Preface

The following is quoted from my father's book: A Branch Of The Sturgill Family, Volume I Decendants of Francis Sturgill Sr. & Rebecca Hash. Barring transcription errors, the wording, punctuation, and spelling are his - THS

Some STURGILL Statistics

This book lists 987 families descended from Francis Sturgill Sr. and his wife Rebecca Hash and it is estimated that this is probably less than half of them as little information was received on those who are descended from female lines.

Included are 12 children, 91 grandchildren, 365 great grandchildren, 707 great great grandchildren and 964 great great great grandchildren of which the writer is one. As these figures indicate, Sturgill families are becoming smaller with each generation. In the first generation after Francis Sr. the families averaged 7.6 children per family. In the next generation the average was 4 children per family but due to lack of information on the femail lines the true average was probably closer to 6 per family. The present average of known Sturgill families remains about 2.5 per family.

In the decade 1765-1775 about 25 families settled in the upper New River valley in the area between Grayson Co. VA and Ashe & Alleghany counties of NC. All of these pioneer settlers had large families and there were many marraiges between their children so we all started off as cousins in several different ways. Many of these early settlers came from the same areas, mostly from Virginia, and some were no doubt related before they arrived in this area. After the end of the revolutionary war the children of these first settlers began to miggrate to western VA and eastern KY where they continued to intermarry with the same families. Following is a list of the families who married into the Sturgill family as listed in the heads of families in this book; BOLLING 16, BLEVINS 14, STIDHAM 13, WEAVER 12, MAGGARD 10, MULLINS 9, BOGGS 8.

Sturgills have a long tradition of carrying on old family names and some have continued this tradition to the present time. Following is a list of some of the preferred given names shown in this book; JAMES 51, WILLIAM 44, JOHN 34, ROBERT 25, FRANCIS 15, HENRY 15, DAVID 16, MARY 14, ELIZABETH 12, NANCY 11, REBECCA 10, SARAH 9

How long do Sturgills live? The oldest Sturgill known to and interviewed by the writer was William Sturgill of Martins Fy. OH who lived to 105 and the oldest now (1993 ths) known to be living is his brother Clancy of Ashland KY who is 102. Albert Sturgill of Morehead KY is 100 and I am sure there are others who have passed the century mark not know to me. To arrive at a figure which would give us a normal life expectancy I eliminated those who were killed in war or accidents, women who died in childbirth or the result of same and all stillborn children or those who died in early infancy. After averaging the life span of those who remained I came up with 76.8 years which is still well above the national average.

In the more than half a century I have spent collecting these records of our family I have driven many hundreds of miles over the highways and back roads of Ashe and Alleghany counties of NC and the VA counties of Grayson, Smyth, Lee, Scott, and Wise and all the counties of eastern KY. One thing which stands out is that the same family names appear on the mail boxes in all these areas. If you are a Sturgill or a Sturgill descendant you can be certain that anyone you meet of the same name is a cousin to some degree or another as we are all descended from James Stodgil-Sturgill who died here in Alleghany Co. NC in 1803 and who began our name as we now spell it. STURGILL.

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