| We
are assumming William H. was the oldest child of Thomas Wannall, but there
is no evidence to back us up. We do know, according to a directory
of Washington, DC, there was a "William Warnell" living on the west side
of 7th Street, East, between F and G Streets, South, in 1850, and this
may have been William H. Wannall. But we obtained William's years
of birth and death from a Masonic membership booklet from Missouri, so
he may also be the Wannall who migrated from Washington to St. Louis, thus
distributing the clan into the midwest and, eventually, southwest. If this
is so, some of his decendents still reside in Missouri and Texas. We believe
one of his children, Charles Pasco, stayed behind and was raised in Baltimore
by William's brother, Charles P. Wannall, and joined his father in St.
Louis sometime later. Charles Pasco's family is well documented, and we
are slowly learning more about William's other children. We know
that George W. Wannall was a life-long resident of Baltimore, MD.
Supposedly he was born and died there. This leads us to believe that
William H. and his wife, Mary, lived for a time in Baltimore. In
addition, there is a family story, unsubstantiated and handed down by word
of mouth, that the Wannall family began with five orphans from Baltimore.
A logical explanation would be that William H. and his wife Mary McCausland
lived in Baltimore, where they gave birth to five children. Perhaps
Mary died and William moved to Washington and later to Missouri, leaving
the five small children in the care of his brother Charles, who had no
children of his own. Of the five children, George W. remained in
Baltimore and Charles Pasco reunited with his father in Missouri. (We have
no idea what happened to the three girls.) But all of this, too,
is mostly conjecture. We hope eventually to unravel the mystery with
the help of our contributors.
Last
updated: June 30, 2001 |
