More than 30 years ago, when doing research for my book on the Bynum family, I collected what I think is a nearly complete set of records for the Mizells of early Surry County, Virginia. At the time, it seemed possible that James Bynum’s wife Elizabeth may have been a daughter of either Luke Mizell Sr. or Luke Mizell Jr. Indeed, many family genealogies made that claim. In an effort to identify the evidence, I collected a great many records. I reached the conclusion that no evidence exists and so it is unlikely that I am personally related to this family. Having collected the records, though, it makes sense to make them available to others who are descended from these people. See also the Bynum pages for additional details of that family.
- Mizell Family of Surry County, Virginia is a set of biographical sketches for the first two generations.
- Mizell Records in Surry County, Virginia is a nearly complete set of chronologically arranged Mizell records from Surry County, with comments. This is a fairly large file, about 23 pages when printed.
Addressing some family legends
There are at least four family legends that the above records can help us to investigate. One is likely to be true and the other three are clearly false.
- Luke Mizell Jr. and Elizabeth Marriott — they probably were husband and wife, and she was the mother of his two daughters Elizabeth and Sarah.
- James Bynum was not married to a Mizell — a legend that proves to be false.
- The North Carolina Mizells descend from Lawrence Mizell, not from his brother Luke Mizell Jr.
- The Huguenot legend — proves false, along with some notes on the origin of the Mizell name