McCallister's McAlisters (and some other good families)

The Whitfield Family

The first snag I ran into researching this family, was two variant spellings of the surname: Whitfield and Whitfill. One researcher, who happens to be a Whitfill, claims that the Whitfields didn’t know how to spell Whitfill, and so used a misspelling as their last name. I am much more inclined to believe, based on the widespread use of Whitfield both in north America and in England, that the name was Whitfield and that Whitfill is an everyday phonetic corruption, e.g. “I fill well” for “I feel well” or “Big Dill” for “Big Deal”. Regardless, at least for our purposes, Whitfield and Whitfill, are probably one and the same.

Our earliest confirmed Whitfield ancestor is one Barnabas Whitfield, born about 1773, probably in Maryland and died 1822 in central Kentucky. I am somewhat certain the Whitfields were part of the Maryland Catholic migration to Kentucky after the Revolutionary war. Barnabas was one of at least five children, including brother Joseph Whitfill who was also living in Kentucky. In 1803, Barnabas married Eleanor Constable, the daughter of Stephen Constable. One of their children was Charles Whitfield, born 15 August 1810.

Charles Whitfield (1810) married Celia Ann Lyons in 1833 and raised a family, including Charles Joseph Whitfield, born 1839 in Marion County Kentucky. By 1867, Charles Joseph was living in Union County Kentucky, where he married Josephine Girten, probably at Sacred Heart Church in the St. Vincent’s vicinity. They parented about 16 children, including William Thomas “Will T.” Whitfield, born in 1869. Will T. Whitfield married Cora Lee Rowley on 5 February 1894. Will and Cora are my great-grandparents.

The cabin at the top of this page, with its log barn to the rear, is representative of the housing that the Whitfields would have found in central Kentucky in the early 1800s. This particular building, though, has no relationship to the Whitfield family per se.