The Workman Family Line…

leads back to Holland so far as I [Phil Hayes] have been able to piece it together from the various sources listed in the next folder

[see The Workman Family Line: References].

The point past which I could no longer find credible information for the Workman Line represents our murky past. That point was the birth of Jans William around 1598.

In the Gencircles.com website, a record entry from the Dutch Reformed Church in Amsterdam, Holland, is cited which says, "It is believed he (Jans William Woertman, as Workman was spelled then) went from England to Holland to avoid religious persecution in 1628." That website lists Jans William's birthplace as England. It does not, however, list an exact location or other pertinent information.

Gencircles.com [a website that was eventually absorbed by MyHeritage.com] says that Jans (John) William was born in Gloucester, England, around 1598. His parents were said to be Thomas Workman and Agnes Hale. Thomas' parents were said to be Nicholas Workman and Lillian Julyann Gyllian. Thomas' birth was reported to be about 1540. Thomas' father was Nicholas—his birth was said to be about 1543. No specific records, such as the church records cited above and below, were cited for the information on this website.

Ancestry.com lists Jans William's birthplace as Amsterdam, Holland. His parents, wife and children are also named in the record. His birth date, "about 1598', is the same as the other websites. In both these websites, Nicholas and/or Thomas was offered as the father of Jans William. However, the "byron.johnson" website points out that Nicholas, while possibly an ancestor, was much too old to have been Jans William's father. Specifically, Mr. Johnson says, "The earliest of the Workman line may have been Nicholas Workman born in England in 1543. He married Julyann Gyllian probably in Holland-" He then continues in a note, "The connection between Nicholas and John William, shown in this database as the next generation, is unlikely at best. Nicholas did have a son named John, but the later John William would more likely be a grandson or great-grandson to Nicholas...."

With only the genealogical information from these websites available to me for the period,1 have chosen the third option (Ancestry.com information) as the most credible due to the greater completeness and to the listing of the relatively specific sources for the information—namely, the records of the Dutch Reformed Church. Therefore, I will begin the story of our Workman Family Line with Jans William.

In an effort to find out what the situation in Europe and HolIand was at that time, and to try to get some insight into why our ancestors emigrated to Holland, and then from Holland to America, l consulted Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia. There I found the following information which is, I believe, interesting and may have a direct bearing on our history; although, we have no direct evidence. I only call it to the reader's attention for consideration.

In the late 1500’s and early 1600’s, there was great turmoil in Europe and England due to the Protestant Reformation which was spreading from Germany. The Encarta Encyclopedia says, "... Finding life in France intolerable under the ensuing persecutions and evaporation of religious liberty, hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled to England/ Germany, the Netherlands (Holland). Switzerland, and the English colonies in North America ...." (My underline and parenthesis)

Another Encarta reference says, "The large-scale movement of French speakers into what is now the United States began as an unseen consequence of religious wars in France during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. These wars ended with the defeat of Protestant forces in 1628. Thousands of Huguenots, or French Protestants, subsequently fled their native land for England ..."

The curious point here is that the religious persecution of Protestants was going on in France with 1628 having been an especially dangerous year. Moreover, it seems that emigration was to, rather than from, England–A continuation of the first Encarta reference above says,"... Although England provided the Huguenots a refuge, it could not provide work for most of the refugees..." Another reference says,"... Calvinism, a Protestant movement, rapidly gained ground during this period; its adherents established in the Low Countries (The Netherlands) a well organized church ..." (My parenthesis and underlines)

So, in light of the discussion above, it seems to me that any French Huguenots who emigrated to Holland would have been readily accepted into the Dutch Reformed Church. In fact, I believe the Huguenots would have been attracted to Holland because of the Dutch Reformed Church.

There is another curious account in Ralph Sayre's book, Some Branches of the Workman Tree, concerning the Workman Coat-of-Arms. I don't give much credence to coats-of-arms; however, in the story, Sayre says,"... The motto remains written in French, suggesting that the ancestral families were established in France... There are records indicating a migration pattern of France to Ireland and England, and then to America... "(The motto) 'Non Pas L'ouvrage, Mais L'ouvrier,' translates to mean: 'not the work, but the workman'..."

With all this in mind, there seems to be three, more or less reasonable, possibilities that would fit the record as we know it. 1) the Woertmans could have simply been English Protestants who fled to Holland. 2) the Woertmans could have possibly been French Huguenots who fled France to England, then subsequently to Holland due to overcrowding in England. 3) and perhaps more plausible due to the dates of events, the Woertmans may have fled France and gone directly to Holland.

The Church records mentioned near the beginning may have been just what they purported to be; or, they may have been confused somewhat due to the very likely mix of emigrants who came directly from France with those who came via England and other countries. The root cause for the emigration, after all, was religious persecution. 1 don't know if the Woertmans were French Huguenots, or some type of English Protestants. The information is, well, murky. What is relatively clear is that the Woertmans seem to have assimilated into Dutch society, in any case.

I found one last note of interest concerning our possible French ancestry in Mr. Johnson's website. Amongst the notes on his Workman ancestors, he says, "The Workman descendants moved to Somerset, New jersey by the early 1700s and Allegheny, Maryland by the late 1700s. It's probably during this time that the Workman and Bilyeu families got to know each other and started an intermingling that spanned the continent and the next 200 years.

Elsewhere under his "Surname Overview" for Billiou/Bilyeu, he says, "Thomas Billiou, the earliest known ancestor in the line, came from ... France about 1600. The Billiou family were French Huguenots, a group who had suffered persecution because of their religious beliefs since the middle 1500s. By the 1620s, probably driven by the intolerance in France, Thomas and his family moved to Leyden, Holland–In 1661... (his son) sailed from Amsterdam ... (and) landed in New Amsterdam ..." The interest for me here, of course, is that the early Bllliou family history almost exactly portrays the view that I developed for the probable early Workman history after reading the encyclopedia references discussed earlier. But, so much for conjecture.

I could not have prepared this paper without the help of many others, both in, and outside, the family. The information from the websites mentioned above and from Ralph Sayre's book, Some Branches of the Workman Tree, were invaluable to me in preparing this narrative. Unfortunately, I have very little skill in using the internet, and, Sayre's book is out of print. [Although it is out of print, a PDF of the book is available online.] Judy Workman Dunn and her sister Virginia Workman Maddox very graciously loaned me a copy of the book; and they, along with Pam Brumfield, provided me with copies of the internet information. Without that, 1 could only have traced the family line back to Abraham.

The genealogy from the websites is included here: from Jans William around 1598 down to Abraham around 1700. The genealogy from Abraham down to Nathan Melvrie around 1877 was taken largely from Ralph Sayre's book, Some Branches of the Workman Tree.

Much of the genealogy from Shanton down to the present has been collected from various family members Iisted in the Reference Section, census records, county records, and other books found in the county libraries, and, of course, the West Virginia State Cultural Center in Charleston, WV.

I received generous help from Scott Durham, Superintendent of Twin Falls State Park, near Saulsville, WV. He, along with Ms Carolyn Privett, Christine Cook Shumate, and Pam Brumfield, of his staff, were very gracious in answering my questions and providing printed information, as well as referring me to further sources.

As you may have perceived, my research has largely been researching the research done by others; therefore, this "history" is more of a compilation and is by no means exhaustive. I have, however, made an effort to combine myriad parts into what I hope is a more readable and coherent form. It is not a normal genealogy; but rather, a stylized narrative about the lives of our direct line of Workman ancestors. The format was designed, perhaps, more for reference than for narrative reading. My hope is that it may serve both purposes adequately.

Anecdotes and family traditions have been passed on as I received them. Information taken from the various sources which 1 have cited was not verified by me, per se. I did, however, compare multiple sources for a given name or place, for instance, and made some judgment as to which might be more likely, or appropriate. I have offered discussion on many of tbose judgments and opinions.

So, all that said, 1 hope you enjoy learning about our Workman Family line-of-descent.

The story then, as I have discovered it to date, begins in the murky past with Jans William, in the early 1600s...