Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

Donor retains copyright on Robert Lee Evans' History of the Descendants of Jacob Gochenour and literary rights to manuscripts transferred to The Library of Virginia.

Preferred Citation

Robert Lee Evans Research Files on the Gochenour and Evans Families, 1930-1983. Accession 33200, Personal Papers Collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Mary Jane Evans Post, 14 July 1988.

Biographical/Historical Information

Robert Lee Evans (1906-1982) was born in Washington, D.C., and graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in mechanical engineering and later from George Washington University Law School. He was a member of the Washington, D.C., Bar and the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1919 he was employed as an Examiner in the U.S. Patent Office and later became director of the Physics Group. He retired in 1972 and died on May 11, 1982. Although interested in the history of his family from the 1930s, it was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s that he proceeded to gather the bulk of the information contained within this collection, organize it, and publish it in the work, History of the Descendants of Jacob Gochenour (Boyce, Va.: Carr Publishing Company, 1977).

Scope and Content Information

Although only one family history was published, compilations were also completed for the Henry Gochenour family and the Jeremiah Evans family, with indices to names contained in the histories. An unpublished manuscript on the Jeremiah Evans family is also included in the material. These family histories contain information sheets on family members. A specific number was designated for each individual according to his generation and place in the family (explained in folder 1 and placed in the container listing in parenthesis), and Evans would send out form letters requesting information or the verification of listed information. These would be returned with correspondence, notes, corrections, newspaper clippings, or other items of interest and were filed numerically in loose-leaf notebooks. Many contacts were made through the annual Gochenour reunion held in Woodstock, Virginia. Other collection material includes Shenandoah County marriage bonds, with an index, 1772-1850, and the 1850 census for Shenandoah County, compiled by Cleta Smith, who assisted Evans in his research.

Following the correspondence are Evans' research notes and card indices. Research notes, obtained from many public and private sources, relate principally to the counties of Shenandoah, Page, Rockingham, and Augusta, and contain Bible records, land records, marriage records, maps, and exchanges of information from various individuals. Folders marked "visits" are diary-like entries made during his travels to family members. Of particular interest are the notes on the Gochenour family collected by Philip S. Rhodes, a surveyor in Shenandoah County in the 1920s and 1930s, and notes on the Henry Gochenour family by Elaine Artlip, both with indices to the individuals mentioned. Also of note are Evans' annotated bibliographies that include a variety of sources pertinent to his investigations. There are also card indices to the baptisms and marriages listed in John W. Wayland, A History of Shenandoah County, Virginia, pp. 736-764, giving the names of parents and child, and age and date of baptism; to Shenandoah County names in Lantz Family Record by Jacob W. Lantz (1931); and an index to land grants from various sources contained within the material. The card indices in boxes 8 through 16 contain a partial index of the names found in Robert Lee Evans' History of the Descendants of Jacob Gochenour (Boyce, Va.: Carr Publishing Company, 1977). Boxes 17 through 19 house index cards for names located in the Jacob Gochenour notebooks. In boxes 20 through 22 are index cards pertaining to the names in the Henry Gochenour notebooks. Also in box 22 are cards related to the Jeremiah Evans notebooks and the land grants notebooks and loose papers. Box 23 also houses land grants note cards. Wayland's note cards in reference to marriages and baptisms listed in History of Shenandoah County, Virginia, are kept in box 24 and contain information on the parents, the child and the age and date of baptism. Boxes 25 through 33 contain alphabetized index cards for the Shenandoah County Marriage Bond Index, 1772-1850 and the Shenandoah County 1850 United States Census.

Organization

This collection is organized into the following series and sub-series: I: Gochenour and Evans family histories (Sub-series A: Jacob Gochenour family history, Sub-series B: Henry Gochenour family history, Sub- series C: Jeremiah Evans family history, Sub-series D: Miscellaneous); II: Correspondence; III: Research notes and card indices.