong in 1920. Of course, William (b.1848) could have gotten his information from his great uncle Dr. Priddy Meeks. They would've known each other and William's father is mentioned multiple times in Dr. Priddy's journal. One important fact about this information however is William (b.1848) gave us a name of William's wife, Sarah. No other document or oral history can tell us that.

There is another oral tradition that survived through the family of Athe Meeks Jr. about the first William Meeks arriving in America:

“When the first William Meeks came to settle in what would become the United
States, he was single as were other men in the area, so they sent for women to
marry. When the boatload of women arrived in the New World, William looked all of
them over as they disembarked and chose the one who looked big and strong, like
she could do the most work. Supposedly, she was something like six feet tall, with
stately bearing and red hair, and she was carrying a small chest or trunk”

I obtained this story from "The Life and Times of Dr. Priddy Meeks and his Progenitors", written by Lenora Meeks. Lenora referenced this quote as from “Patty Bracken, An Amalgam of Family Folklore", which is a book or a paper that I have yet to find.

This is an interesting story because it matches historical events in Virginia in 1619 and 1620, where bride ships came from England to provide wives for the mostly male settlers. The problem is, bride ships didn't happen after 1620.

So did William Meeks arrive in Virginia before 1620? That seems unlikely since he doesn't appear on any of the census records taken in Virginia a few years later. But we do find settlers with the last name of Meeks throughout Virginia starting in the 1640s. So anything is possible.

Any William Meeks born before 1680 will be too old to be Dr. Priddy Meeks great grandfather. But since there's a real good possibility that a generation was skipped, we are looking at a possibility range of William arriving in these shores anytime between 1620 and 1720, a huge window. Personally, I think it happened after 1650. Strictly looking at land records, there is some reason to believe that Dr. Priddy's great grandfather is named John Meeks, the proof of this is weak, but stronger than his name being William.

Next Post: Before Goochland County