Our Background
The Full Story
Lewis Family Descendants is a lineage-based nonprofit organization devoted to preserving, honoring, and advancing the legacy of Betty Washington Lewis and Fielding Lewis Sr., their ancestors, and their descendants. Rooted in the family line of John Lewis and connected to one of early Virginia’s most historically significant families, the organization exists to strengthen generational ties, encourage accurate family history, and uphold the values of heritage, stewardship, and fellowship.
Our organization brings together descendants and those with a sincere interest in the Lewis family story, not simply to remember the past, but to carry it forward with purpose. We believe family history is more than a record of names and dates. It is a living inheritance made up of stories, character, sacrifice, service, and shared identity. Through that lens, Lewis Family Descendants works to preserve lineage, foster connection among relatives across generations, and provide a lasting framework for honoring the people who shaped this family’s place in American history.
The organization’s heritage is closely tied to Betty Washington Lewis and Fielding Lewis, whose lives were deeply connected to Fredericksburg, Virginia, Kenmore, and the broader Revolutionary era. Betty Washington Lewis was George Washington’s only sister to survive to adulthood, and both she and Fielding Lewis contributed substantial time, resources, and personal sacrifice to the Revolutionary cause. Fielding Lewis was a merchant, public official, and founder of the Fredericksburg Gun Manufactory, a major wartime enterprise that helped supply arms during the Revolution. Their legacy reaches beyond genealogy into the civic, political, and military history of colonial and Revolutionary Virginia.
Because of that legacy, Lewis Family Descendants also supports the continued preservation and interpretation of the historic places associated with the family. The organization publicly states its support for The George Washington Foundation, which owns and operates Historic Kenmore and George Washington’s Ferry Farm in Fredericksburg. The Foundation’s mission includes deepening public understanding of the lives and legacies of George Washington, Fielding and Betty Washington Lewis, and the many people who lived and worked on those properties. That partnership gives the society’s work a wider public purpose by linking family remembrance with historic preservation and education.
Lewis Family Descendants exists not only to document ancestry, but to create meaningful continuity between past and present. Through member communications, heritage gatherings, and engagement with places such as Kenmore, Ferry Farm, Mount Vernon, Warner Hall, and Colonial Williamsburg, the organization creates opportunities for descendants and supporters to learn, reconnect, and participate in the preservation of a shared legacy. In this way, the society serves as both a keeper of family history and a community formed around it.
As a 501(c)(3) public charity, Lewis Family Descendants stands for responsible stewardship of history, family fellowship, and a lasting commitment to future generations. Its purpose is to ensure that the story of the Lewis family, including its ties to Virginia, the United States, and its earlier roots in the United Kingdom, remains remembered, respected, and accessible. By preserving records, honoring qualifying ancestors, supporting historic interpretation, and sustaining family connection, the organization helps ensure that this legacy remains active rather than forgotten.
Lewis Family Coat of Arms
In the case of the Lewis family, heraldry is the only source of recorded evidence as to the original home and ancestry of the emigrant member of the family. These are the arms and motto of the Lewis family of Brecon, Wales and the Warner Hall family of Lewis which is descended in the male line from one branch of the Brecon family of Lewis.
ARMS: Argent, a dragon's head and neck erased vert, holding in the mouth a bloody hand proper.
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On a silver field a green dragon's head with a ragged neck, holding a bleeding hand of natural colors in its mouth.
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The coat of arms featuring the dragon device is probably one of the oldest charges in heraldry. The Aryan migrations that conquered Babylon used it. It is also one of the most ancient in Britain.
CREST: A dragon's head and neck erased vert.
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A green dragon's head with a ragged neck. This is the major armorial bearing of the Lewis families of Wales. Perhaps a majority of American families legitimately can claim it as well.
MOTTO: Omne solum forti patria est - or - Every Land is Home to a Brave Man.
Several interesting legends have come down to the present day to explain the origin of the Lewis Arms. One legend recounts that Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, was hunting one day and came upon a wild boar. The animal rushed at the Prince, who was saved only by the quick action of one of his chiefs and relatives of the same name. This chieftain quickly placed his own hand in the beast's open mouth as the only means of saving Llewellyn’s life; and as a reward, he thereafter bore the Arms described above, the griffin's head holding in the mouth a bloody hand.
Another account has it that a number of Welsh warriors were approaching the coast of Ireland in their small boats with a view of laying claim to the land; and that according to a previous agreement, the land would belong to him who first touched it. The Lewis ancestor is said by this account to have foreseen a close finish to the race, and to have chopped off his own hand and thrown it ahead of him to the shore, thus securing possession of the land. This latter account, while possessing its own romanticism and accounting for the bloody hand, does not explain as well as the first account the symbolism of the griffin's head. In some books of heraldry the griffin's head on the Lewis Arms is described as a dragon's head; the two are, of course, very similar in heraldic representation.