"Seaforth Sod", Palo Alto Road,
Route 5, Box 353,
San Antonio 7, Texas.

Mr. Edward Ernest Kelly,
Pleasanton, Texas.

Dear Edward,

We think through the kindness of your wife and you, these family data will always be made available to all the children and grandchildren, and their descendants, of Florence Selina Willis who married Llewllyn Sayres. We will not attempt to give you the birthdates on Florence and Llewellyn Sayres, you will have their marriage dates from your own mother who must have been named after Llewellyn Sayres.

Going on back, these data for your two wonderful little boys will never by amiss. In the back of the ``Willis Family of Virginia'' written by Byrd Charles Willis about a hundred years ago, and this is July 28th, 1948, a Wednesday, is this paragraph: ``Free to everyone to have esteem or contempt for gentle blood. Euripides preferred it to riches: Menander to virtue: Plato: glory: Aristotle: talent: Socrates: Wisdom: St. Jerome: Holiness. In a word, everyone may place gentle descent on a different point of the scale of camparison. But that will leave it a fact. It does exist with its political history in the past, and its decided social influences in the present. Granier De Cassagnac''. This book by Byrd Charles Willis and his brother Rich Henry Willis, may not again by bought, its contents may be found in several books of recent date that can be bought, ``Lewis of Warner Hall'' by Colonel M. E. Sorley, ``A Family History of Willis and so on'' by Mrs. Anne Willis of Rome, Georgia, ``Some Prominent Virginia Families'' by Mrs. Louise Pecquette de Bellette, and ``A Prince in their Midst'' by A. J. Hanna of Rollings College, Winterpark, Florida. There are undoubtedly numerous other families that will contain this Willis Family Tree, and three of these families will be Sayers, James, Winstons, and we should name Garnatts and Thomases.

We have mentioned these so that you may know in time, that both your wife's family, and your grandfather's family may have been Willises once. When we talk of great grandparents, we shall consider your mother and myself, the same generation. My great great grandfather Lewis Willis and his wife Edna T. Willis, will be her great great grandparents also. The grandfather of Lewis Willis was William Willis who died in 1717, he had a sister Mary who married Thomas James, and they had in 1715 a son named David James, who seemed to be John Willis Sr.'s favorite grandson. This John Willis was Lewis Willises greatgrandfather, he patented land in 1669 in Virginia, and died in 1716. We have his eight page will here.

We shall devote more time to James, for these lands are legendary but the legend may be true history. Here in San Antonio, Texas, is a nurseryman, The Evergreen Nursery owned by Francis Garnett Willis. When we met Frank we found he believed he was absolutely no kin to us. His people had come from Kentucky, they wree kin to the James Boys of Missouri. Although all the names of his family were the same as ours, Frank was not even interested nor did he feel that his family was our family of Willis. It seems it has not taken very much for these branches of Willis to feel like they were better than the other branches of Willis. When Francis Willis, who married Anne Rich, and then the fortunes of King Robert Carter estate, and who was one of the very wealthy men in Virginia, one third of the Carter estate had over six thousand slaves, there is little doubt the GLOCESTER BRANCH of Willis looked down on poor Colonel Henry Willis who had married widows three times, had large families by each one, had founded the ancient town of Fredericksburg, Virginia almost seventy years before Washington, D.C. was founded, had married into a family named Washington it was true but all he got from that marriage was the hand of the Widow Mildred Washington Gregory Willis, and the two thousand acre plantation later known as Mt. Vernon. It is likely Colonel and Burgess Francis Willis of Glocester Branch told his Rich and Carter children, just lay off that crowd of Willises. When many Willises stock came into pay sand when George Washington made good in the Revolutionary War, it is likely Colonel Henry Willis told his children, just lay off that group of Gloucester Branch of Willises and Orange County Branch of Willises.

Figures and data do not lie. From the Henry Willis's branch of Willises, we find that Major John Willis left three daughters whom Byrd Charles Willis disposes of in these words, pages 283-284: Prominent Virginia Families. This Major John Willis was the Uncle of Byrd Charles Willis, ``He married an heiress, and died insolvent, leaving three daughters. They were unfortunate in their marriages, their husbands being Hoomes, Sears, and Epperson''. Then to carry this line on, Byrd Charles Willis had two sisters who married below the family and he hesitated not one second to say so, one married another Hoomes, and another married Muscoe Garnett who died in great poverty leaving her with a very large family of thirteen children. Still another niece married Armistead Hoomes. But the Civil War had 3 Gannett Generals--Willis, not one. Our Greatgreatgrandfather Lewis Willis had two cousins and two brothers who married Garnett Women, these were quite likely cousins second or third and of the same blood as the Willises. The Garnett Family History being compiled in El Paso by a lady there should have about as much Willis as Garnett.

When we checked back on a Joshua Willis who had patented land in Kentucky shortly after the Revolutionary War, with the Naval John Paul Jones of Fredericksburg, VA., we found that this Willis Branch had been fairly well traced out by the State Historian there, in Kentucky, his name, I. Hardin, he wrote me, he was a descendant of the same family of James that the James Boys came from, and he believed he had away back there a strain of our Willis Family blood in his veins. If so it would likely be the Thomas James who married Mary Willis and had David James, the favorite grandson of John Willis, Sr., who patented land back in Virginia in 1669.

Now when these data were presented to Francis Garnett Willis the Nursery man, he no longer doubts at all. He like ourselves merely wonders just where his family ties in with the main stem back there. Everything points to it.

All we can say, so far our branch of Willis is the only one without distinction. Almost every branch has a formidable array of talent. The General John Willis here at the head of Brooke Field is John M. Willis, a scion off the old Francis Willis Gloucester Branch. Mrs. Anne W. Willis has a son, a full fledged Colonel; a graduate of West Point, lost an eye in the last war, will be a General soon, is one of the top ranking Bridge Experts in the United States, maked all national and international tournaments, plays for points to raise his ranking. His Jane George Willis maternal great great grandmother was our Lewis Willis' daughter, and our Joshua Willises sister.

W. E. Willis another from Wilkes County, Georgia, had a brother who was a General in the First World War, has two sons who are full fledged Colonels today in the Army Medical Corps, and they will be Generals some day soon too. Three Generals in the Medical Corps is quite a record, for one family group of two generations. W. E. Willis lives in Dallas, they are everyone, so far, Baptists.

Back in Virginia we know now how a few of the famous lineages run, the Senior Senator is a son of Josephine Willis, she was a descendant of Isaac Willis of Wilkes County, and both were sons of John Willis and Elizabeth Plunkett. This is Senator Willis Robertson. Almost every branch has made good except our own, I mean by that my own, not necessarily yours, which you would place third to Kelley, James, Sayers, placing it ranking evenly with Sayers we think.

The maternal families of Lewis Willis, of William Willis his grandfather, and John Willis, Sr., his greatgrandfather, we as yet known very little, and not the name anyway, and may never know. The lineage might go back to the Fredericksburg Branch, but our data so far has not proved this. Captain Henry Willis did marry three times, evidently he made not attempt to rear his orphans, they were farmed out, but to whom, where, so fare we've no clue.

We do know that Henry got real old, he moved to Wilkes County where our Lewis lived, that when Henry died, his widow went to Cahaba where our Joshua and his wife Louisa Haney Porter Willis lived, died, and were buried. She was buried there too. Sarah Blackburn Williams Willis, who married first Captain Henry Willis, and after his death, Jean le Chetard de la Place, back in Wilkes County, Georgia.

However we do not feel that there is much more from this family that we can add that will be fascinating history. Many branches are worked out, they have included not one time but have practically submerged or became submerged by families like Washington, Garnett, Madison, Porters, Thomas, and just a great number of others, the Northern General Thomas who was called the Rock of Chickamauga, was of this Thomas Family.

The Generals Garnett and Armistead who were killed at Gettysburg Heights were kin and Willis descendants. Meade who commanded the Federals, was of this same family, and his family tree is carried in the same books that carries our Willis Family, and its connections are shown.

That the family in one branch was connected with the Bonaparte Family, in one marriage and maybe in two, is another bit of history, which A. J. Hanna writes of, in his ``A Prince in Our Midst''.

So far we have taken your own family in stride, James Sayres, this is not conclusive, it may not work out, but it shows the possibilities. And do not even for one second underrate these families sticking together, and moving around in great communities together, and finally marrying into each other time and again. One of the daughters of Francis Willis was a Priscilla Willis. She married a Robert Mercer, this family moved into Georgia, and in Wilkes County, a Jesse Mercer married Anne Mills Simons a widow, when she died, he married her oldest daughter by her first husband. It is this Anne Mills Simons Mercer who founded Mercer Macon University of Georgia. She was the daughter of John Mills and his wife Lucy Mills (we do not know her family name). Anne Mills was a sister of Polly (Mary) Mills who married Captain Thomas Porter, and four of Thomas children married into Lewis Willis Family and James Willis Family. James was Lewis brother. Our own Louisa Haney Porter who married Joshual Willis, was one of these four. She is our great grandmother. Thomas Porter our greatgreatgrandfather, and John Mills our greatgreatgreatgrandfather, your four greats removed, and your sons five greats removed grandparents. These records are all found in Mrs. Davidson's Georgia, Wilkes County Records. I am giving you these locations for a copy of this letter may some time be made for all who wish it in your Florence Selina Willis descendants. It should be made and copies and kept, the material here has taken years and many hundreds of dollars to wind up with the proof we got. Some is undoubtedly true, some may never be proved but is true. For example we cannot find the marriage of Joshua and Louisa Haney Porter Willis, but we have everything else, we have legal papers made by them to their children, Joshual Paul Willis, Elizabeth Anne Willis, and Cincinnatti C. Willis, and we have every single descendant of these three children. The Cinncinnatti C. Willis live at Denison, now, all are there, they came over in 1893 looking for their Uncle Paul who was supposed to be living with his son J. P. Willis, Jun. but they never could find him. Joshua Paul Willis, Sr., had gone to his eternal rest in May 30th. 1891. and the Junior had gone into the Cimarron and Cherokee Strip Races, staked his quarter section of land, had lost his oldest daughter and son, and had found what a pleasure it was to be a pioneer in a new raw county. The Cincinnatti group were within twenty five miles of where we had lived at Kingston, where I was born. Hunt Co., Texas.

Then we have enough papers to show where Lewis Willis ties in back in Virginia, if they will be accepted, they should be, a very competent worker did the Virginia part for us. She is a kinsman also, but from my mother's side of the House.

Right here we'd like to take your time on Roland, as Joshua Paul Willis, Sr. married Martha Anne Roland of Selma Alabama, August 22nd, 1850. She was a daughter of Zachariah Roland and his wife Lydia Jones. We tried to go back on Jones but gave it up, we feared we'd not have enough money to do Jones. Where we would have one will on Roland that would cost us five dollars, we would have twenty or more on Jones that would cost us five dollars each and all of it would generally have to be sifted. But would not be cleared or just too many for a small amount of money to search.

We found the father of Zachariah was Ezekiel Roland, who had married a Sullivan, and the father of Ezekiel was a Captain Zachariah Roland of the seven masted sloop ``Peggy'' in the Revolutionary War, and a D.A.R. paper has been made out on him, and awaits confirmation. They will not accept them if certain dates are out, one of the marriage date, the paper might not go through, but it is another case like Joshua and Louisa. We've a Daughter of the War of 1812 made out on Joshua Willis who was a lieutenant in that war, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy Paper on Joshua Paul Willis, Sr., is accepted already. And we also have a D.A.R. paper made out on Lewis Willis who was an officer back in Virginia in the Revolutionary War.

Then we have a D.A.R. paper made out on James Sullivan who was the father of Rebecca Sullivan who married Ezekiel Roland, father of our Zachariah at Selma, Alabama. The James Sullivan married Matoaka Bolling, and both the Sullivan and the Bolling lines are all worked out as far back as lineages ... your two sons, are not only descendants of Pocahontas and on back to her father the King Powhatan of all the Algonquians, but through the Sullivans carry on back through the Herberts and Claibournes, the old Rebel Claibourne who died in chains, yet through whose genealogy tree, more Virginia Families go back to Royalty than through all the others combined. We have placed the membership in Americans of Royal Descent, and have it based on Roland, or at least on his grandparents, for Roland and Charlesmagne were first cousins, and had the same grandparents. The Claibourne also has the Kings of Scotland and of Bruce and almost any society can be entered from this lineage, such as Barons of Runnemeade, Descendants of the Knights of the Garter, and so on.

The Bolling family is also worked out almost fully, some were very large families, and one family had twenty children, the Book on Bolling can still be bought at a very reasonable price at the Virginia Historical Magazine Archives, and some stores for rare and old books and manuscripts. The one here cost three dollars. It is by Wyndham Robertson, but we do not know if his Willis goes back to Pocohontas or his Robertson side, goes back to Pocahontas, who was called by her father, the King of the Algonquians, Metoaka, and she was christened Rebecca. Her only son by John Rolfe was John Rolfe, who married Jane Poythress, their daughter married Robert Bolling, and so on.

The father of Edna T. Willis is believed in some quarters to be Paul Tihlmann, and because they named their oldest son and favorite Paul Tighlmann Willis. Genealogists back in Virginia wished eagerly to work on this lead it meant nothing here, but they are working on it now. We think nothing will come of it. Paul Tighlmann's wife was Barbara Overton Winston, back in Louisa County, Virginia and Culpepper County. This is a famous old Family and had so many distinguished leaders in it that we wonder just where would you find families more distinguished. Joshua Willis who moved to Wilkes County, and was a first cousin of Lewis or else of our Joshua, then moved to Selma, then to Meridian, where Cincinnatti and Joshua Paul lived in 1854, then he moved to Louisiana near Winn Parish, and grandpa followed, we checked him very carefully, but he was easy to check, as the War Department had already had him checked, he too had married a Barbara Overton Winston in 1817, April 22nd. 1817, of this same old Virginia Winston Family. The family had had a very careful check made on some of its branches, because the mother of Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England, during the War, had for his mother a Winston born and reared Virginia Product of this same family. There are quite a few Willis descendants who carry the same blood in their veins today that Winston Churchill does. The Jeremiah Willis and Mrs. O. W. Stewart back in Fredericksburg, Virginia are descendants of the Churchill Family of Va. They are of our Willis from Wm. bro of Lewis.

It is not at all improbable if they ever find the name of the wife of John Willis, Sr., who patented land back in Virginia in 1669, that she may turn out to be a Churchill, or a Wormley, and she could be an Arnold. In the Virginia Magazine of History, there is this note in Vol. 36 19-- p. 287, Mrs. Elizabeth Churchill's Will, November 1716, proved Middlesax County Virginia January 1st. 1716 January 1st. 1716 makes bequests to her Churchill Children, and my desire to be buried by my dear son, Ralph Wormley. To my son in law Mann Page, all my money and effects due me by Massers. Era. and Jno. Willis of London, Merchants. This page showed close relationship to Wormleys, Robinsons, Robert Carter, William Tayloe, and William Armisteads Families. From this will we can see she had married a Wormley first. John Willises Will Sr., of 1716 mentions his boundaries alongside these Wormleys, and Arnolds, she had a son Ralph who died young, then her husband died and she married Churchill who must have also have died later on, she mentions sons in laws which shows she was fairly old, and she mentions Francis and John Willis much like they may have been brothers who owed her a part of the estate which may not at that time have been divided. Or it may have been divided and she never got her part. She can be a Willis.

We do not feel like there will be much we can do about unravelling these far back lines. We were very fortunate in running into two kinsmen, Mrs. Sara S. Ervin, of Ware Shoals, South Carolina. and Mrs. V. H. Gottschalk, of Washington D.C. almost any genealogical magazine can give her address or Mrs. Sara Sullivan Ervin either, both are among the finest in the East. If we ran into lines already worked out we felt like we were indeed lucky. Where we did not run into them, we paid always through the nose to get the data which we wished to have, data anyone would accept.

If the Arnold family of Zachariah Roland is traced, there will be another family which goes back to Royalty and to many lines of Kings. One time we contact a single Royal Line, their records are worked out about as far as lines can be carried. There is no reason to doubt them. They are accurate. If families like we are can trace our ancestry back through common families as far as 1600, do not fool yourself that the Kingly Families have failed to do far better than three centuries. Our Lines back to the Grand parents of Roland, will be in the Seventh Century, they could have been carried back, much farther, but we wanted the Roland as a late branch of our family was a Scotch Roland. There has never in all history been a more colorful figure than Roland the Palladin, about whom the Chansons de Roland, all the Roland Legends have been written. The Brittanica would not hold all the material written about Roland.

We are sending for the two young lads who are going to make good, some bookplates, some day when they want more of these we have the cut here to use anytime they care to have them used, all they will have to do will be to pay the printer for the stamping, around six or seven dollars for about five hundred, and if we had more than five hundred, they would be a little cheaper. They would look better on a gray rag paper ungummed. However just remember, the blazon or blazonry (Descriptions) of a Coat of arms, uses just two metals, silver (arg) and gold (Or): actually these metals were polished steel shields for silver, and likely brass or copper for gold. The Willis is a red border with gold coins, byzantiums, found only in the shields of families who were in the first crusade. The second crusade had scallops. Others had crosses. The Griffins are black and in a silver field of the shield. The crest is a Griffin withe the red hand of O'Neill and the hand is the color of blood. The legend is the early chieftans racing for Irish Coasts were promised that the hand to touch the soil first would receive Ireland, two brothers were in that race one from the Sullivan; one from the O'Neill. O'Neill was first, but had bad luck and a ship at the very last passed him up, then was when O'Neill cut his left hand off at the wrist, and threw it on shore, to be the first hand of the first chief to touch land in that race. O'Neill has the two Lions facing each other also. These lions are red on a gold field, the deer is silver on a green field, the boar silver and black on a countercharged black and silver field. The sword in red, the hand is cut off red, the left hand should be placed in the left upper corner, but we left it off, it had so much detail already.

The Roland are Seaforth Clan and we are supposed to be. We have taken so much interest in the Caledonian Work here for twelve years. I was chief of the largest Caledonian Society in the State, and my articles on Scottish Influences in the States have been read in every country on earth, through the Scottish Year Book which is sent to the chiefs of these societies. Patti is one of the grandest Heeland Flingers in this state. The Roland Arms carry the three lymphads in black on silver, the sails are black, the flags are red (Gules) the checks are black and gold, and are found in all Stewart (Royal) Arms, the greatest line of Kings of Scotland. The Fleur de Lis at the crest is the Emperor of the French, the Royal Arms of Roland carried the gold fleur de lis on the blue field of Charlesmagne, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The Roland is a proud family, and an old one, and many go back to Roland the Palladin, one main family is the Windebanks, and still another is the hot headed Ann Hutchinson of Massachusetts who was finally killed by Indians supposedly in a massacre but her lineage went back through twenty seven different kings.

If you are inquisitive where these connections come in through marriage among these Royal Families, early land grants like to Lord Halifax who married Sussannah Willis where he held all land between the Potomac River and the large river just south of the Potomac, called the Northern Neck, from the sea clear back across the Alleghanies. This family was the same blood as the Crown Prince, and other huge grants were to families like that they were Royal from every standpoint, their children married into the best families of Virginia, they are, if you are not a D.A.R. there you are not very much indeed.

Some day one of your sons may finish what we have started here, and they can be doctors as well as farmers, they will have the ability these other groups have had, they can add to this family history, but if they do not, all of us cannot. We cannot all be great, but we can try not to tear down. And we can love them all, great or small, successful or failures. It is a poor religion indeed which tells me to forgive my enemies, and to love my neighbors as myself, and then fail to put that into practice with all my kinsmen. Sincerely yours, Waid Scott Willis, Sr.,

Signed... Waid Scott Willis, Sr.

Waid Scott Willis Jr., you know, had done much work on all these families. He had wanted and so expressed himself just before he died, to establish in Willis Name, these Military Orders, for Patti: Waid Scott Willis Jr., was in the Navy in the Second World War, Patti entered Woman's Auxiliary on his service for the Second World War, and mine for the First World War. She is in U.D.C. on Joshua Paul Willises Civil War Records, Company E., 28th Regiment, Louisiana Grays. She has papers in on Joshua Willis for Daughters of the War of 1812. It will go through also. Then we have the papers also on Lewis Willis for the Revolutionary War. for her D.A.R. Daughters of the American Revolution. They do not cost much. Ten dollars for the entrance, three dollars for each new name, or additional name. We have papers readied for Thomas Porter and also John Mills and should we be able to get papers on the father of Edna T. should we ever find out who he is, if he turns out a Winston, it could open a whole new field of history there. WSW.