Woodward Family Research
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About The Researchers of the Woodward Family Pages

Return to Woodward Home Page

Questions about the Web Site? Email: Web Master Nadine Holder at


We apologize that the email is not clickable but it is necessary to stop spam. You will need to copy the email.

Sometimes on Genealogical Web Sites, it helps to know the background and experience of the people involved in creating the Web Site (although, trust me, I've made at least a couple of mistakes in my lifetime!)

I am WebMaster and Site Owner, Nadine Duguid Holder. I became interested in genealogy in about 1992 when I worked for a Mormon who introduced me to the local Latter Day Saints Family History Library in San Diego, California, and all its wonderful collections and its access to the Utah LDS Library. I was hooked in about ten minutes flat. I have since retired to a small Mormon town in southeast Arizona so still have access to an LDS Library and all the collections in Salt Lake City. Note added 10/23/2011 The local LDS Library has been closed for some time and I have yet to find anyone who knows if they will reopen so for those of you who ask for lookups in the cemetery records I am currently not able to do the work! Will put a note here if and when the Library is available again.

I started a Rootsweb Site about my German families in 2000. Hence the overall name of this site although it will now contain much more than just my German families.

In the mid-1990's cousins Jill Martin and Nadine Holder made contact through a query in a genealogical magazine and we have been working together ever since. We have collaborated on two books "Pioneers George Monroe Eikenbary and Amanda Evaline Welch Eikenbary" (privately published, 1996) and "Harvey & Rachel Woodward Welch of Wayne County, Indiana & Mercer County, Illinois" (privately published, 1996). George Monroe and Amanda Evaline Welch Eikenbary are our mutual great grandparents and the Welchs are mutual great great grandparents. The Eikenbary book has been filmed by the LDS Library and is available through them. The Welch book is out of print.

Sadly Cousin Jill Rebman Martin passed away on April 11, 2009 in Lake Forest Hospital, Lake Forest, Illinois. We have set up a Memorial Page for her on this site at http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~mygermanfamilies/JillMemorial.html.

Jill Martin, Researcher
Nadine Holder, Web Master
Cousin M. D. Monk at Colonial Williamsburg - he's the one on the right.


We are currently collaborating with another cousin, M. D. Monk, on this Web Site about the Woodward family. Cousin Marion D. Monk found us through our Woodward Web Site. He is more distantly related, with Abraham Woodward, the main subject of the site being our common ancestor. M. D. is putting research on his own branch of the Woodward family on his own web site and it will be linked in many places on the Woodward pages of our site.

Cousin Jill Martin was owner and Nadine is Web Master of another site about our Mercer County [Illinois] ancestral families. Curiously, many of the Pennsylvania families associated with the Woodwards ultimately also wound up in Mercer County, Illinois. The home page of the Mercer County site is on this site at http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~mygermanfamilies/index.html. Both the Woodward and the Mercer County site have been moved here from Yahoo/geocities as Rootsweb is dedicated to family sites and it should be a safer repository after we are gone!

Experience of Researchers

Nadine Holder's work background was in Chemical Engineering in the nuclear power field. Most of her work was experimental and she did a great deal of research and wrote many papers about her work for the Department of Engergy. This served her well in genealogical research, both in knowing how to research in libraries and archives and how to apply that research to real life situations and document the results.

Jill Martin's work background was as an English Teacher which she said uniquely qualified her for reading old handwritten documents. Jill lived in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, and had access to the libraries of Chicago and many surrounding areas through trips sponsored by her Genealogical Society (as far away as Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where there is a fine genealogical library.) Jill also did volunteer work for the Lake County Museum near Chicago, particularly in translating old letters and documents. She had written papers and a book documenting her work at the Museum. As mentioned above, Jill passed away April 11, 2009.

Marion D. Monk lives in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, where there is a fine genealogical library. In addition he has been on assignment in Washington, D. C. for the Immigration and Naturalization Service and while there had access to the Library of Congress, the National DAR Library and other great genealogical resources in Washington. He has also had traveling work assignments that have taken him near genealogical libraries across the nation. I have a huge stack of information that he has gathered that still needs to be added to our Web pages.


Our Woodward Research was kick started by a book written by J. Gary Woodward and self published in September 1995 "The Woodward Family of Chester County, Pennsylvania and Some of Their Descendants." Gary is descended from the Virginia Woodwards but in searching for his own family had gathered many records on the Chester County families and (fortunately for us) he had published them. Gary currently has a Virginia Woodward Mailing List through Rootsweb if you wish to contact him about the Virginia family.

Woodward is a name nearly as common as Smith in America. Woodwards were among the early settlers in Virginia; the Chester County ancestors arrived in the late 1600's; and a similar group arrived in Massachusetts in the same time period. Because so many families were here so early the name has spread far and wide across the country. Any one having trouble researching their Woodward family needs to become familiar with migration patterns in the time period they are looking for as fortunately the groups tended to migrate to different areas of the country which helps in sorting them out in early records. By the time the West was being settled they were pretty thoroughly mixed up and become difficult to sort out if you don't know the family history. Another excellent source is Linda Woodward Geiger's Web Site and monthly newsletter, as she publishes many general Woodward records on both.

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