Greetings !! This website was created with the specific objective of providing a venue for viewing much of the contents of the Master Linville Family Database. This genealogy 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 Master Linville Family Database. It is the largest single collection of Linville Family genealogy information currently available.
The Master Linville Family Database's last major update was 1 January 2026. It is now viewable via The Master Linville Family Database. This database reflects the research findings by Dr. Alice Eichholz (alice@newtrails.org) including the following sources:
1) The contents (revised and updated) of Alice's book, "The Linville Family in America" (1982 - out of print). Following the 1997 North Carolina Linville Family Annual Reunion ((held the first Sunday in October in Kernersville, NC at Goodwill Baptist Church), Harvey K. Linville from Seattle, WA volunteered to enter the data from Alice's book into a recently developed genealogical database. Mike Linville (mikelgenes@yahoo.com) of Kernersville, NC imported Harvey's work into The Master Genealogist software product which was completed in the 1999/2000 time frame. This is the program we continue to use as it has proven to be the most robust for our purposes. 2) Alice's material from the Linville Roots Newsletter was distributed between 1984 - 1990. The newsletters mostly reflected Alice's updated research following the publication of her book in 1982. In addition to the prior newsletter link, the newsletters can also be viewed on the SPOKT website (www.spokt.com and link at bottom of this page)which contains a collection of Linville related photos and documents shared by Linville family members. 3) Updates and corrections sent by more than 100 Linville family members over the past 50 years. All of these contributions are reviewed by either Alice or Mike before they are integrated into The Master Linville Family database. Alice handles/reviews all of the pre-1850 period data and Mike handles the post-1850 period data. 4) Information as a result of the Linville Y-DNA project begun in 2004 to verify through Y-DNA there is a genetic profile for the Linville psternal line. Some Linville surname branches are the result of male children from lines of Linville daughters, adoptions, multiple marriages with step children or just not the expected paternity. The Linville Y-DNA project is hosted on the FamilyTreeDNA web site. Where DNA differences are known/documented, that information is reflected in The Master Linville Family database. 5) Continued 18th and early 19th century research and analysis done by Alice. Much of the findings from this continuing research is reflected in writing detailed narritives for the first generation Linville families in the colonies. See the following narratives.
This is the top half of a chart originally developed in the 1990s that in full reflected the first five generations descended from Thomas Linvill (bc 1618). This top half remains accurate concerning what we know about the Linvilles before 1700, with the exception that John (born 1677) was likely first married in 1701 (as reflected in the database), not 1703 as on the chart. This chart depicts what we know about the Linvilles in the 17th century before they came to the colonies in 1682/2. However, the bottom half of the original chart with two more generations had too many changes and is too complicated to depict those generations in the colonies in one chart. For that reason, Alice is working on separate charts for John’s descendants (those who left Pennsylvania by 1730) and Thomas’s descendants (who stayed in Pennsylvania until the revolution). In the meantime, she has developed narratives from the database that flesh out the details in the database beginning with some of John’s next two generations. The first narrative is the Linville Family in America - First Generations that discusses the beginnings of the Linvilles from the top part of this chart before coming to America starting with Thomas Linvill, seaman of Meeching (bc 1618 Newhaven, Sussex, England), through his great-grandchildren – the children of John (b 1677) and Thomas (b. 1679) all born in Pennsylvania in the early 18th century. To add to the “First Generations” narrative, Dr. Eichholz is developing additional ones for John’s and Thomas’s children while the database itself covers all of their known descendants for many generations.
These narratives now available provide additional detail about what is known of our 18th century Linvilles, beginning with John’s (b. 1677 – see picture of chart above) descendants. While John had three sons and a number of daughters (see database), these narratives only begin with John’s oldest of his three sons Thomas bc 1703 - dc 1761 – and three of his six sons as follows:
Thomas Linville, born before 1732 in Conestoga, PA (now Lancaster Co., PA); died c1798 at Cove Creek settlement in (now) Watauga Co. NC. He left a will that seems not to have been recorded. His line represents the Linvilles who moved west the farthest and fastest Thomas bc 1732 - dc 1798. His narrative is then fleshed out by an analysis of his probable wife Catherine Vanderpool and their oldest daughter, Jane (Linville) Smith. David Linville, born before 1734, who turns out to be the 2nd not 3rd son of Thomas (bc 1703) as previously supposed. One tax record can change everything! David left a will in 1787 and provided supplies during the American Revolution. David Linville b <1734 William Linville, born before 1735, who is now the 3rd son and one who died in his 20s, leaving at least two sons – William and probably John. 18th Century William Clarifications This narrative also helps to straighten out not only the multiple Williams in the North Carolina piedmont in the 18th century, by discussing their relationship. But it also provides an analysis for who the “Linville brothers” were on the historical map of Franklin County, Virginia before 1760.
As new narratives get completed, they will be added to this list. Presently in the works are narratives for the remaining three sons of Thomas (bc 1703) – Richard (bc 1740), Aaron (bc 1750), and Moses (bc 1752).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some tips on accessing and using The Master Linville Family Database When you click on The Master Linville Family Database link, you are going to see two links/icons ( 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. So with those tips in mind, click on the following link and see what you find - hopefully something of interest about your family: The Master Linville Family Database ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 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:
Linville Facebook Site - Linville Family - Ancestry and DNA
Access to the Linville Fanily DNA project on the FamilyTreeDNA web site
Website contact/support : Mike Linville