Family Names: Evans

Family Names: Evans

The Evans family we have typically claimed hails from Wales, just west of England in the UK. When the family arrived in the states is not well known, to be researched by others with the time and energy to do so. The crest depicts a standing lion, a silver or gold helmet and a stag standing at the top. These symbols are not unique to the Evans clan, and appear in many crests of the era. Other Evans family crests in the blogisphere include three boar’s heads on a shield, some with a dominant boar’s head (all facing left).

The combination of the Evans name and the rest of the family came from a few generations back from the present day. Below is an historical look at the marriages and combinations of names from the Walter family, the Cook family and the Evans family.

Walter & Cook Families

The Evans family, including the VanMetre’s, Chatard’s, Hooper’s, and Evans’s are direct descendants of Thomas U. Walter and Mary Ann Hancocks Walter. Their eleventh child, Agnes Boulton Walter (1847 – 1915), is our direct ancestor. Two of the Walters’ children died: one in child-birth, another, Thomas, died in Venezuela of Typhoid fever. Including Agnes, nine children survived to adulthood.

Agnes Boulton Walter married John Glenn Cook, who was from Maryland. John G. Cook brought his young family from the Philadelphia area to Baltimore shortly after their marriage. Agnes Walter Cook and John G. Cook had five children. Their oldest child, Olivia Walter Cook (1865 – 1906), also is our direct ancestor. Olivia Walter Cook married Frank Garrettson Evans (1863 – 1931) and they had three children: Olivia Walter Evans (1893 – 1898), Henry Cotheal Evans (1894 – 1976) and Frank Garrettson Evans (1899 – 1986). Our Evans link is through Henry Cotheal Evans, who was affectionately known in the family as “Pa.” More formally though in public, having served valiantly in both World Wars I and II, and been highly decorated and promoted over the decades, he was known as “General Evans” or simply as “Evans” to his Army buddies.

Maj. Gen. Henry C. Evans

Gilliard, Fitzpatrick, Garrettson & Evans

According to Evans’ family postings on the back of portraits by Rembrandt Peale, of Philadelphia, which he painted in 1815, John Gilliard (1781 – 1826) married Letitia Fitzpartick (1783 – 1824) and they had a daughter, Mary Anne Gilliard. In the next generation Mary Anne married Benjamin McCombs Evans. Mary Anne and Benjamin’s son, Henry Cotheal Evans, married Mary Elizabeth Garrettson. The next generation is corroborated above, Frank Garrettson Evans married Olivia Walter Cook, who is the granddaughter of Thomas U. Walter (architect of the US Capitol dome). Frank G. Evans and Olivia Walter Cook had two sons: Frank Garrettson Evans, Jr. and Henry Cotheal Evans, and one daughter, Olivia Walter Evans, who died in childhood. These family names tie the Evans clan back with the Cooks, from Philadelphia.

How Benjamin McCombs Evans came to the US, or who his ancestors were, have not been fully researched.

Frank G. Evans and Olivia Walter Cook Evans lived in Baltimore. Olivia Walter Cook, died before the two sons were raised. Sons Frank and Henry were raised by a step-mother, Ella Evans, to whom Henry C. Evans wrote most of his letters on the battlefield in France during World War I.