Dear Gina,
I do remember the email that you sent. [Major Atkins/Adkins who was in the 1747 Goochland census with some of the other Adkins family such as Henry and Parker. Major is one of Roland’s grandchildren]: I still have found no credible information on him. Some speculation, but nothing that leads me to anywhere/document wise in particular. I thought that I had suggested some places to look. If I failed to do that then I am sorry. I’ve been a little preoccupied with work & family life lately. I’ll see what turns up this week.
I haven’t called the author Ronnie Adkins as of late. I did send him a letter a few months back, asking for a copy of his book. With no response. In a phone conversation with him the said that he was supposed to release a new book, but he told me he didn’t see much sense in it. Too much Adkins info is readily available on the internet. I have not seen the first book, he told me it was more like a paper/booklet??? I didn’t really understand that part, but have seen many excerpts supposedly written by him from that book & others have seen it and quoted it to me. So I will not give credit to nor dismiss his work. Since I have not personally held it in my hands.
He is a very nice man, sounds very southern, he claims that he isn’t internet savvy, his daughter is, so he prefers not to participate online, I did post all of his contact information and as far as I can tell its still accurate. I’ve talked to him myself using that phone number. He may be a little overwhelmed by the calls.
He did the ground work on his research, and I give him full credit for that. Others are working feverishly to discredit some of it, but I am not. He told me where some of his ideas came from and that once you get up to a certain point, there is just no paper work to back it up. You have to then speculate. I try not to do that anymore, since people tend to jump head first on my hunches and/or theories, some like they’re written in stone. Then I get a huge backlash.
The idea of the Family blog was to share our research FREELY. No one claiming any right to any of it. That’s why I went nuts over a copy write claim. I refuse to believe that I can be infringing on someone else’s copy write to my own heritage.
Sorry, I’ll get down off my soapbox now.
I will see if any of the other Adkins researchers have ties to Henry or Harry Roland Adkins. Henry is most definitely another one of those overused Adkins given names. I’m surprised that the first born of every Line isn’t named William Henry Adkins; its a just a good thing they’re not.
Ronnie still refuses to believe Mitha was the daughter of Straight Tail because Richard Parker was a very affluent man; a doctor. That these two families could have never crossed, but since the Adkins families are deeply rooted there with the same lines, you really can’t dispute it. I can’t say how it happened, but rest assured, it did.
The Parker V Adkins did travel back & forth to England. I assume for family related reasons. His birth year changed drastically upon his coming & goings. I’d say, its the same as today, they just guestimated it. Ronnie Adkins worked with the documents available in Virginia.
That’s all I know, I like the man, he was very nice and help to me. He didn’t attack me or my research as others have, so I will extend him the same courtesy. I’ll send him a follow up letter, for I too still want to hold one in my hands and see if it bears any fruit.
As always,
Sheila Jean Adkins Metcalf
