Our Researchers

Don Collins

The vast bulk of the information in this website was researched and written by Don Collins. Don’s connection to the Maybury family worldwide was through its Mabry branch – he was the son of Loretta Jewel Mabry, born 10 Feb 1914 Memphis TX and Thomas Aubrey Collins, son of George W. Collins and Bessie M. Tackett. He was a descendant of Francis Maybury (c.1650) who married Elizabeth Gilliam, daughter of John Gilliam and Margery, in 1685.

Don Collins began "The Mabry Family" website in 1995. It was one of the first websites devoted to the "surname study of one family". The site was later changed to "The Maybury Family" to reflect the wider family which continues to use numerous variant spellings. The website grew in popularity, the number of "hits" passed 107,000 by April 2016. Don was unsparing in his support for the Maybury family historians who reached out to him through the website.

Due to illness, Don was unable to update the "The Maybury Family" after 2018 and he passed away in 2022. In 2023, Ancestry.com announced it was shutting down RootsWeb, "The Maybury Family" host site. Towards the end of that year, mayburyfamily.com was launched to preserve Don’s writings while continuing to publish and update Maybury research.  

In May 2016, Don wrote of his longstanding interest and achievements in genealogy: 

My interest in genealogy began at a Collins family reunion in 1954. There my great aunt, Orra Sidney Collins, spoke of her grandfather, Samuel Collins (pictured at left) being killed in what she called, "the Kansas-Nebraska War". Fascinated by this, I went home and wrote to the Kansas State Historical Society for more information. I soon learned that my gr. gr. grandfather, Samuel Collins (1810-1855) had been active in the free state movement which opposed making Kansas a slave state. This led to an armed confrontation with pro-slavery supporters in the fall of 1855 in which Samuel was killed. Soon I was searching every available library for books on Kansas history. To my surprise there were many accounts of the Collins-Laughlin incident. The details of these accounts differ considerably since the authors often held strong "pro-slavery state" or "free-state" views and made little effort to report the matter objectively.

Fascinated by this history on my Dad's side, I set out to research my mother's Mabry family. She and I wrote to several of her cousins and soon discovered about dozen others who also wanted to learn more about their Mabry ancestors. After thirty years of research, I traced our Mabry line back to Francis Maybury and later became "the expert" on the Mabrys. Some called me "the Mabry guru". The following timeline tells the rest of the story:

  • 1954 - My research of the Mabry family began.

  • 1987 - Publication of my first book, The Mabry Family: Descendants of Francis Maybury and Elizabeth Gilliam of Surry County, Virginia.

  • 1997 - Publication of the first of two soft-cover reprint editions, including 75 pages of new information.

  • 1995 - Publication of The Mabry Family newsletter began.

  • 1995 - The Mabry Family web page, one of the first family pages on the internet, began.

  • 2002 - Two cousins in England began helping with research on early English Mayburys.

  • 2003 - Beginning of the Maybury DNA Project to learn about different branches of the family.

  • 2004 - Discovery that John Maybury (c1540-1618) of Sussex was likely our common ancestor.

  • 2005 - The newsletter became The Maybury Family, using the most common spelling in England, to include the wider family.

  • 2011 - Publication of The Mayburys, telling the stories of the major branches of the family in England, Ireland, the U.S. and Australia.

  • 2011 - The Maybury Family newsletter ceased publication after seventeen years.

Now retired, I devote much of my time to genealogy, a hobby which still fascinates me and has taught me more about history than I ever learned in school. It has been my privilege to help thousands of Mayburys, Mayberrys Mabrys, etc. to discover their branch of the family and its place in the larger Maybury family. I have also researched many of our other ancestors. 

Don Collins with his grandfather, Roger Qualis Mabry, 1938.

Our Other Maybury Researchers

Don Collins’ efforts to discover more about the English ancestors of Francis Maybury of Virginia brought him into contact with Maybury descendants living in England. With their help we were able to produce an amazing amount of new information that gave us a fairly comprehensive picture of the Maybury family in England and Ireland.

Bill and Doris Maybury of Herefordshire had done extensive work on Bill's ancestor, William Maybury, a likely ancestor of the Maybury family in County Kerry, Ireland. They also spent countless hours exploring English records, family data, academic sources, etc. on the wider Maybury family. They made field trips to County Record Offices and other places to gather Maybury information. With the help of their genealogist friend, Eirlys Spawton, they began to reconstruct the relationships of the early Maybury generations and track their movements in England.

John and Lettice Tanner of Berkshire had also been gathering Maybury records from early parish registers in England. Their "Early Maybury References in England and Wales" grew to include, not just baptismal, marriage and burial records, but Bishop's transcripts, wills, court records, and other documents. In addition, John's transcriptions of 16th and 17th century documents proved extremely helpful as did his ability to sort out and reconstruct the relationships of the early Mayburys.

With the coordinated efforts of these English cousins, the likely common ancestor of all the Mayburys was discovered: John Meberie (sic), a skilled iron worker in Sussex who was born about 1540. While he was probably born in England, it is also possible that he was brought over from France where the iron industry was established earlier. Contact was made with a number of scholars with expert knowledge of the development of the iron industry:

  • Jeremy Hodgkinson of the Wealden Iron Research Group helped to locate various kinds of information about the early ironworker Mayburys.

  • Brian Awty also of the Wealden Iron Research Group, shared his special knowledge of the early iron industry in Sussex. It was a surprise to learn that Mr. Awty had already begun to reconstruct the family of the hammerman, John Meberie, as part of his study of the development of the iron industry as it moved to other parts of England.

  • Peter King, an economic historian with a special interest in the iron industry between 1500 and 1815, shared information about some of the specific forges where the early Mayburys were employed.

  • Chris Evans, an historian at Glamorgan University, brought an understanding of the iron industry in the Forest of Dean. His articles have helped understand the patterns behind the movements of iron workers from one location to another.

  • Valuable help was provided by several professional researchers who were engaged to locate information about the Maybury family, particularly in Shropshire and in Derbyshire.

Michael Smithson

Michael was one of the Maybury family historians who reached out to Don Collins. In 2007 he was researching his mother’s family, the Mayberrys of Greenlane, Kenmare, Co. Kerry, Ireland. Michael was invited to collaborate with Don in the publication of the book, The Mayburys, in 2011 and assisted Don with enquiries concerning the Maybury families of County Kerry and the Maybury DNA Project. In 2021, Michael stood in for Don, during his illness, as Maybury DNA Project administrator, taking over the role fully after Don’s passing. In late 2023, faced with the demise of RootsWeb, Michael launched mayburyfamily.com to ensure the survival and updating of Don Collin’s research on the Mayburys. 

Michael is a retired head teacher with post-graduate qualifications in history, archaeology and education. He has conducted research in England and Ireland. Michael has authored several books, articles and academic papers and assisted in documenting collections held by the NSW (Australia) state archives.

Michael Smithson at his uncle Max Mayberry’s wedding, 1957. Adult row (left to right): Gwendoline Joyce (Mayberry) Smithson, Neville Austin Mayberry, Beryl (Lynch) Mayberry, Maxwell John Mayberry, Margot Catherine (Gruber) Mayberry, Dorothea Clarice Vera (Pye) Mayberry, Hyland Clement Mayberry. Kids’ row (left to right): Kerry Lynette Smithson, David Joseph Mayberry, Michael Smithson, Leslie Anne Mayberry.