Why This book was written

Written by: Oscar McArthur Bizzell- from his book the Bizzell Family


Sunday afternoons in eastern North Carolina were traditionally a time to go for a visit with relatives, friends and neighbors. During summer, large crowds would gather on breeze-swept front porches to discuss crops, politics, weather, recent illnesses and sundry such topics. Oftentimes, the conversation would turn to genealogy and a recollection of bygone people, places and times. here is where the older ones could command center stage with unquestioned authority because their memory ws the longest.

The Bizzell name was rather rare in eastern NC, and even more so in other parts of the USA. Indeed, most of my classmates in school had good English names such as Britt, Tart, Warren and the like.

As my father grew older, he became increasingly interested in the history of the Bizzell Family. Once, he heard about some Bizzells in Orangeburg, SC who were unknown to him; so he drove more than 100 miles to make their acquantance. However, his knowledge of the family was lost when he died in 1963 because he had written down very little of what he learned.

When I went to work for the Atomic Energy Commission in 1948, my job required me to travel to all parts of the USA. In recounting tales of where I had been, Dad asked me to search the telephone directories to see where other Bizzells had migrated. Next, he wanted me to ring them on the telephone and see if they could trace their linage back to NC. After considerable prodding, I finally started making a few such calls. This led to some very interesting conversations, plus the discovery that most people didn't know their linage beyond their grandfather. Several suggested that I ought to write a book on what I was learning about the family.

Most people knew the Bizzell name was supposed to be of French origin. Several had heard that three brothers came to America, went to different parts of the country and they supposed all descended from one of the three. With nothing better to go on, I began to believe there might be some truth to this legend.

My faith in the legend was shaken, however, by a passage found in James Fenimore Cooper's book, THE PIONEERS, written ca 1850. In chapter XVIII, he stated: "Most of the American genealogists commence their traditions like the stories for children, with three brothers, taking especial care that one of the triumvirate shall be the progenitor of any of the same name who may happen to be better fournished with worldly gear than themselves".

My work with the peaceful applications of atomic energy aroused interest in tracing the Bizzell genealogy in quite another way. Every day, I came across new ways in which the atom could be used as an important tracer, all the way from medical purposes to space exploration. Like the radioactive atom, a family name is a sort of tag that can be used to follow people through complicated migrations and linages. Most people are proud of their name and it usually survives intact, or with only minor alterations.

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A very interesting chain of events began in Kern Methodist Church, Oak Ridge, Tennessee on 20 Dec 1954. A leak had developed in the pipes under six inches of concrete flooring and this threatened to close the church during the fully programmed Christmas season. Quickly finding and stopping the leak seemed hopless until I hit upon the idea of letti8ng the atom help locat the hole in the buried pipe.

December 1954 was still the "early days" of atomic energy and many church members were apprehensive about the safety of the experiment. It was to be the first atomic solution to a church prolem. The "ox was in the ditch," however, and I finally won approval to go ahead with my attempt at atomic plumbinb.

A ten-gallon bucket of water, a garden hose and two millicuries of radioactive iodine were hastily assembled. the experiment was successful and the church reopened in about three hours. I was the first one to drink water from the repaired pipes--thereby dispelling any doubts about a possible lingering radiation hazard.

Tracing water to the hole in the buried pipe, however, was nothing compared to the chain of "tracing" events that were set in motion.

The second phase of the story began in August 1961, when the READERS DIGEST published a story under the heading, New Uses for Neurotic Atoms. Soon thereafter, in Queensland, Australia, Mavis Bizzell happened to glance at the story while on a train trip. Her eyes spotted the surname and cause considerable excitement because she had never known anyone else with the bizzell name, aside from her relatives in Australia.

A letter was hurriedly posted to Oak Ridge and finallly caught up with me at Germantown, Maryland. She asked a multitude of questions about Bizzells in America and the origin of the family. I knew very few of the answers but Mavis' letter did start me to thinking seriously about the genealogical research project.

Visits to the National Archives and the Library of Congress in Washington revealed the name of my 4X great grandfather, Enos Bizzell, who fought with the Continental Army from 1776 to 1783. Research in the State libraries in Raleigh, NC and Richmond, VA led to the discovery that the first Bizzell in America was given a land grant in Nansemond County, VA, lying along Queens Graves Swamp.

Review of telephone directories at foreigh embassies in Washington revealed that there were Bizzells also living in Elgland and South Africa. Letters were dispatched and startled replies came back asking countless questions about the small, widely scattered Bizzell family.

Although family legend for generations has been that the family was of French origin, my French acquaintances disagreed that the name could have existed in France with my spelling. This prompted fur4ther research that led to the Archives in Paris. We have established, with virtual certainty, that the name was spelled Bizel in France and was anglicized to Bizzell when some members of the family emigrated to England around 1575. We also learned that the early Bizels had lived in Savoie.

Excited with these initial success, our burning desire was to locate the family homestead in France if at all possible. With the help of a fellow wcientist at the atomic laboratories in Grenoble, the mayor of the French city of Chambery was brought into the picture. He wrote us that all evidence pointed to a small hamlet named Les Rieux, high in the French Alps.

We made our way to Grenoble and on the morning of 2 Aug 1964 rented a car and started the 75 miles in search of Les Rieux. After losing the way several times on the narrow mountain roads, we finally reached our destination in the early afternoon. I shall never forget my feeling of excitement as we rounded a bend in the road and came face-to-face with a sign announcing Les Rieux.

But alas, the entire hamlet, consisting of some six houses, seemed deserted. After looking around and taking a few snapshots, we were about ready to give up and leave. Suddenly a door opened and an old couple emerged from one of the stone houses. I hailed them and then shouted my entire French vocabulary, "Je suis Monsieur Bizel." This startled them and they came running up the mountanside to where we stood. We showed our American passports and by sign language made them understand that we were long separated members of their family. Francois literally danced in the street and then firly planted the traditional French kiss on our cheeks. Next folloed much excited conversation that neither my wife nor I could understand.

Finally, I realized that it was starting to rain. I handed Francois an envelope and a pen and he hastily scribbled out his address. We gave dollar bills to both Francois and Marie as souvenirs and made a dash for the car before the deluge set in.

The rain continued to fall during the entire seturn trip to Grenoble but it didn't dampen our spirits one bit. We were still basking in the emotional excitement of having bridged a nearly 400-year gap in the Bizzell family history.

After returning to the States, I learned enough French to correspond with Francois and Marie back at Les Rieux. They were the only remaining members of the family living in Savoi8e. They have sent us much famly history and a painting of Father Pierre Bizel, born in 1548, who is a candidate for beatification in theCatholic Church. Francois and Marie were living at the old homeplace where Pierre was born. The house burned down around 1509 years ago but was rebuilt on the sturdy stone walls.

In 1964, John L. Bizzell of London, England caught the "genealogy bug" from us and has made extensive record searches in the British Archives, as well as writing hundreds of letters, advertising in British papers and any other scheme to collect Bizzell history. Without John's help, this book would be far less complete.

We took our daughters to London in 1967 and John arranged a special international reunion for us. On very short notice, some 40 people came from all parts of England to make our acquantance.

A worldwide letter writingt campaign has brought us stacks of information on the hundreds of families we have learned about. It was like a giant crossword puzzle and the peices were slowly fitted together over a 12 year period.

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In 1962, my wife Virginia became actively interested in the Bizzell history and started making periodic trips to the National Archives in nearby Washington to search old census records. indeed, she carried the main burden of the research until I retired in July 1973.

In addition to on-the-spot research in England, France, Australia, Canada and the USA, we have obtained information from South Africa, Barbados, Trinidad and South America. We believe we have identified possibly 90% of the people who have borne the names Bizel, bizell, Bizzell, Bizzle, Bizzelle, Bizzel and Bizzill.

Having invested thousands of hours in tedious research and many thousands of dollars in expenses, it would be unforgiveable to let our findings slip away and perhaps be lost forever. Thus we decided to write the history of the family as we understand it in 1976 and publish it for the benefit of future generations.