Our family is often asked, “How are we related to the other Robinson families in the area and about to the old Robinson grocery stores?
Explore the Robinson Genealogy, to see testimony of our family’s origins and roots in Gainesville and North Florida. These records and stories have been passed down as well recorded in family history references. The accounts of life during the Depression and post WWII life in Gainesville provide interesting perspectives into how people lived here.
We hope you enjoy this information, if you have references that tie into our history or would like more info to work on your own families genealogy, please contact us.
Generally, we trace most of our family to southern Georgia, the family name traces back to Frederick Roberson who is believed to have lived in Southern Georgia in the 1700s.
Frederick’s son, Jacob Roberson lived until 1868 and is buried in Wayne County, Georgia in the Old Bethel Baptist Church Cemetery. Jacob’s son was John Roberson. John Roberson’s son was named Isaac, Isaac’s recorded surname was Robinson. The change to the surname is not certain but believed to have occurred due to a census or birthing record incorrectly recorded or as simply as when Isaac left the South Georgia area and when he arrived elsewhere he spelled it the best he could. The name however stuck and Isaac lived his life as Isaac Robinson.
Regarding the Robinson surname, the names Robertson, Robinson, Roberson and Robison were often used interchangeably in early records. Few people could read or write and clerks who were hired to write legal records spelled names as best they could. Later in Isaac’s life, in coincidence, he met Maude Robinson with the same maiden surname, (no relation), who’s family came from the Panhandle of Florida and Southern Alabama.