The basic history of the Revelle family from Randall Revell to Roger Revelle was abstracted by David Robert Revelle and William Revelle (WRR II) from William Roger Revelle I's 1903 history of the Revelle family from 1603 to 1903. This was about an 8 page hand written manuscript that was later typed and saved in WRR I's desk. It was found in a roll-top desk kept in La Jolla by Roger Randall Revelle (RRR) as it was being prepared for shipping to William Revelle (II) in Evanston in 1973. Although written in 1903, with additional information added after that by WRR I, no one seemed to remember it until it was found in 1973.
Much more current (and probably more accurate) information has been compiled by others interested in Randall Revell and his descendants. Some of this is available on the web, some is not yet web readable.
A very helpful reference to examine is Old Somerset on the Eastern Shore of Maryland by Clayton Torrence, published 1935 in Richmond, Va. by Whittet and Shepperson. The information in Torrence is somewhat inconsistent with WRR's manuscript and provides far more information about collateral branches of the Revelles. Rivers of the Eastern Shore by Hubert Footner has some relevant information as well.
Some time in the 1920s, a history of the Revell family was put together by Mary E. Kennedy, a heraldic researcher, for Mrs. Jose Couto de Aguirre. Kennedy wrote to WRR asking for his history, and WRR asked for $25 to cover copying fees. The correspondence ends there without any exchange of family history. I do not know what ever happened to her history. In addition to these sources, information has been extracted from some correspondence of WRR I with various people (kept by WRR II).
I have recently been sent by Ridick Revell a copy of a pamphlet written by Devota Durrance Hodge and Etta Maud Rouse Kirkland (1996): Randall Revell,Sr. and his descendants from 1606. Rose Printing Company, Tallahassee Florida. I have encorporated some of that information in these pages.
Additional correspondence with extended members of the Revell(e) family that has been incorporated includes some very helpful correspondence from Becky Miller, who is part of the Randall III - Alice line and does professional geneaology searches in the DelMarVa area.
James R. Revell has very kindly provided some comments, criticisms and additions to my pages. James has elaborated on the Charles-David story and suggests that WRR I had misinterpreted a very straight forward business deal. James lives in Virginia and has collected serious documentation for the descendants of Randall Revell. James R. Revell Jr. suggests on his page that Randall K. Revell splits off from ours in about 1812.
This document has been converted to HTML for use by others interested in the history of the Revelle family. Suggestions for additional links are always welcome and will be added when time allows. I have entered "Anchors" for each generation so that others can link to parts they find interesting. I would encourage others developing web pages to do the same so that links can be provided at each stage of the very extended family.
Additional Revell(e) family links may be found by writing David James Revelle or his sister Patti Revelle-Miller (who are descended from Randall and his first wife, Rebecca). David and Patti have developed Gedcom files and are active web users (their GEDCOM file is about 50K long and can be read as text). David has a page of information on Revelles in the US with a particular emphasis on those in Missouri from Ethelred to Isaac. This includes a brief history on the meaning of the Revell(e) name, the distribution of Revel(le)s across the US. David also maintains a list of other Revelle family web sites and instructions for using my Revelle family list server (running on my lab machine here at NU). In addition, David has put together a list of known deaths ordered by Social Security Number which I have resorted to put into alphabetical order. James R. Revell of Falls Church, Va. has a brief genealogy webpage. Ron Brennan has an extensive set of information about Randall Revell, his wife Katherine Scarborough, and Randall II, their son Charles, his son Randall, and his descendants. Unfortunately, this is not yet web readable. I have added some of his information to this page. William Leatherbury has a very well done page on Randall Revell that he prepared as part of the GHOTES (Genealogy and Historie of the Eastern Shore of Virginia) project.
I have also added links to the very well documented pages of Ralph Tabor Williams descendants of Randall Revell and Katherine Scarborough pages (with extensive documentation on the descendants of Henry Scarborough pages. Note that he disagrees with Leatherbury about Katherine Potts versus Katherine Scarborough.
Information about Somerset County, Maryland may be found on the webpage of surnames maintained by Shari Handley. Somerset County is just north of Accomac County, Virginia which has genealogy project (part of the GENWEB project) maintained by Gloria Holback.
In what follows, I have added various comments on inconsistencies in WRR I's notes. Additional information taken from Torrence is cited as from Torrence. Extensive documentation on RRR can be found in numerous family documents as well as in the archives of the University of California, San Diego.
Prepared as part of the Randall Revell to Roger Revelle page.