Lewis Roane Hunt is an impassioned genealogist. He says he has three surnames, all from family connections.

Having lived both on the Peninsula and Middle Peninsula, he has learned not only about the Roane and Hunt families through his mother and father, but has delved into other family lines as well as his Christian heritage since his retirement from NASA Langley in 1994.

Roane Hunt was born Feb. 20, 1939 in Toano in James City County. Today, he and his wife Phyllis live in the home they built in Gloucester. They have four daughters, three of whom live in Mathews. They also have 13 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. He speaks fondly of his wife editing his work as he writes.

Roane graduated from York High School, then VPI (now Virginia Tech) with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He worked at NACA (now NASA) for 37 years as a wind tunnel test engineer. He calls himself a “numbers cruncher.”

He has continued his affinity for numbers through a huge database he’s created, inputting information from people, local records in the clerk’s office, and from Ancestry.com. He found his granddaughter on Ancestry with DNA and didn’t know she was on there. Then a second cousin from Canada showed up. Roane said there are lots of people he’s connected to, but he doesn’t go back too far. He likes to see who has married, intermarried, and their philosophies of life, he said. Roane added that once the information is in his database, he makes changes as new information is found. When asked approximately how large his database is, he shook his head and replied, “I have no idea, but it’s probably in the tens of thousands.”

A diary of Roane Hunt’s great-grandfather, Charles Alexander Roane, who lived in King and Queen County, showed jobs of his slaves, including sawmill workers, brick makers and farmers. They were independent and had their own homes often with gardens, pigs, chickens, etc. This Roane was a tailor and “cut out britches in the spring for his slaves and his wife sewed them up.” A transcript of this diary is in the King and Queen Courthouse Tavern Museum.

Roane’s grandfather, Richard Alexander Roane, was in the Civil War, first in infantry in place of his father and then in the 24th Virginia Cavalry. Also, this Roane joined with the Ohio Friends to start a number of holiness churches in Gloucester and the Tidewater area which were “old-fashioned” Methodist. This was the early stages of the holiness movement that produced Friends, Assemblies of God, Nazarene, Wesleyan, and Holiness churches locally. He also built three tabernacles, which are a type of large outdoor worship center, in Gloucester.

So much was lost before the Civil War, but Roane said that Gloucester’s land and personal property tax records are intact as he transcribed all records for the period 1782-1870. He’s published 13 tax books and posted on the Gloucester Genealogical Society of Virginia (GGSV) website.

Information such as how many cows a person owned would be recorded, how much land, purchasing prices, and taxes paid, as well as many other details on home and family would be recorded. For example, in 1814, one person paid $1.05 taxes.

Roane said that earlier during the War of 1812, money was short and there was no income tax then, so additional taxes were collected on lots of material possessions, such as watches, clocks, jewelry, furniture, and on slaves. This taxing occurred from approximately 1813-1815.

In his home office, Roane Hunt has 49 copies of journals with family stories in the collection “The Family Tree Searchers,” which he has compiled, written and published through the GGSV. He has written/compiled booklets on Gloucester deaths, marriages, and the 1900 Census records.

“I posted all this data on the GGSV website for direct access to the public. I maintain the website,” Roane said. Good friend and cohort Bill Lawrence said that Roane is invaluable to the Genealogical Society, for without him these publications would not exist. He is also membership chairperson for this group of dedicated researchers. He has been a member of the GGSV since 1997.

“The genealogy is to learn about people,” Roane said, “and what they think of scripture.” He loves researching both. “I was mainly interested in what kind of life they lived. I tried to determine how they interpreted Scripture. I knew the Hunts were Puritans of 1635 New England, and the Roanes were Anglican of 1664 turned Methodist turned Holiness, and for me turned Baptist. I started [his genealogy search] with a large old shoebox of papers left by my grandmother that my Civil War veteran grandfather left when he died in 1920.”

Roane has been officially retired for 28 years, but his love of family history and genealogical lines keeps him occupied. His love for his church is evident as he explores church history.

Roane Hunt helped to start his new church Redeeming Grace Baptist, located in the “old” Ebenezer Baptist Church building. He has “researched all the old grave markers and identified most of Gloucester citizens to be the descendants,” he declared. “Many roots of families are here.” He lists “the Browns, Clements, Pratts, and Hatches are some of the Gloucester folks.” He is treasurer of the church and manages the cemetery.

His family name is well known in Gloucester with places such as Roane’s Wharf, which now only has a few pilings left, and Roane’s Store, which is no longer in operation but still exists, though in a state of disrepair.

Roane Hunt also serves as a docent of the Gloucester Museum of History and continues his work matching DNA he’s found with Ancestry.com DNA testing. “I continue to find interesting matches,” he said.

“Growing our own food, harvesting our black walnuts, taking care of 25 acres, and maintaining firewood to heat my home” are other tasks for Roane Hunt. One can easily observe his enthusiasm for all that he does.

One daughter Janice, who owns Roanes Antiques at The Cottage in Mathews, said that, when they were young, their father set up what the girls termed “Roane’s Rules.” They chuckle now in thinking back on those “rules,” which seemed typical of their dad. The love and respect they share is unmistakable.

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