Despite the fact that descendants of Joseph Vick can be found all across the United States, one official group of Vicks only visits the River City every six years.

Gailen Vick, president of the Joseph Vick Family of America, said 2025’s visit will be the group’s last formal trip to the River City until 2031. Saturday afternoon, he welcomed a group of Vick descendants, as well as other visitors from around the River City, to the George Washington Ball House for a reception. Vicksburg has become a favorite stop for the group, they said, because Joseph Vick was directly descended from Vicksburg founder Newitt Vick.

“I can’t explain how much I’ve enjoyed running this crew of the Joseph Vick Family,” he said, adding the group has formally voted to change its name to the Vick Family History Society in order to include other Vicks who may or may not be directly descended from Joseph.

According to the group’s website, the Joseph Vick Family of America is a non-profit association dedicated to the genealogy of Joseph Vick, who was a planter, of Lower Parish, Isle of Wight County, Virginia. His exact place of birth is unknown; he was probably born about 1640 and immigrated to Virginia in America in the mid-to-late 1660s. He died in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, around 1700. The organization maintains a database of Joseph Vick’s descendants (www.jvfoa.org), sponsors annual conferences, and a blog site on Facebook (JVFOA). The group is a nonprofit corporation with a 501(c)(7) US Internal Revenue filing code and incorporated in the State of North Carolina in the United States of America.

In addition to the weekend’s official Vicksburg visit, the Vick Family History Society also highlighted its most recent achievements in chronicling its genealogy, three books on the Vick family, all written by famed genealogist John D. Beatty, CG.