“Urdix Stillman Colby” sounds like something out of a fantasy novel, not rural Vermont or western New York in the early 1800s. No one in my family ever knew where the name came from. He was just… there, dangling on the tree, his unusual name begging for an explanation.
For years, the attention fell on his daughter Mahala. The family story turned her name into a symbol of a supposed “Native ancestor” — a romantic tale that’s popped up in many New England family histories. In reality, Mahala was a fairly common 19th-century name, with biblical roots and wide use across America. But Urdix? That one never made sense.
The Colby line connects to the West and Colgrove families of Hopkinton and Westerly, Rhode Island. By the early 1700s, they were part of a tight-knit Baptist church community where families overlapped in faith, marriage, and daily life.
The church records from 1727–1728 show them all together: an argument with Francis Colgrove over an unpaid oxen debt, overseen by elders and members with names like George Stillman and Benjamin Burdick. These weren’t just neighbors — they were bound together in worship, commerce, and community decisions.
That’s the world Urdix’s great-grandparents came from.
“Stillman” as a name makes perfect sense. The Colbys had used it for a couple of generations by the time Urdix was born — he even had an uncle named Stillman, and the name appears among cousins. The Stillmans themselves were respected members of that same Rhode Island community, so continuing the tradition likely felt natural. Using a surname as a middle name was a common way to honor family friends or allies.
But “Urdix”? That’s where things get interesting.
Here’s where the fun theory comes in.
What if “Urdix” is actually a mutation of “Burdick” — another prominent Westerly family who show up again and again in those church records?
It’s not hard to imagine:
A note or memory of “B. Burdick” getting misread as “B. Urdix.”
Oral tradition twisting “Burdick” over generations - discussions about the "Burdicks" becoming "Urdix"
John Colby, in naming his son, remembering that these were important family names, even if the exact story had been blurred by time.
The pairing of Urdix and Stillman in one name suddenly looks less like a mystery and more like a deliberate double tribute to community ties from generations earlier.
Of course, this is all conjecture — genealogical fan-fiction, if you will. Maybe one day we’ll uncover a diary or a neighbor’s ledger that tells of a man actually named Urdix who helped the family and earned the honor. For now, the Burdick theory just makes a satisfying kind of sense.
Name mysteries like this aren’t unique — even Almanzo Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame has sparked decades of speculation. Family lore claimed he was named for a Moor who saved an ancestor’s life — a romantic tale, but genealogists have struggled to verify it. Instead, records show a small wave of “Almanzos” appearing in New England in the late 1700s, likely inspired by a well-known preacher of the time.
The Wilders’ naming puzzles feel especially close to home for me because my Colby family is part of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s lineage. Tracing it out looks like this:
Urdix Stillman Colby → John Colby & Relief Adams → Rev. John Colby & Abigail West → Ezekiel Colby & Sarah Fowler
Laura Ingalls Wilder → Charles Ingalls & Caroline Quiner → Lansford Ingalls & Laura Colby → Nathan Colby & Eunice Blood → Ezekiel Colby & Sarah Fowler
That makes Urdix Stillman Colby and Laura Ingalls Wilder first cousins twice removed — distant, yes, but close enough to make the connection feel tangible. The same family lines that wound through rural Vermont and western New York eventually helped shape the stories that defined an era of American life.
This is what I love about genealogy: sometimes, names are little time capsules. They carry scraps of memory — of neighbors, of church elders, of friendships that mattered deeply to earlier generations. Over time, those memories get distorted. A name like “Mahala” becomes mythologized. A name like “Urdix” becomes a riddle.
But when you dig into these stories — when you follow the names, debts, and friendships that connect them — you start to see something more human than just names and dates. You begin to glimpse personalities, loyalties, humor, and heart.
That’s where genealogy gets fun. Curiosity doesn’t just fill in the blanks; it brings people back to life, one improbable name at a time.
I may never prove it on paper, but I love the idea that Urdix Stillman Colby was named in honor of the Stillmans and Burdicks — families who once sat beside his great-grandparents in a small New England meetinghouse, voting on who owed whom for a pair of oxen.
View in Pittsford, Vermont, Frederic Edwin Church, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons