[1] Born to the former Elizabeth Woodson (1740–1791) and her husband Nathaniel Venable (1733–1804) at Slate Hill Plantation, a farm in what is now Worsham, Prince Edward County, then in the Colony of Virginia.

However, only his eldest brother Samuel W. Venable (1756–1821) actually lived in Prince Edward County in 1787, having married the daughter of Judge Paul Carrington (and was taxed on 15 slaves (seven adults and eight children), four horses and 27 other livestock).

Their father Nathaniel Venable held a license to operate an ordinary (tavern/inn) in Prince Edward County and paid the taxes for William Anderson and Jessee Hamblet (probable overseers), as well as for 26 slaves (14 adults and 12 children), 8 horses and 44 other livestock.

After his congressional stint, Venable won election and thrice re-election as one of Prince Edward County's representative in the Virginia House of Delegates, mostly alongside Peter Johnston (who would ultimately become the body's Speaker), serving from 1801 until taking his interim U.S. Senate seat.

[6] Fellow legislators in the Virginia General Assembly elected Venable to the Senate to fill a vacancy, serving from 1803 to 1804, when he resigned (after his father's death) to practice law in Richmond.

His brother Richard Nathaniel Venable, who had served as an officer during the Revolutionary War, would inherit Slate Hill Plantation, as well as continue the family political tradition as a lawyer, state senator and member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829.