Our new checkout experience is now live! Buy your tickets here.

A-Z Index

The Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington

Home Washington Library Center for Digital History Digital Encyclopedia Family
Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington logo
Family
About the Encyclopedia Contributors Partners George Washington Presidential Library

Family

Elizabeth Parke Custis Law

Elizabeth Parke Custis Law

Elizabeth Parke Custis Law was the eldest of Martha Washington's four surviving grandchildren.

Learn More

American Ancestry

The story of the Washington family in America began in the mid-1650s when two young men, John Washington?

Learn More

Ancestry

"This is a subject to which I confess I have paid very little attention," George Washington wrote to?

Learn More

Betty Washington Lewis

Betty Washington Lewis was the only sister of George Washington to survive to adulthood. Her family'ss devotion and loyalty to the Patriot's wartime effort led them to financial hardship.

Learn More

Bushrod Washington

One of General George Washington’s closest relatives, Bushrod was the son of General Washington’s brother, John Augustine, and his wife, Hannah Bushrod.

Learn More

Charles Washington (1738-1799)

Charles Washington (1738-1799) was George Washington’s youngest brother.

Learn More

Coat of Arms

The early lineage of the Washington family line can be traced back to Sir William de Hertburn. Upon being?

Learn More

Custis Family

The Custis family in America can trace its roots to the late seventeenth century, when the family split?

Learn More

Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis

Eleanor Parke Custis was the youngest of Martha Washington's three granddaughters.

Learn More

Elizabeth Parke Custis Law

Elizabeth Parke Custis Law was the eldest of Martha Washington's four surviving grandchildren.

Learn More

Fairfax Family

The Fairfax family of Fairfax County, Virginia, lived in a splendid brick mansion called Belvoir on the?

Learn More

Fanny Bassett

Frances "Fanny" Bassett was Martha Washington's niece, the daughter of Anna Maria Dandridge and her husband?

Learn More

Fielding Lewis

Fielding Lewis, born on July 7, 1725, was a colonel in the American Revolution and the brother-in-law and second cousin of George Washington through their common great-grandfather, Augustine Warner II. The Lewis family was well known and respected as merchants in Virginia society, owning extensive tracts of land in and around Fredericksburg. Lewis built the mansion on his property that is known today as Kenmore. He is remembered for his dedication to the patriotic cause as well as his close personal ties to George Washington. 

Learn More

George Washington

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 on his father's plantation on Pope's Creek in Virginia's Westmoreland County...

Learn More

George Washington Parke Custis

Best known in his lifetime as the adopted son of George Washington, George Washington Parke Custis eventually became a key figure in preserving the memory and possessions of Washington.

Learn More

Howell Lewis

Howell Lewis was George Washington’s nephew and second cousin to Meriwether Lewis of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition. In the early 1790s, Lewis briefly served as President Washington’s personal secretary and manager of Mount Vernon. After resigning from his post at Mount Vernon for monetary reasons, Lewis managed his own land holdings in Virginia until he passed away in 1822.

Learn More

John Augustine Washington III

John Augustine Washington III was the great-grand nephew of George Washington and the last private owner of Mount Vernon.

Learn More

John Parke Custis

John Parke Custis (known as Jacky when younger, and Jack as he got older) was around four years old when?

Learn More

Lawrence Lewis

Lawrence Lewis was George Washington's nephew, the son of Washington's sister Betty. Lewis assisted his?

Learn More

Lawrence Washington

Lawrence Washington was the elder half-brother of George Washington, being the oldest living child of Augustine Washington and his first wife Jane Butler.

Learn More

Martha Parke Custis

Martha Parke Custis was Martha Washington and Daniel Parke Custis's youngest child. Known to the family?

Learn More

Martha Parke Custis Peter

Martha "Patty" Parke Custis was born on December 31, 1777, in one of the second-floor bedchambers at Mount Vernon.

Learn More

Martha Washington

Martha Washington was the first first lady of the United States and spent about half of the Revolutionary War at the front with General Washington. She helped manage and run her husbands' plantations and raised her children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews.

Learn More

Mary Ball Washington

Mary Ball Washington (b. approximately 1707 – d. 1789) is primarily known as the mother of George Washington.

Learn More

Parenting

George Washington had no biological children of his own, and it took many years for Washington to come to grips with the fact that he was not going to father his own children. Despite this difficulty, the Washingtons' home at Mount Vernon was filled with children for nearly all forty years of their marriage. For most of these children, George Washington stood in the role of father or grandfather.

Learn More

Popes Creek

George Washington was born in February 1732 at Popes Creek.

Learn More

Robert Lewis

The tenth son of Betty and Fielding Lewis, Robert Lewis was also George Washington's nephew and served?

Learn More

William Augustine Washington

Born at Pope’s Creek, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on November 25, 1757, William Augustine Washington was the youngest child of George Washington’s older half-brother, Augustine Washington II, and his wife, Anne (née Aylett).  As the only surviving male heir, William Augustine inherited Wakefield – the home where his well-known Uncle was born – upon his mother’s death in 1774.  As Virginia began to prepare for war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, William Augustine was elected Captain of the Westmoreland County militia company on February 5, 1776.  That summer, he was stationed with his unit along the Potomac River to guard against enemy incursions.   An accident with a firearm in 1778 seems to have prevented further military service during the War for Independence.  However, he was later appointed Colonel of the Westmoreland County militia, in the summer of 1789.  He also served as Sherriff for Westmoreland County from 1784 to 1786,

Learn More
Login
Buy Tickets

Quick Links

Activities Calendar Shop Restaurant Give Membership
Estate Hours

9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

iconDirections & Parking
buy tickets online & save