A Wright Heritage

I have spent a lot of time over the years researching the Wright family. By no means am I a professional, but I have, I believe, done a fair job of tracing the Wright family back through the ages, trying to make sure that all links are based on documented fact and not assumption.

It has been a very frustrating experience in a lot of ways. Sometimes it takes weeks (if at all) to find a single photo-copied document – a census record, a war registration or pension record, a birth, baptism or wedding – anything to prove beyond doubt that this person is the ancestor, spouse, brother, sister or child of one I already have in my tree. Often I have to give up and move on to something else for awhile.

It’s also very rewarding! I have managed to close loopholes in the family tree. Mind you, I don’t mean circular relationships (I’m my own grandpa) but things like missing links or out-of-whack timelines.

Last year I was able to find a missing generation! This is something other Wright genealogists were pretty sure of, but I was able to find photocopied pages from old Quaker meeting minutes that confirmed that Joseph Wright (b. 1757) had a son named Joseph (b. 1781) and that they were not the same person. It also cleared the timeline up and made birth/death dates make a lot more sense.

DNA

Lately, DNA has come to play in the research of the Wright family. Three relatives I know of who are all genealogists are actively researching parts of the family. Using their research I have been able to tentatively trace our family back to Welwick, UK (circa 1475). I say tentatively because there are a few generations that we have names for but no proof of the lineage. However, through DNA, I have found a few relatives who are possibly descended from these unconfirmed ancestors. Proving this out means I can put a stamp of approval on the ancestor and move on up the tree with confidence.

In 2017 the kids bought Mom and Dad DNA tests from Ancestry.com. Then last year, just a few months after the submission, I was contacted by a cousin who lives less than two hours away, and is descended from an ancestor I didn’t know I had! You see, the name given for the wife of my Great Great Great Grandfather Richard George Washington Grant was of someone I couldn’t find documentation for anywhere.

But last year I was able to find a census record that showed his wife’s name was Clarinda. Having found that, I was able to later confirm her name as Clarinda Hewitt. At almost the same time I received a call from a descendant of Clarinda’s sister. He had been researching his family for 30 years and Dad’s DNA was the missing link from his family to the Hewitts! I told Dad. He was excited to be the missing link.

As a software developer, I’ve always been amazed by DNA. The reason is that DNA is the “code” that builds a person. How I look, how tall I am, my skin tone, eye color, hair color, whether I’m going to be bald, and even the odds of my contracting certain diseases are all bound up in my DNA. DNA is more efficient than computer code in that it packs more information into less “space”.

Also, consider how DNA is “programmed”. At the time an egg and cell merge, two distinct DNA “programs” essentially merge and create an entirely new and unique “program”… you or me. Only in the case of identical twins (triplets, etc.) will the program be the same. During the creation of this new program, things we all hear about such as dominant versus recessive genes come in to play.

And sometimes the DNA program has “bugs”. One such “bug” is when the programs merge and an additional set of chromosomes is created. This is what gives rise to Down Syndrome. What’s amazing about this is that the result of this “bug” is a group of people who have the most open and loving hearts on the planet!

But I Digress

Back to genealogy… and cousins. It seems that physical DNA is not the only common thread that has spun through the Wright family. We are a pretty amazing family! Mostly due to the fact that, through the generations, Wrights have been stalwart servants of God. As far back as the sixteenth century I find Wrights who were priests in the Catholic Church. In the seventeenth century, the Church of England. In the eighteenth century, the Quaker Church. In the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, pastors in Baptist churches. Here are just a few:

• Robert Wright (1501-1594) – Priest – Catholic – Plowland of Yorkshire (Wife Ursula incarcerated for 14 years for recusancy)
• William Wright (1523 – 1616) – Priest – Catholic – Welwick, Yorkshire, England (He and wife Anne detained often for recusancy)
• Edmund Wright (1950 – 1899) – Missionary Baptist pastor – Montgomery and Pike County Arkansas
• Joel Wright (1889 – 1986) – Missionary Baptist Pastor – Pike and Montgomery County Arkansas
• Jona Wright (1901 – 1990) – Missionary Baptist pastor – California
• Cloyd Wright (1922 – 1992) – Missionary Baptist pastor – Arkansas – New Mexico

The list goes on. Wrights have been involved in the work of the Church for over four hundred years. Wright cousins still pastor churches in Arkansas, California, and, I suspect, Oklahoma and maybe Ohio.

When God saves a soul, that soul becomes a new creation. A creation with a new “DNA” that compels that person toward sanctification and service. And history reveals this spiritual DNA in the Wright family.

While the world presses on, while humanity stumbles from generation to generation, struggling against the will of God, generation after generation of Wrights have continued to surrender to His will, preaching the unchanging and everlasting gospel of Christ to the world.

We have a heritage to be proud of. Not the pride of self or of accomplishments, but of the knowledge that, through the centuries, a light for Christ has shown consistently from one or another corner of the world as one after another Wright heeded a greater calling and, without concern of response, preached the gospel of Christ to the masses, trusting God to bring the harvest.

However, that heritage is only as strong as the current generation. The world is sick, and it needs a healer. We are the vessels God has chosen to carry the message of healing to the world. Until the day of Jesus’ return, may a Wright be found proclaiming Jesus Christ!