I’ve written about Robert Shanks (of Petersburg) in the past, both on my Blank Slate journals and on Top of the Mountains, and I think it’s good to consolidate those entries here, because this will be the more definitive reference in the future (and any new findings will show up here, not in the other places). So here’s some copying and pasting. :)

15 October 2004

I’ve been researching my Shanks line, specifically Robert and Elizabeth Shanks who lived in Petersburg, Virginia but were born in Ireland. I know that they must have immigrated between 1820 and 1830 (from the census), but that’s about it. Tomorrow I’m going to the Family History Library in Salt Lake to search more records.

16 October 2004

Went to the Family History Library for five and a half hours today. Ah, it was fun! :) I found the will for Robert Shanks and all sorts of personal property records and deeds and such (he was actually pretty wealthy, I’ve found), and I also found the death records of Raffaele Iavicoli and his wife Anna Lucia Caldarelli. Raffaele’s from Castiglione Messer Marino, a comune in Chieti (Italy), and that’s where my research will be turning next. All in all, it was quite a successful trip.

17 November 2004

Found a bunch of historical newspapers from Petersburg, Virginia on Ancestry.com in the late 1800s and I’m finding a lot of info on my Shanks line there.

22 November 2004

For the past month or so I’ve been researching the Robert and Elizabeth Shanks line, trying to figure out where in Ireland they came from. So, today I did a cursory search on the Library of Virginia’s catalog to see if they had anything that mentioned the Shanks family. First item to come up: the Shanks family papers, 1824-1853, including lots of deeds and other miscellanea. There’s an accompanying historical note that confirms that Robert emigrated from Ireland with his wife Elizabeth and he was a carpenter at first, but also did lots of land deals. Then I found the Baxter family papers, for William H. Baxter (who married Robert and Elizabeth’s daughter Matilda) and his father. Finally, I did a search through the legislative petitions and found a petition dated 5 Dec 1820 which reads, “Petitioner: Shanks, Robert & William; Locality: Chesterfield County; Description: Natives of Ireland and nephews of William Shanks who died intestate in Sept. 1816 ask for a law releasing to petitioners the Commonwealth’s right to a tract of land in Nansemond Co. and a house and lot in Blandford. Includes declaration of citizenship.” As you can imagine, that’s a goldmine. Now I know that there’s a William who is Robert’s brother or cousin, and there’s a William Shanks already in America by 1816 (and probably a while before then) who is their uncle. There’s a William Shanks I’d seen in the personal property tax lists from 1800 on but I didn’t know if he was related or not. Now I’ve just got to get my hands on the actual record so I can see that declaration of citizenship and find out where in Ireland my Shanks family came from. There are a William, Robert, and Elizabeth Shanks in Granville, North Carolina, about the same time, and for a while I thought they were the same (that Robert and Elizabeth even have a Robert, Jr., just like ours), but they’re not.

7 December 2004

Last night I got a copy in the mail of the legislative petition by Robert and William Shanks in 1820. From it I learned that Robert and William were brothers (and had a third brother named John who fought against the British), that their father’s name was James and was still living in Ireland at the time, and that Robert and his wife and three children arrived in America on 21 Aug 1817. I’m in the process of tracking down which ship arrived on that date. Success is not far away. :)

4 June 2006

Decided to typeset the will of my ancestor Robert Shanks so I could have a nice PDF version to put in my files. Also did the legislative petition he and his brother William signed in 1820 to request the land of their deceased uncle William. And that was all I was intending to do, but I got addicted, and I’ve found some cool bits of information.

First, I went back to the Library of Virginia catalog to copy the relevant catalog entries (there are the Shanks family papers, and the Baxter family papers, both of which are quite relevant to my lines). Under the Baxter family papers I found this biographical note: “William Henry Baxter was born 30 March 1830 in Havana, Cuba, to Thomas Baxter and his first wife. William Baxter became a machinist, a businessman and a property owner in Petersburg. He eventually became superintendent of a gas works. He married Matilda Shanks (ca. 1829-1886) in July 1853, and they had at least 3 children. Baxter died 5 July 1915 in Petersburg.”

Havana?!? What were they doing in Havana? It’s kind of ironic because my mom’s dad was Cuban and was born in Havana, too. Small world. :)

In the University of Virginia Library catalog entry for the business records of William H. Baxter, Robert’s son-in-law (he married Robert and Elizabeth’s daughter Matilda), I found that Robert Shanks and his brother William D. Shanks were apparently partners in the Blandford and Mansfield Mill Companies.

Another extremely interesting entry was this: “Correspondence of Robert Shanks and William H. Baxter incident to the founding and operation of the Petersburg Gas Co.” First, any letters are like a gold mine — I’ll finally get to see more of his personality. (Some of it’s evident in his will, but a will is a legal document and because of the formality you can’t see much of the person behind it.) And he helped found the Petersburg Gas Company? I had no idea…

My favorite is this one, also from the Library of Virginia: “Covenant of F.B. Stainback and R.S. Birchett to abstain from card playing for five years or pay $5,000 to the Petersburg Orphan Asylum, also two Dinwiddie County land tax receipts, of Robert Shanks, Sr. and Jr.” My, have times changed! :) (Admittedly the part Robert plays in this isn’t as funny, but still…)