William Short was born in 1613/14 in England. He emigrated in about 1635 and settled in Virginia. He married Elizabeth in about 1638. They had three children. He died in about 1659. Descendants and relatives lived mainly in Virginia, Kentucky and Illinois.
This is the ninth volume of a comprehensive history that traces the “Presidential Line” of the Washingtons. Volume one began with the immigrant John Washington who settled in Westmoreland Co., Va., in 1657, married Anne Pope, and was the great-grandfather of President George Washington. It contained the record of their descendants for a total of seven generations. Subsequent volumes two through eight continued this family history for an additional eight generations, highlighting most notable members (volume two) and tracing lines of descent from the royalty and nobility of England and continental Europe (volume three). Volume nine collects over 8,500 descendants of the recently discovered line of William Wright (died in Franklin Co., Va., ca. 1809). It also provides briefer accounts of five other early Wright families of Virginia that have often been mentioned by researchers as close kinsmen of George Washington, including: William Wright (died in Fauquier Co., Va., ca. 1805), Frances Wright and her husband Nimrod Ashby, and William Wright (died in Greensville Co., Va., by 1827). A cumulative index will complete the series as volume ten.
Some of the descendants of William Hearne, born about 1627 in London, and died in 1691 in Maryland are also listed. This is the author's maternal lineage.
Christian County had published a county history in 1841 by Perin and again another by Charles Meachem in 1930. Both of these histories had a limited biography section in them. Under the leadership of president Lon Bostick, the Genealogical Society of Christian County and the many devoted people of the county at large, gave untiringly of their time and knowledge to compile and have published a third history of Christian County in 1986 which is primarily a family history with much social history. The people responded well with material and the book was getting so large that we had to stop receiving family histories. This left many without the opportunity to get their families recorded. Late in 1990, Lon had a job started and was not complete therefore the Odd Fellows of Green River Lodge #54 of Hopkinsville and Jewel Rebekah Lodge #14 (the auxiliary of the Odd Fellows) met and voted to compile and have published a continuation of Volume I of the Family Histories to be titled Edition I of Family Histories of Christian County.