Thomas Wayland seems to be identified with a Thomas Wieland who was living in Waldbach, in Württemberg, Germany, when he decided to immigrate with his wife and two young children; however, the two children we know in Virginia are not the same as the ones who were born in Germany. Thus, it becomes necessary to say that two known children in Germany died, and two others were born in Virginia. Without the identification of the children, it is less than certain that the origins of Thomas Wieland or Wayland have identified. The name Wieland is found frequently in Germany, so it could be possible that the wrong family has been identified.
Not all of the Blankenbakers left Neuenbürg, or that vicinity, with the others in 1717. In research in the church records, Jean Strand said she had found a Blankenbaker-Wieland marriage in Germany in the vicinity of Neuenbürg. Considering that one of the two children in Virginia of Thomas Wieland married a Blankenbaker, I have mild doubts that the Wieland family originated at Waldbach. There is a slight suggestion that the Blankenbakers and Wielands may have been associated in Germany. In spite of all of these weaknesses in the Germany origins of the Wielands, let’s try to follow them for a while in Virginia.
It appears that Thomas Wieland did not come with the Second Colony, based on his omission from the lawsuits by Spotswood, and on his later land patent in 1728, instead of the typical land patent date of 1726 that was typical of so many proven Second Colony people. Another interesting thing about his land patent is that the greater part of it overlapped the previous patent of John Broyles. It took a lawsuit to declare that the claim of Broyles was prior to Wayland’s claim.
Thomas' son, Adam Wayland, married, first, Elizabeth Blankenbaker, the daughter of Balthasar Blankenbaker, a 1717 immigrant. They had six children, it is believed. Elizabeth died, and Adam married Mary Finks, and they had two children.
There was a famous lawsuit among the heirs of Adam Wayland. When he was still married to Elizabeth Blankenbaker, he wrote a will. Then he married again and failed to update his will to note the second wife. The guardians of Mary’s children brought suit to claim a portion of the estate. Thomas Jefferson even submitted an opinion in the case, and it was decided that the second family had a claim to a portion of the estate. After Adam died, Mary married Daniel Utz, about 1784.
Adam's son, John Wayland, married Catherine Broyles, the daughter of Jacob Broyles. They had a large family of eleven children. We will start looking at the grandchildren in the next note.
(28 Mar 02)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.