52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Strong Woman

This post is part of Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks for 2018. The prompt for the week of March 5, 2018, is Strong Woman.

For every female ancestor I considered for this prompt, Strong Woman, I discovered I’d already written about her in previous posts, so I had a hard time coming up with someone unless I went even further back in the generations. And the further back I go, the less information I have and the harder the women are to research. 

Any of my female ancestors who survived long enough to give birth to a healthy child who became my ancestor was a strong woman indeed. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. In fact, any woman who survives to adulthood is a Strong Woman, whether she leaves behind children or not. 

So as I perused my family tree and looked up a few ladies, I settled on my maternal 6th great grandmother, Amy Goodwyn/Goodwin, for no other reason than I haven’t written about her before nor have I done any research. As soon as I began researching, I found that she’d been married twice and had children by each husband.

I don’t know if the dates of birth and death that I have for Amy are correct. I don’t even remember where I got them, probably from someone’s family tree on ancestry.com before I knew better than to just copy trees. She may have been born on August 31, 1732. A findagrave memorial says she married my 6th great grandfather, Thomas Mitchell, in 1747 and they had seven children: John, Henry, Thomas Goodwin (my 5th great grandfather), Tabitha, Winifred, James, and Richard. Amy’s first husband, Thomas, died about 1762 or maybe before, as she married her second husband, John Raines, that same year, on October 5, 1762. After marrying John, she gave birth to four more children: Thomas, Robert, Cadwallader, and Amy. 

Amy died February 14, 1773, in Sussex County, Virginia. 

Here’s my descent from Amy:

Amy Goodwyn/Goodwin and Thomas Mitchell (my 6th great grandparents)
Thomas Goodwin Mitchell and Ann Raines (my 5th great grandparents)
Susannah Mitchell and Littleton Wyche (my 4th great grandparents)
Thomas Clark Wyche and Catharine MacIntyre (my 3rd great grandparents)
Mary Barry Wyche and Remer Young (my 2nd great grandparents)
Catherine Young and John T. Roberts (my great grandparents)
Leona Roberts and William Redles (my grandparents)
Leona Redles and Albert Pendleton (my parents)

I also didn't find much online about Amy's first husband Thomas. Maybe one day I'll get back to this research.

Catherine