Yowell Family History

Welcome to Yowell Family History ( and Harrison, Palmquist and Germana families)

In 1634, a Capt Thomas Yowell shows up in Virginia Colonial history as on of William Claiborne's men on the Isle of Kent (Chesapeake Bay area) who then got land in Westmoreland. Gradually the Yowell families moved inland and up the Rappahannock River and by the 1720s were firmly planted in what is now Madison county, on the eastern foothills of Shenandoah National Park. The then "English" Royal Family were also the royalty of what is now south eastern Germany, and decided to bring over German families as miners. Those families are known as the Germana Colony and settled next to the land of the English Yowells. In the second wave of Germana colonists were three families of Uhls who in the 1740s anglicized their names to Yowell and became indistinguishable from the English Yowells. Yowell's mill was used as a drilling site for the Culpeper Militia with the "don't tread on me" flag. From Madison County, the Yowells fanned out to North Carolina, the Shenandoah Valley, and on to Florida, Kentucky, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and eventually even to Idaho. Yowells fought on both sides of the Civil War. This website will hopefully contain some of the histories written along the way a as well as some references from the shelves of my study, The Germana Foundation Library, and the McPherson, Kansas Library as well as many treasure chests of Yowell descendents.

Last updated 15 Feb 2019.

1929 Yowell reunion, Twin Elms, Camp, Marquette, Kansas

Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa Yowells.

"Standard" references built after Clark Yowell's 1931 book written while he was recovering from TB

Bibliography

Baldwin, Betty C- Yowell Family from England to Virginia to Kansas 1983,
1989 Update. 118 Pages. Contains picture, documents, church histories, copies of pages of Matthew’s Bible, Maps and Pensions/Wills. Copy in McPherson Library in Kansas and Germana Library in Virginia.

Barclay, Margaret- The Yowells of the Deep South 1965
(from Waco, Texas) 102 pages. Written by a professional class genealogist as a supplement to Clark Yowell’s book with lots of references, wills, photos focusing on the Descendants of James Yowell who left Virginia in 1781 and moved to North Carolina and on to Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas. Fairly clearly not a Germana descendent branch.

Berg,Vera- Yowell and Harrison Genealogy 1992
Marquette KS, 150 pages. Was a work in progress. There is a copy in the McPherson Library (Kansas) ant the original is with Vera’s daughter, Donna Elvin in Marquette. Lots of photos, clippings, and obituaries.

Cook, Ann Yowell- YOWELL and Related Families 1994.
Fort Worth , TX. 219 pages Detailed study of Germana descents including out branch. Complete with photos maps.

Lillard, Dewey B- Land Grants of Madison County Virginia 1722-1865 1999
Fredericksburg, VA. 150 Pages After listing name changes of various mountains, rivers and other landmarks, as an example of how to use the book, it shows land transactions showing that Atwell was a variable spelling of Christopher Yowell who sold land to the Cranes and his land was inherted by James, John David and Christopher Jr.

Maxwell, Hu- The History of Barbour County, West Virginia 1899
519 pages ( only 2 of which pertain to William and Semphrona and their son Frank Yowell). Claims that William’s father was from Scotland (not likely at all).

Memorial Foundation of the Germana Colonies in Va.- Germana Heritage Book Germana Record No. 15 2000,
132 pages Culpeper, VA Contains a collection of Germana family histories from Aylor to Zimmerman including Yowell plus maps.

North, Mary Yowell- Stories of the Sod: The Diaries of a Kansas Homesteader 2005,
363 pages. Edited and annotated diaries from1894 to 1906 of Charles Wesley Yowell (son of Matthew, brother of James Knox Polk Yowell) compiled by his great granddaughter. Besides the diaries, contains a brief genealogy, history of McPherson County, maps and pictures. The last few copies were at the McPherson County Historical Society.

Yowell, Clark S- Yowell—A Genealogical Collection 1931
Summerville, NJ 96 Pages Written apparently while the author was confined in a TB Sanatorium, this is the first and one of the best researched histories of the Yowell family looking at English, Scottish and American Yowell families. It was later augmented and slightly corrected by Barclay’s Yowells of the Deep South.. I have copy 31 of the 200 printed. Ancetry.com has an online copy.