Jim Dodd, director of finance at the Virginia Baptist Children’s Home in Salem, had little more than a name when he decided to try and find out more about his great-grandfather, William Henry Dodd (known as Henry). Furthermore, Jim wasn’t even certain William Henry Dodd was his great-grandfather’s correct name.

Jim was doing a book on his family and a great-grandfather was important to it. Jim’s genealogical journey is an example of how following every tidbit of information can lead to discovery.

To start his research, Jim talked with relatives and gathered information at home and then expanded his search to the Internet where he found information about a William David Dodd in Nelson County.

“The first document I found that began to tie the pieces together was a copy of the marriage license my mother found for William Henry Dodd and Susie Harris married in Roanoke in 1892,” Jim said.

The marriage certificate gave William Henry’s parents’ names and his place of birth, which linked him conclusively to the Nelson County Dodd.

By searching the (Roanoke) City Directories in the Virginia Room, Jim observed that Henry and Susie disappeared from Roanoke about 1895. Jim also found that his grandfather and his two older brothers were born in Pittsburgh, Pa., but Henry drops out of the picture about this time.

“Susie divorced him about 1905, remarried and started a second family. Henry did not show up on the 1910, 1920 or 1930 census (VA),” Jim said.

Jim had been told that at the time of Henry’s death, Jim’s grandfather went to the funeral alone and would not allow Henry to be buried in one of the eight gravesites the grandfather had purchased in Mountainview Cemetery in 1933.

That information gave Jim a clue that his great-grandfather died after 1933. He sent a request to the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Richmond for a death certificate. The certificate listed Henry’s date of death as Aug. 16, 1934, and his place of death as the “Alms House” and place of burial as “City Farms.”

Through the Roanoke Public Library, Jim learned that the “Alms House” was on the site of Virginia Western Community College (VWCC) and that the “City Farms” cemetery was moved to its Coyner Springs location from the grounds of VWCC. The administrators at Coyner Springs did not have a record of Henry, but that really wasn’t a surprise given the status of the Alms House residents and date of death in the beginning years of the Depression.

Jim got a copy of the Roanoke City memo authorizing the moving of the graves from the grounds of VWCC to their current location at Coyner Springs. Since the graves were moved en mass there are no individual markers, but Jim wanted his great-grandfather’s death to be noted. He had a marker made and with permission of the administrators at Coyner Springs placed it near a monument at the site.

Jim has since made contact with another Dodd doing a genealogy search. She is a great niece of Henry and started her search in 1988. His research proved to be a great source of information for her, and she sent Jim a photograph circa 1912 with Henry and his entire family taken at the funeral of Henry’s father’s funeral.

“This new information expands my book from 35 pages to over 135 now,” Jim said.

Elaine Powers is a former librarian in the
Roanoke City Library’s Virginia Room who now works at the
Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg.