The Linkous Family History


(affectionately known as the "Green Book" (1982) and the Expanded version known as the "Red Book" (1997)) is registered in the Library of Congress (Catalog Card Number 97-74305). The family sometimes introduces themselves by their generational number. Mine is 11132342.

Linkous House website

The roots of this line have been traced back to 1542 in Weissenbom-Luderode, Germany. Henry Linkous came to North America as a German "Hessian" soldier aboard the ship Friesland in 1776. He served with British General Burgoyne in upper New York State. Henry received a pocketknife from the General for repairing his saddle.


Surrender of General Burgoyne
John Trumbull
Oil on canvas, 12' x 18'
Commissioned 1817; purchased 1822; placed 1826
Rotunda, U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC
The scene of the surrender of the British General Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777, was a turning point in the Revolutionary War that prevented the British from dividing New England from the rest of the colonies. The central figure is the American General Horatio Gates, who refused to take the sword offered by General Burgoyne, and, treating him as a gentleman, invites him into his tent. All of the figures in the scene are portraits of specific officers. Trumbull planned this outdoor scene to contrast with The Declaration of Independence beside it.

The Hessians

Albemarle Barracks
Henry was probably only there less than seven months as his first child was born May 21, 1780.

The Linkous house in Blacksburg, Va.
National Register Linkous-Kipps House



The Linkous/Kipps Homestead in Blacksburg, Montgomery Co., Virginia. This is on the original site of the home built by Henry Linkous & his wife Elizabeth Shiflet in 1799. This is the home that replaced the original one. It is still owned by family and is a National Historical Site. It has added the Kipps name because the granddaughter of Henry married Michael Kipps in 1856. He intern willed it to his son and it stayed the Kipps name for about a century. All of the Kipps have died since then and the land and the house were purchased by Colonel Bob Linkous. There are Elementary Schools in Blacksburg, Va. named after both Linkous and Kipps. The Linkous house was occupied at different times by both Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. Although the Linkous book accounts for many of the family members as joining the side of the Confederates. This is not surprising to me as my grandmother often expressed her intollerance of blacks and that well known rascist and Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd is a Linkous descendant.

Generations in America:
Heinrich (Henry) Linckost m. Elizabeth Shiflet
1) John (1780-1822) m. Elizabeth Trolinger
11) Adam (1806-1892) m. Nancy Long (1809-1896)
111) John Francis (1825-1884) m. Tima Virginia Walters (1825-1880)
1113) Floyd Montgomery (1850-1937) m. Olivia Grissom (1851-1915)

Grama Grissom at her loom.

11132) John Robert Wayne (1871-1954) m. Mary Etta Rader (1871- )

"Bob" was the first in his family to go to college. He was a teacher and a carpenter.


Mary Rader, "Granny Linkous"

111323) Thelma Mildred (1906-1989) m. Thomas Franklin Weaver (1900-1974)


Thelma was a secretary for many years at Mt. Vernon Elementary School in Alexandria.

1113234) Carolyn Ruth Weaver (1942- ) m. Ronald Zelman Lewis (1942- ) m. (2) Thomas Whitaker



11132342) David Franklin Lewis (1964- ) m. J L Cassidy (1966- )
111323421) S F Lewis (1991)
111323422) S C Lewis (1993)

There are many soldiers, politicians, preachers and teachers in the Linkous family.

Thelma and her brother, Julius, unk. date (they call it the Linkous forehead). Julius was a minister at the Disciples of Christ Church for 51 years in Christiansburg, Va., a chaplain in WWII with the rank of Captain and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.


Thelma (Linkous) Weaver
"I remember running through her immaculate house, swinging on the porch swing on humid Virginia summer afternoons, eating delicious Sunday dinners, sleeping on starched white sheets. She could sew an outfit for me to match one of my mother's or her own. She crocheted doilies and handkerchiefs and afghans. She said words like chiffon-robe and davenport. She took me to Sunday School. And afterward, when I got to go into the "big church" she'd always have a pencil and paper for me if I got restless, or a soft lap of muskrat to lay my head upon if I got tired. If I scraped my knee, there was always a squirt of Bactine and a kiss and a pat on my head to run along and play again. There were Saturday night baths in a claw-foot tub. After which she'd pin curl my too-straight hair, wrapping it carefully around her finger and pinning it to dry into a style that was more in step with the rest of my curly headed cousins. There was Lawrence Welk."
-copied from a blog my sister, Sharon, wrote about Memaw.

Johanne Georg Wärber

The name Wärber is Swiss. Johanne was born between 1710 and 1720 in Germany or Switzerland. He signed his will in German in Augusta County, Virginia July 1767 (WB-7-173). One can assume his ancestors were Swiss, but that Johanne was educated in Germany. It can also be assumed that he immigrated for a better life in America. It is believed that he arrived in Philidelphia in1752 (the same year George Washington inherits his brother Lawrence's Mount Vernon plantation). At that time the state of Virginia encompassed Kentucky, West Virginia, and parts of Pennsylvania. Johanne built a farm from from rugged land in the Shenandoah Valley (http://www.shenandoahvalley.com/home/) of the Blue Ridge Mountains. What is now Staunton, Virginia in in that time was "Indian territory". Many descendants of Johanne still live in the Staunton area. There is a monument to mark the graves of the first four generations in America at the St. Johns German Lutheran Reformed Church in Middlebrook, Virginia. A ceremony was held at the setting of the monument by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution to honor the grave of John Peter Weaver, my Revolutionary soldier ancestor.

Generations in America
1. Johanne Georg Wärber b. 1715 Germany d. 1784 m. 1740 Christiana, b. 1718
2. Johan Peter Werber (John Weaver) b. 1745 d. 1815 m. 1765 Elizabeth
3. Samuel Weaver b. 1769 d. 4/1824 m. 9/1803 Phoebe Hopping
4. Samuel Bolton Weaver b. 9/1808 d. 10/1878 m. 2/1835 Rosanna Bryant
5. Samuel Hamilton Weaver b. 3/1842 d. 9/1896 m. 12/1873 Mary Francis Mourbray
6. Lewis Franklin Weaver b. 3/1881 d. 3/1951 m. 10/1898 Annie Belle Anderson
7. Thomas Franklin Weaver b. 3/1900 d. 12/1974 m. 6/1926 Thelma Mildred Linkous
8. Carolyn Ruth Weaver b. 2/1942 m. 2/1961 Ronald Zelman Lewis
9. David Franklin Lewis b. 4/1964 m. 6/27 Janet Lyn Cassidy
10. Steven Franklin and Serina Cassidy

Annie Belle Anderson and Lewis Franklin Weaver, 1898[99]

My great-grandfather, Lewis Franklin Weaver was a carpenter living in Stauton, Va. He was described as gentle and kind and always had a smile. He lived through the depression while raising six children. My great grandmother, Annie was described as thrifty and funny. She raised sheep, chicken and other livestock. She rode her horse everyday. Their children are: Harry Oliver b. 2/1899 d. 7/1921 in WWI; Thomas Franklin b. 3/1900 d. 12/1974; Carter Tazwell b. 1/1904 d. 8/1946; Josephine Agnes b. 8/1905; May Anderson b. 11/1907; Katie Lee b. 4/1009 d. 12/1946.

Top: Katie; Carter; Josephine (Agnes), Thomas (Frank), May. Bottom: Annie Belle and Lewis

By the early 1920's woman were gaining more rights and more independence. My great-grandmother, Annie Belle, was one who excersized this freedom and divorced Lewis in 1918. She remarried to John Brackston Coffey and had two more sons. Lewis remarried to Florence Tinsley Brookman, they had no children.

My grandfather standing next to a picture of his father, Lewis.

My grandfather, Thomas Franklin Weaver, was known to all as "Frank," but to his grandchildren he was, "Papaw." He was born in Stauton, Va. on March 23, 1900. He only attended school for six years. The rest of his life he worked all over the United States. He did a year enlistment in the Army between July 1920 and 1921 as a mechanic in the 2nd Infantry. He met my grandmother, Thelma Linkous at Westmorland Babptist Church in Huntington, W. Virginia on Oct. 25, 1925. They married June 20, 1926 in Huntington and lived there for eight years before moving to Alexandria, Va. Began working at Ft. Belvior (then called Ft. Humphries) in 1934. He helped built many of the buildings there. At the beginning of WWII was the head inspector of the new 800 housing units, where they built one house a day. My family has had a long history with Ft. Belvoir. When I was young my step-father kept his boat on the Potomac at Belvoir and we spent many, many days there. It was one of my favorite places. When I was in the Army I went through a three month school at Belvoir. The first morning there I went on a run with my class that took us down to the Basin. I hadn't been there in eight years, but I knew where we where going and once I saw the dock where we kept the boat I almost cried.

The Potomac River from Fort Belvior

I was thankful I got to spend three months in Alexandria with my grandmother because I never saw her again after that.

From 1959 to 1960 my grandfather was the lead inspector for the two tombs of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington Cemetery. This was quite an honor.

He received many honors and citations from the Corps of Engineering. He is registered with The Sons of the American Revolution and he was a Mason at the George Washington National Masonic Temple which was down the street from his house in Alexandria.

Thomas and Thelma had four children:

Betty Jean; Arvin Franklin ("Frank"); Mildred Agnes ("Milly"); Carolyn Ruth

While the other siblings spread their wings and left the Alexandria area, Carolyn, my mother, stayed in Arlington after her divorce. This gave my sister and I access to our grandparents on an almost daily basis as we lived just a few blocks away. This is another important fact about my life that I'll always cherish.

212 E. Oxford, Alexandria, VA

The home of my grand-parents, where my sister and I spent most of our childhood, is registered as a historical site.