Introduction

to the

Mauck, Mauk, Mock Families of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia


The Mission of this Website

To provide the lineage and supporting documentation for the Mauck, Mauk, and Mock families of Northern Virginia. To free up the time many people spend researching this information independently from generation to generation with the hope the time will instead be spent researching the ancestors of these families.

The focus being backwards in time instead of all their descendants.


Introduction

The first Mock recorded in Virginia was David Mock, who appears in the records of the land office of Richmond in 1638. Unfortunately the record does not show where David's land in Virginia was located. This is the only record found of David and it is not known what happened to him or if he had descendants.

The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia was not discovered by European explorers until the late 17th century. Settlers started living in the valley in the early 1700's. Amongst the first land owners in the Valley were an element of Germans that arrived there with Joist Hite in the early 1730's. The first Mauck recorded in the Valley was Peter Mauck, who appears in land records with Joist Hite in 1734. Peter did not arrive in the Valley with the original Hite settlers and it is suspected he followed shortly after their arrival.

The Shenandoah Valley, at various times, has included or includes the counties of Orange, Augusta, Frederick, Shenandoah, Rockingham, Warren, and Page.


The Goals of my Research of the Mauck, Mauk, and Mock Families of the Shenandoah Valley

It seems that every generation there are dozens of genealogists researching the same documents and ancestors, with everything being repeated again by the generation that follows. While the advent of computers and the internet have done much to help these efforts, at the same time they have multiplied the problem by accepting data without the documentation to substantiate names, dates, locations, children, parents, marriages, etc.

My first year of research into my Mock/Mauck ancestors led me into the Shenandoah Valley and a dead end. Looking at the other families with variations of the surname, I quickly learned why documentation was so important. Given names of Joseph, John, Mary, Elizabeth and other Christian names were used repeatedly every generation. Leading some folks to follow the wrong ancestral line. It only takes a few people doing this to create dozens of others copying and disseminating it, with the initial one source eventually coming back around as secondary proof of itself.

This led me to stop and start over. This time documenting every piece of information possible. If a connection could not be documented, I indicated it. Family stories were included as long as they were indicated as what they are, family stories. To be accepted as fact they should require documented proof, unless the person telling the story witnessed and/or documented all of it first hand.

I decided to attempt to straighten out the many levels of confusion with these Mauck/Mauk/Mock families that lived in or passed through the general area of the Shenandoah Valley so other researchers could see the documentation, know where to verify it, and be able to focus their efforts farther back in time instead of re-inventing the wheel, or following someone else's wheel in circles.

To get an idea of what has caused the confusion, or, if you like a mind challenge, have a look at two articles I wrote on the connections between these various Mock, Mauck, Mauk families who were living in the same vicinity of one another in the Shenandoah Valley. Keep in mind the time period, methods of transportation, and the limited number of available bachelors and bachelorettes at any give time.

Hint #1:
Read 1995 first, it helps grasp the concept.

Kissin' Mock Cousins 1995 article

Kissin' Mock Cousins 1996 article

Hint #2:
The last page of each article has a flow chart visually depicting the connections.
You might want to have this handy as you read the narrative.

The goal hasn't been perfection, it's been improvement. We're all human and make mistakes and I'm no different than anyone else in this regards. The difference is, you'll know exactly where to verify my mistakes, and correct them.


Understanding the Organization of the Information Presented on this Website

The page immediately following this one provides brief summaries for the oldest Mauck, Mauk and Mock within each family that lived in and around the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. These elders may or may not have been related, evidence of their relationship has not been found. Yet.

Following each elder's brief summary is a link to a more detailed page regarding that elder, his descendants, and the various documented records I could find. My research focused on trying to identify the descendants for each of these different families to approximately 1880, even if they had moved to other states. Some go to 1930 and later. For various reasons I was unable to locate every descendant. Some descendants didn't survive, some just vanished from the records available when I did the research. However, the total number of descendants and their elders number in excess of 1500, in addition to the spouses and their parents. Each having one or more resources verifying all of the information I could find on each one.


Visit Each of the Mauck, Mauk, Mock Families of Northern Virginia

or

   


DNA Project

There has been an ongoing effort for more than 15 years to obtain Y-DNA samples from a male descendant of each of the elders of the various Mock, Mauck, Mauk and other surnames. The intent being to narrow the field for which Mauck, Mauk, Mock, etc families each person researches. There have been over 100 people who have submitted samples for this project.

This Y-DNA project is explained in more detail HERE.


17 Aug 2020