Javins - the Name

From time to time I hear from someone who found this site while looking for information on Javins genealogy, so this page is for all you Javinses out there!

If you found www.javins.com while searching for "javins," you probably also saw sites that mention Marie Javins, my daughter. Marie has a few Web sites of her own, notably "Marie's Wall of Cows" and her travel sites. She is also mentioned on various sites about comic books because she is a comic colorist and has worked as an editor for Marvel Comics.

I got the name "Javins" by marriage to George Austin Javins of Virginia. We eventually divorced but I kept the name until I remarried in 2002. George has moved to Bath County, VA and remarried.

George was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, but his father, George William Javins came from a small town near Harrisonburg, VA called Briery Branch. His father married Pearlie Rose Shaffier who hailed from Bath County. My ex-husband's grandfather was Charlie Javins. I don't know much else about the family except that a great-grandmother was said to be a Native American, most likely of the Cherokee tribe. The rest of the immediate family was Caucasian and appeared to be of Scotch-Irish and German extraction. George had five sisters: Annie, Georgie Margaret, Florence, Catherine, and Odella. Odella and George are both living in Bath County.

There are some African-Americans with the name Javins in northern Virginia. The name Javins appears on a tombstone in a cemetery that is on the grounds of Fort Ward Park, Alexandria, Virginia.

Not a common name, Javins is said to be from Shropshire, U.K. Familysearch.org shows some Javinses in England and associates them with a more common name Jevons, aka Jeavons. (I have seen a Polish name Javinski which could be related.) There is also a singular form of the name (Javin) used as a first name (male).

According to a message on FamilyHistory.com, two brothers came to the U.S. and one spelled his last name Javins and the other Javens. (See the link at the bottom to the message board.)

I have heard from a few Javinses who found me on the Web. One is in New Zealand but has roots in Virginia or West Virginia. There are several Javinses in West Virginia. A man with a different last name (Surina) wrote to say that his great-grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Javins of Fairfax, VA. She lived on a farm "just south of Alexandria, pretty close to Mt. Vernon. She lived from 1851 or 52 to 1930. Married Lafayette Presley Parker (1859 to 1932)."

I strongly suspect that Mary Elizabeth was related to my husband's family, since the Shaffier side of his family lived in that same area just off "Parker's Lane." I once met a woman in the Springfield, VA area whose maiden name was Javins. Unfortunately, no one in the family has done the genealogy to establish connections.

Seems like the northern Virginia Javinses produced mostly female children, so the name is disappearing from the area. There is a Javins Road in Fairfax County, named for the man who once owned a large piece of land there.

There is another Linda Javins in Virginia - and an author named Linda Javin (no "s") in Australia.

Linda Suiter Walcroft, formerly Linda Javins
Virginia
Contact:

Javins Message Board on FamilyHistory.com | MyCinnamonToast.com - Family History Search Tool

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See Marie Javins's book about her travels in Africa