THE ROBERT S. VAIL FAMILY HOME PAGE
THE ROBERT S. VAIL FAMILY HOME PAGEUpdated January 18, 2012 | ROBERT SIMON VAIL III |
"The name "Vail", according to the "Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames", means "dweller in the valley". It should be noted that there are a number of spelling variations of the modern family name: Vail, Vaill, Vaile, as well as a wide variety of 17th century spellings of these names. Earlier versions included Veale, Veal, Veele and Vele. Our family history has been traced by various people both in America and England. Some of the early information is speculation, but it's all very likely and impressive for being able to chronicle a thousand years worth of time."...from a letter written by John Vail, ofEngland, to Mathew Matin Vail of Seattle This compendium of Family history wouldn't be possible without the assistance of a great many family members. The vast majority of names, dates, places and stories come from published, un-published and word of mouth sources. I owe many thanks to manypeople for their time, patience and assistance for without, I would be passing along a hollow history of the Vail Family. I also must mention the invaluable published sources.John Howland of the Mayflower, Volume 1, The First Five Generations , by Elizabeth Pearson White, Picton Press, 1990. This is a most invaluable tool for researching and verifying links to the Howland family. This book alone saves countless hours of time searching for reference to these people. The Books "Genealogy of Some of the Vail Family" by William Penn Vail, 1937 and "Genealogy of Some of the Vail Family Descended from Jeremiah Vail at Salem, Mass.", by H. H. vail, 1902. These two books are two of the mainstay's of all Vail genealogicalinformation. There is one other source of information still wanting, and that is the Alfred Vail papers. They currently reside in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.These papers are considered the most comprehensive Vail family genealogy listings to date. It is my hope to merge all of the published Vail genealogies and bring the Vail family history up to date. Broderbund's Family Tree Makersoftware and internet site are also great tools to assist this as well as other fledgling genealogists. My eternal gratitude to all of the contributors to this family history who I corresponded with over the internet and thru e-mail. With their help, it has almost become a team effort. Enough of the "Thank You's", turn the page and read about the Vail family. It's quite a story, filled with history and pride and most of all....FAMILY! NOTE: The data on this website is currently all that I have available. I suffered a catastrophic software failure in my original database as well as my backup software. It will be some time before I can add any new data to this site, as I am reconstructing my database with the information from this site. |
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