Greetings !! This website was created with the specific objective of providing a venue for viewing much of the contents of the Master Linville Family genealogy database. This database contains much of the Linville information from Dr. Alice Eichholz's 50+ years of research and publications on Linville family genealogy. In addition, the genealogy research from around 100 other Linville family members has been integrated into this master Linville Family genealogy database. It is the largest single collection of Linville Family genealogy information currently available.
This database was originally created from the contents of Dr. Alice Eichholz's book, "The Linville Family in America", that was published in 1982. After attending the 1997 North Carolina Linville Family Reunion in Belews Creek, NC, Harvey K. Linville from the Seattle, WA area volunteered to perform the data entry work involved in creating a digital copy of the genealogy contents of Dr. Eichholz's book. In fact, he did it twice to identify as many data entry errors as possible. Mike Linville then took Harvey's work and imported it into The Master Genealgist, TMG, software. These initial efforts were completed around 1999/2000. The TMG software program has subsequently been used by Alice and Mike to continue expand and correct the original contents.
Since the 1982 version of "The Linville Family in America" was a research summary of what Dr. Eichholz had been able to uncover at that point in time, it still had many remaining unknowns and conflicts that needed additional information to resolve. Dr. Eichholz decided to focus her subsequent Linville research on the early generations of the Linville family in America which had the largest challenges - mostly prior to 1850. Dr. Eichholz had started a publication, Linville Roots Newsletters, in 1977 that ran through 1989. These newsletters were subsequently used to document her new research findings. These newsletters can currently be found on the Linville family SPOKT web site in the Linville Roots Newsletters book.
Around 2004, it was decided to try to incorporate DNA data from emerging DNA testing services that were specifically addressing genealogy research.
A Linville family DNA project was established on the Family Tree DNA web site. The results from this Linville DNA testing has validated many family
connections and is being used to identify unknown female family members in the early generations. The Linville project on the Family Tree DNA web
site can be accessed via the following web site link:
The Master Linville Family Database's last major update was 16 Dec 2023. This updated Linville Family data is now viewable via The Master Linville Family Database
as well as the same link below.
This Master Linville Family Database contains the data that was in Dr. Eichholz's 1982 book as well as the research findings by Dr. Eichholz that have subsequently occurred since the publication of her
1982 book. In addition, since 2000 Mike Linville has been integrating the genealogy research contributed by other Linville family members who have been most
generous in sharing the results of their research covering specific branches of the family. Mike reviews and validates genealogy research contributions
from family members for information post-1850 to ensure the contents are consistent with the existing research in The Master Linville Family Database before including it.
Additions and corrections
to the contents of this Linville genealogy data are always appreciated. Dr. Eichholz retains responsibility for all updates of any of the information
prior to 1850. Alice continues the hard research associated with finding and validating genealogy where minimal records exist.
Dr. Eichholz has also prepared some overview/timeline documents that provide excellent narratives to supplement the details in The Master Linville Family
Database.
The first narrative is the
So click on the following link and see what you find - hopefully something of interest about your family: The Master Linville Family Database DATABASE USAGE NOTE: When you click on the above link, you are going to see two links ( Surname Index and Master Index ) used to find a person in the database. The Surname Index contains an alphabetic listing of every unique surname found in the database. Clicking on a surname will get you an alphabetic listing by first name/second name of all the people in the database with that surname. This is not the preferred method for finding someone with a common surname in the database such as Linville. The Master Index contains an alphabetic listing by surname of groups of people - each group contains the same number of people so may contain multiple surnames or just part of a surname with many people. Within each surname everyone is in alphabetic order by first name/middle name. So use the Master Index to find people with common surnames such as Linville or Linvill. Find the group that contains your person of interest and click on that index group. This will give you an alphabetic list of people - find your person and click on that person. This will give you the details we have on that person and allow you to navigate up and down the generations. ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SOURCE OF DATA: With the increased visibility and access of the Linville data on this web site, we are seeing more situations where data from this web site has been copied and used in creating family specific trees on other genealogy sites such as Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc. Please include acknowledgments to the source (www.linvillefamily.us) of your data when possible. Keep in mind that we continue to add new data and make corrections to the Master Linville Family Database information. So acknowledgments as to the source would not only give credit to the source but allow people on the other sites to investigate the source data further for any subsequent changes. We spend far too much time answering questions about information on these other sites that is now different then when it was copied from the Master Linville Family Database. Thanks for your help!
This site is not intended for use in discussing any of the information contained in The Master Linville Family Database. The following sites are available for those discussions:
Website contact/support : Mike Linville