32 Generations of Ancestors of Roger C. Covalt

Gregg Kinney was a Covalt/Colt researcher who established the evidence to prove the Colt/Coult to Covalt name change. He died in early 2001. Click this line if you would like to read his comments about the marriage between Abraham Covalt/Coult and Elizabeth Gustin.

Nancy Ranck is another Covalt/Colt researcher who has a excellent page about the Covalt-Coult-Colt Family.

C.Richard Covault needs to be thanked and praised for his book "Descendants of Covalt/Covault/Cavolt". This was the first book (that I know about) written about the Covalt line. Prior to the publication of his book (1990), he had a newsletter out and did lots of traveling in his researching of the line. While inaccuracies did become apparent in this book, it was the book that connected us all, and provided the push for more researching by others, correcting the inaccuracies found in his book. 

C.R. Covault's book ended the line with Abraham Covalt (b1714), but further research by others (and the main person to come to mind is Gregg Kinney) provided the evidence to support that this Abraham Covalt's last name was in fact Colt (or Coult), that it was his children that started to use the variations that we know now (Covalt/Covault/Cavolt). This "new name" of Colt then pushed this line back even further. 

Still no proof of the legends of the Covalt/Covault/Cavolt/Colt/Coult in the old world have surfaced yet.

 

And now for my final comments:

As you are most certainly aware of, some people "invent" their genealogy. I have never invented my genealogy (And I know that you aren't accusing me of such, but I figured that this gives me a good reason to explain this whole thing out) . I have used sources that have later been marked questionable and later on, indeed their work had been shown to have not been totally accurate (which I then corrected the line) , but for their original work, they created a spark in others to do more research to accurately prove a line.-

For example, the book "Descendants of Covault, Cavolt, Covalt" by C.R Covault was a great work when it came out (In fact I was involved in submitting my Covalt line to him), but serious Covalt researchers found problems like dates and places and children being given to the wrong set of parents. But on the plus side, this book never did have us connect to royalty. He ended his research with the first proven documented Covalt in 1714.

Most of the books that people had "invented" their lines to connect to a famous person and/or royalty, had their "invention" occur in the recent past lines (Normally between 1550 and 1700). That small gap had lot's of "creative" genealogists creating  lines/people to connect to the lines that they desired to connect to. An interesting point to make here. Some of the so called "Proven" books (Books coming from credible genealogy societies that pride themselves on the accuracy of their work)  had later changed their lines for several reasons. Of course one reason could be that a line that was considered to be "proven" was no longer consider that for several reasons. One being that a previously researcher of a line (And that researcher could have done his research hundreds of years ago) had mistakenly followed the wrong line with certain assumptions. Another reason could be that further research had proven a line false and had now come up with a new "proven" line. I have several books in which each newer edition had corrections on a line.

In closing, I have no doubt that there are lines in this genealogy of ours that will later be shown as false. All I know is, for the most part, the recent lines (from about 1650) that you see, I have done my own research (and for the most part, seen the original documentation for the original research) and have seen the original documents that connected these people to us. For the most part, lines going back from about 1650, for the most part, I have gotten the research from so called "proven" books, that I have no doubt that some will later be "proven" to have false lines, which will include some of the lines at this site.

Of course I know that you weren't expecting this kind of answer, but oh well.

So enjoy going through the information that I have provided. I am in the process of correcting and updating many of the sources and notes. I appreciate any comments, criticism or suggestions.