Bishop

Under Construction as of October 2025

My interest in Bishop genealogy began in early-2025 as a search for the ancestry of Alexander Bishop (? – 1832), the first husband of Nancy Cheatham (1810-1890) and the father of her daughter Mary Bishop (1831-?).  After tracing his father Wyatt Bishop through Alabama and  Tennessee to his origin in Surry County, Virginia I undertook an effort to connect Wyatt Bishop to his immigrant ancestor.

I quickly discovered at least four 17th century Bishop immigrants to the vicinity of Surry County three of whom were named John Bishop.  I also discovered a great deal of misinformation and incomplete information regarding those early Bishops in southside Virginia.  I prefer to do my own research, so I ignored published genealogies and began collecting Bishop records from Charles City (later Prince George) County and James City (later Surry) County.  About 50 printed pages of those records are listed below.

Those records led to biographies of the four 17th century Bishop immigrants and their families.

 

Bishop Records in Southside Colonial Virginia

Existing genealogies of the early Bishops living along the James River in Virginia are often erroneous and usually incomplete.  Since I prefer to do my own research and draw my own conclusions, I tried to ignore those existing genealogies until after I had done my own research..

I began this project by collecting records involving Bishops in the counties along the James River and adding my own contextual notes.  I then used that material to develop genealogies of the four seventeenth-century Bishop immigrants who appear in those records.  I tried to avoid being influenced by existing genealogies until the record-gathering was complete.

70 Pages of Bishop Records (1625 to 1800)

Below are documents containing the Bishop-related records that I have found that relate to Bishops living along the James River of VIrginia, along with my own comments to explain their significance and context.

Four Immigrant Bishops

The papers listed below are drawn from the records in the records linked above.

  1. Col. Henry Bishop (1605-1692)  — a Royaist who refugeed to Virginia about 1644 and patented 1200 acres in what became Surry County, but who had left Virginia a few months before the patent was signed, never to return.  Read the details here.
  2. John Bishop of Surry County
  3. Another John Bishop (? – 1696) unrelated to the others, who lived in Surry County from 1674-1696 and was married but produced no issue.  Read the details here

  4. Captain John Bishop of Charles City County