William C. "Bill" Gobble
President of Wise County Historical Society

Bill is a native of Wise County,    Virginia although he has spent considerable time living outside Virginia. Bill was born in Appalachia and grew up in Norton.  He was in the U.S. Air Force when he married Lillian Hamilton.  They spent the first three years of their marriage in Colorado Springs, Colorado. After his discharge he spent the next 33 years in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Finally in 1987, he and Lillian moved back to Wise County, winding up in Crackers Neck, near Big Stone Gap. Bill and Lil have two children, Karen and Russ. 

Bill was elected as the second President of the Wise County Historical Society and has served in that position from 1996 to the present.  He maintains our PDF file of Wise County families and can generally connect anyone who visits the office back several generations.  He has thousands of surnames on his database.  He connects many to his wife Lil's family and jokingly remarks that  she is related to everybody.

Bill and Lil have conducted seminars on tracing your family and how to locate records.  He has served as Librarian for the Family Life Center in Kingsport and still occasionally volunteers time. He serves as Treasurer for the Historical Society of Southwest Virginia.

He and Lil have copied and archived in the Historical Society office many volumes of records from the Wise County Courthouse.  He has transcribed several census and marriage records into book form for sale at the Historical Society Office.  He volunteers twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays for work in the office. 

Bill makes our meetings fun and interesting with his good-humored manner and anecdotes.

Lillian, also a Wise County  native, grew up near Wise and attended Wise High school. Lil is extremely knowledgeable on Wise County Families and genealogy and seldom is there a visitor to the Historical Society whom she cannot help trace their family.

Lillian and her husband Bill has copied many Marriage and Death records from Wise County Court files and housed them in notebooks for the Historical Society Archives.

Lil is instrumental in locating and erecting stones for Wise County's Civil War soldiers and spends hours documenting their service and ordering their stones from the Veteran's Administration.

Lil, along with Rhonda Robertson is currently working on a book of the Wise County Civil War Veterans, our next project. She also serves as chairman of our Cemetery Committee, organized to locate, document and mark the graves of Civil War Soldier and early settlers.

Lillian Volunteers time at the Historical Society office.  Her sincere effort in helping with research comes through to the researchers and they never forget her.

Wise County (VA) Historical Society