Today’s rabbit hole burrows back to Cumberland County, Virginia, home to many of my husband’s Williams ancestors until they migrated en masse to eastern Tennessee before 1805.

Yesterday’s rabbit hole left me with just as many questions about Hepsabeth (Davidson) Williams when I was done as I had when I began.

Today’s rabbit hole has taken a surprising turn that I really didn’t expect.

Judith Saunders’ marriage bond with William Williams was filed in an undated box in the Cumberland County Courthouse, but identified the governor in office, so married before 12 November 1788 and likely during the fall of 1788.

Note that I have never seen an image of this marriage bond, but it has been published in the marriages of Cumberland County, Virginia with the additional detail that it was signed by William and Mathias Williams.

As I jumped down the rabbit hole, I began to question whether Judith’s surname was Saunders or actually a variation – Saunderson.

Here’s my reasoning. There are digital images of Cumberland County’s Personal property tax lists from 1782 onward. Thee is not a single Saunders or Sanders mentioned in any list up to 1790, which is where I stopped reading. However, there are FOUR Saundersons – William, William Jr., Ann and John before 1784 and then from 1785 and later, there are still two William Saundersons. That is significant because the William Sr. on the 1782 and 1783 lists died in 1784.

William Sr. left a will naming many children, but there was no Judith among them. Ann Saunderson was named as the widow of William Sr., but since there was an Ann Saunderson with him on the 1782 and 1783 lists, it appears that there was a second Ann Saunderson, who was widowed by 1782. She left a will in 1812, but left her entire estate to her son, Robert.

The lack of details about each family certainly leaves room for Judith, wife of William Williams, to fit in there somewhere.

I decided to look for an image of their 1788 marriage bond to determine for myself whether Judith might actually be a Saunderson. [Note that the name evolved by c1800 to the modern spelling of Sanderson.]

I haven’t been successful locating an image of the 1788 record, but there are multiple volumes of abstracts of early Cumberland County marriage records that have been filmed and can be viewed online. Look at what I found:

The year is noted as 17–, but the groom is Wm. Williams and the security on the bond is Mathew Williams (poor Mathias is often mistaken for Mathew) and the bride is Judith Sanderson!

This is turning into a seriously deep dive down the rabbit hole. Cumberland County, Virginia records are quite complete back to its formation in 1749. Will court, land and probate records reveal more information and possibly prove Judith’s parentage?

It appears that no one has seriously documented the Saunderson family in early Cumberland County, so future posts will contain abstracts/transcriptions of whatever family information I am able to put together. I am so hoping that Judith’s parents can now be properly identified, but for that time period, it’s a coin toss.