East Carolina Roots turns 20 next year. That’s a lot of years, and a lot of posts written while I was still figuring things out. Over that time I’ve found new records, compared DNA, and sometimes realized I had mixed up two people with the same name (Pitt County had more than its share of David Averitts!). Some of my older posts said things that newer research no longer supports.
Recently I had an AI assistant read back through the site and flag places where older posts contradicted newer ones, or where a post didn’t match my current family tree and records. Then I checked each flag myself and decided what to change. There were many updates, but there were also some things I left alone on purpose.
If you copied information from any of these posts in the past, especially into an online tree, please take a look at what changed. And if you spot something I’ve gotten wrong, please tell me in the comments. I’d much rather be corrected than keep passing along a mistake! None of this is meant to be the final word. It’s just my best understanding right now.
Where I changed a post, I usually added a note marked “Update, October 2026” so you can see what was corrected. In a few places I left the old wording in place with a line through it.
Holmes and Selah Averitt
Laban Morris Family
- It used to say: Alpha Morris’s second husband was “William Holmes (b. 1815), son of John Holmes and Selah Averitt (Avery) of Chocowinity.”
- It now says: “William Holmes (b. abt. 1817), son of John Holmes Jr. of Chocowinity and his first wife (name unknown).”
- Why: Selah was John Holmes Jr.’s second wife, so she was William’s stepmother, not his mother. My later posts already said so, including Was Selah Averitt the mother of Betsy Holmes … and William Holmes …?. This post just never caught up.
Also in this post:
- It used to say: “We know his mother was most likely a HENBY or HENLY.”
- It now says: “We once thought his mother was most likely a HENBY or HENLY,” plus an update note: Laban’s mother is still unknown. I now think the Henby name more likely came from a stepfather, and Morris may have come from his mother’s side.
- Why: This matches what I wrote later in Laban Morris of Craven County, NC is NOT the son of Thomas Morris & Rachel Platt! and The Origins of Laban Morris.
The Origins of Laban Morris – A compendium of data points and information spanning nearly a century
- It used to say: William Holmes, Alpha’s husband, was “the son of John Holmes Sr. by his first wife, making him a stepson of Selah Averitt’s husband John Holmes Jr.”
- It now says: “the son of John Holmes Jr. by his first wife (name unknown), making him a stepson of Selah Averitt.”
- Why: The old sentence mixed up two different William Holmeses. One was the son of John Holmes Sr. He married Sally Lewis and moved to Smyth County, Virginia. The other was the son of John Holmes Jr., and he’s the one who married Alpha Morris.
Also in this post:
- It used to say: In the body of the post, Enoch Averitt was “possibly Laban’s half-brother,” Selah was possibly “Laban’s half-sister,” and Laban’s mother was “David’s first wife.”
- It now says: Those lines are struck through and marked as retracted. The update note at the top now links to Family Tree Fact-Checking Myself! Correcting the record about Laban Morris and Selah Averitt.
- Why: I had already retracted the half-sibling idea in the update at the top of the post and in the September 2026 post, after X-DNA comparisons didn’t support it. But some lines further down still read as fact. Laban’s mother is unknown.
Deeds for Elisha MORRIS of Beaufort County
- It used to say: John Holmes “married Celia AVERY and had several children: Sarah “Sally” HOLMES, Jane HOLMES, Sophia HOLMES, Elizabeth “Betsy” HOLMES, and William HOLMES.” That made it sound like Celia (Selah) was the mother of all five.
- It now says: John Holmes was the “father of Elizabeth “Betsy” HOLMES and William HOLMES by his first marriage, and of Sarah “Sally” HOLMES, Jane HOLMES, and Sophia HOLMES by his marriage to Selah (Celia) AVERY.”
- Why: I wrote this one in early 2017, before I had sorted out John Holmes Jr.’s two marriages.
Was Selah Averitt the mother of Betsy Holmes (wife of Dennis Wiggins) and William Holmes (husband of Alpha Morris)? What do you think?
- It used to say: The two boys aged 5 to 9 in the 1830 census were William Holmes and Stephen Averitt.
- It now says: They were “likely” William Holmes and Stephen Averitt, with a note that William’s age is hard to pin down. His later census records put his birth anywhere from about 1812 (1880) to about 1817 (1850), which would make him older than 5 to 9 in 1830, but his age shifts in nearly every census he appears in.
- Why: The post also says William was born about 1817, and a boy that age would have been counted as 10 to 14 in 1830, not 5 to 9.
Bastardy Bonds for Selah Averitt of Craven County
- It used to say: Selah was born about 1803, and her father, David Averitt, was born about 1770. It also gave David’s marriage to Sarah “Sally” Butler as May 1823.
- It now says: An update note at the top: Selah was born about 1793, not 1803. David Averitt was born about 1755, not 1770. His marriage bond with Sally Butler is dated 3 May 1819. The note also warns that the age comparisons further down were worked out from the old 1803 estimate.
- Why: Selah is 57 in the 1850 census, 68 in 1860, and 78 in 1870, and she’s in the 30–39 group in 1830. All of those point to about 1793. A birth around 1803 doesn’t fit any of them. The 1755 birth for David and the 1819 marriage bond agree with my later David Averitt posts.
David Averitt of Pitt County (d. 1808)
Will of David Averitt (d. 1808) – Pitt County
- It used to say: The title was “Will of David Averitt, Sr. (1808) – Pitt County,” and the post said “David AVERITT Sr’s only other son is David.”
- It now says: The title is “Will of David Averitt (d. 1808) – Pitt County.” The sentence about a son David is gone, and an update note explains that this David, who died in 1808, did not have a son named David. The web address hasn’t changed, so old links still work.
- Why: I mixed up several Pitt County Davids when I first wrote this. This man is not the father of my David Averitt (d. 1828) of Craven County. See Zeroing in on the right David Averitt (d. 1828).
David Averitt Research
- It used to say: “1807 – Will of David Averitt, Sr (Pitt County)”
- It now says: “1807 – Will of David Averitt (d. 1808) (Pitt County)”
- Why: This matches the retitled will post above, since “Sr.” suggested he was the father of another David.
Laban Morris and the Morris Family
The father of Laban Morris has been identified as…
- It used to say: The post called him “Laban HENLY,” guessed that his mother likely lived around Wayne County or old Dobbs County, and said John and Thomas moved west to Tennessee.
- It now says: The 2014 text is still there, but an update note at the top says parts of it are out of date. The printed 1810 law says “Henly,” but the handwritten record appears to say HENBY. Laban’s mother is still unknown, and the Wayne/Dobbs idea was only a guess. John died in Leon County, Florida, and Thomas in Columbus County, NC.
- Why: Later research, including Is it Henly, Henley, or Henby? and The Origins of Laban Morris, replaced these older ideas.
William S. Morris of New Bern’s will provides instructions to emancipate “my negro woman and three mulatto children”
- It used to say: The post presented his 1831 will as if it were the end of the story.
- It now says: An update note at the top: William S. Morris was still living in 1840. In 1838 he republished the will with a codicil providing for Patty, Harriet, Albert, and Freeman, and it was proved in Craven County in December 1848.
- Why: I found the republished will in 2019 and wrote about it in Update on the William S. Morris family of New Bern, but I never went back and pointed the original post to it.
Family Record of William Bryan MORRIS (1833–1904)
- It used to say: The title was just “Family Record of William Bryan MORRIS.” The web address ends in “-sr,” which points to the older William B. Morris (b. 1809).
- It now says: The title includes “(1833–1904),” and the editor’s note explains that the record covers two generations. Most entries belong to William Bryan Morris (1833–1904), Laban’s grandson, and his three wives: Elender D. Witherington, Clarissa Witherington, and Serena “Surreany” Wiggins. A few entries belong to his father, William B. Morris (b. 1809), son of Laban.
- Why: The children “of William B. Morris and Surreany” were born in 1878 and later, and Serena Wiggins was the third wife of the younger William. The web address is unchanged so old links still work.
Stephen Avery (Averitt) and His Two Wives
The parents of Stephen AVERY of Beaufort and Craven Counties are…
- It used to say:
- His first wife, Nancy Gardner, lived “1824–1860.”
- Lewis H. Avery (1851–1933) was listed among Nancy Gardner’s children.
- Noah Avery (1847–1900) was listed among Ada Foy’s children.
- Stephen married Nancy Ada Foy “sometime before 1860.”
- Nancy Augusta Avery was born in 1870.
- It now says:
- Nancy Gardner’s dates are “1824–?” She likely died in the early 1850s.
- Noah is listed with Nancy Gardner’s children.
- Lewis H. Avery is listed with Ada Foy’s children, born about 1853, married to Sophia (last name unknown).
- Stephen probably married Ada Foy in the early 1850s, after her 1850 bastardy bond.
- Nancy Augusta was born in 1869.
- A new note sums up what the children’s death certificates say about their mother.
- Why: Several of the children’s North Carolina death certificates name their mother. Lewis’s 1933 certificate gives his mother as Ada Avery, and his age puts his birth around April 1853. Pollie Ann’s 1961 certificate says Ada Foy, and Nancy Augusta’s 1950 certificate says Nancy Foy and gives her birth as 22 March 1869. Julia Ann’s 1941 certificate only says “Couldn’t find out.” Ada Foy had a bastardy bond in 1850, so she was still unmarried then. That makes it unlikely she was the mother of Noah, born about 1847, and my Laban Morris Family post already called Noah a son of Nancy Gardner. Death certificates are only as good as the informant’s knowledge, so I still consider this a best reading of the evidence, not proof.
This Is a Living List
I’ll keep adding to this page as I find and fix more mistakes, so check back now and then. If you see something on East Carolina Roots that doesn’t match your own research, please leave a comment below or on the post itself. Please share your sources too, so we can all look at the evidence together.
Last updated: October 10, 2026
