Geneology Poll for Native Texans (West, Early: house, living, bus)

[neddy]

Bless my grandma cause this was her lifelong hobby. She traced the family back to Dalrida Kingdom (its was the coast of western Scotland). But 1st came into the US with the Pilgrims. Those that survived that meandered around to Tenn,then Lousiana territory then onto Texas while it still belonged to Spain/Mexico then just stuck around here

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by TXNGL

This is a fun thread, TexasReb. Maybe we could all throw some surnames out there, see if any of us are related?

You are right, TXNGL...somehow we might all be kin! LOL

I posted these links on the other thread a bit ago, so let me do it again on this one:

Hamrick Software - U.S. Surname Distribution (http://www.hamrick.com/names/ - broken link)

http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/

Now, THESE sites are cool if you are interested in genealogy!

Uh-oh...so far as some of us all being third cousins or some such? Wonder who gets first in line for the later day shot-gun weddings?

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by neddy

Bless my grandma cause this was her lifelong hobby. She traced the family back to Dalrida Kingdom (its was the coast of western Scotland). But 1st came into the US with the Pilgrims. Those that survived that meandered around to Tenn,then Lousiana territory then onto Texas while it still belonged to Spain/Mexico then just stuck around here

*smiles wryly and sadly* I sure wish I had taken more time to really listen to all my great-grandmothers' and grandfathers' stories of their youth and grandparents.

But of course, I was 17 or 21 and I just didn't have the time...

Reminds me of that classic poem:

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
'Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.'
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

[TexasHorseLady]

Listening to the stories of the near ancestors is interesting, but one thing I've learned doing genealogy is to take all oral family histories with a serious measure of salt.

For example, both of my aunts (one of whom did the research to qualify us for the DAR, the Daughters of the Confederacy AND the Daughters of the Republic of Texas) insisted that an ancestor of ours (their great-grandfather) was married to three women and he outlived all three of them. My research showed that one of those three wives was actually married to his son who had the same name but with one extra name thrown in. But would they believe it? Nope. Not marriage records, wills, nor the graves of the two gentlemen with their last wives buried next to them (and the dates on the gravestones indicating that the great-grandfather's last wife had outlived him), in two separate cemeteries both of which were within a mile of the old home place, meant a thing, because their grandmother had told them, way back when they were 8 or 10, that he had three wives and what their names were! (You need to know that these women were in their seventies at the time.)

There's usually a grain of truth to be going on with in doing your research, but you have to find it amongst the rest.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Listening to the stories of the near ancestors is interesting, but one thing I've learned doing genealogy is to take all oral family histories with a serious measure of salt.

There's usually a grain of truth to be going on with in doing your research, but you have to find it amongst the rest.

LOL Yeah, that is true!

The one that best comes to mind for me is that one of my ggg-grandfathers was a captain in the Confederate Army. This info came by way of a great-uncle of mine. Since most of the verified ancestral grandpappy's of mine were in the private Rebel ranks, the possibilty that one might have been an officer naturally piqued my interest!

Well, when I started doing the real research of the name and old Confederate muster rolls and all, I could find no matching name recorded as an officer. The closest I could find was a buck sergeant from an Alabama unit. Which did match up with the birth place and all. Still, again, no captain.

So...I took these findings back to the g-uncle and he said something like, "welllll, you know...I just remember when I was a boy that everybody called him "captain" so I just assumed he was." LOL

Well, here is what I figure:

1. This particular ggg-grandfather, toward the end of the War, got a battlefield promotion to captain and such was never actually recorded. That was not really uncommon toward the end, so such was at least possible.

2. The more likely story is that he got a "generational promotion" (to coin a phrase). That is, he was actually a private, corporal, or perhaps sergeant, but told such good stories of battle and, eventually, down thru the family lines, it stretched to that he attained officer rank by virtue of the fact he could spin a good yarn! And the kin wanted to believe it! LOL

[Westerner92]

I wish I had more time to research my ancestry. Just going by the last names and family stories, I know I'm a Euro-mutt (British Isles, German, Czech, and French) with one great grandparent being American Indian. Of the six or so generations that my family can trace, all have been from Texas except for one of my great grandfathers who was from Illinois. Interestingly enough, if he had used his father's last name instead of his mother's, my last name would be Bohemian German rather than English. That's pretty much the extent of my knowledge.

[loves2read]

My sister traced our family back to beyond Revolutionary War--
my dad's side of the family came to TX from Tenn but his ancestors were traced back to Vermont area before Revolution and to England before that

My mom's from Atlanta--she and my dad met when he was in Army hospital there in WWII...
the story is the first time she saw him--when she went with her sister to visit a guy they knew who was patient in hospital--she saw my dad and told my aunt that was the guy she was going to marry...

and they did -- about 3 mo later--eloped to Jonesboro--
Her family came from UK into GA about time of Revolution as well

My husband--also Texas born--has paternal side that has Dutch roots--who came to TX before Civil War--think through Alabama

and that GRAIN of truth is true--
my dad always swore that he had Indian blood--and he looked it -- straight black hair until he was in his late 80s--strong cheeks and sort of big nose--
when my sister was doing the geneology trace--she looked and looked for his strain of Indian blood--could not find any of it--
he refused to believe it--took lot of pride in his belief in Indian blood--

my mother--on the other hand--who never claimed any Indian background--had Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee--in her background...

[TexasHorseLady]

My husband's mother's side always claimed to have Comanche and Waco in their background through a great-grandmother, and there was an elaborate story about it. Research, however, turned up that she was from Wurtenburg, Germany, and came over to Galveston on the boat with her mother and brothers. So much for the Indian in the background, but looking at his mother, I have NEVER seen anyone who looked more Indian in my life.

The great-grandmother's husband was from Georgia, one Russell Jones - good Welsh name. Traced him back to Georgia to a Russell Jones married to a Margaret Vann, daughter of James Vann, and got stuck - ran into a brick wall.

Some years later (having learned that the wisest thing to do when running into a genealogical brick wall is to go do something else), I was helping our son research a school paper on Indian warfare. (WAY pre-internet.) We were at the library, and I picked up a book on American Indians and turned to the index, only to see the names Russell Jones, Margaret Vann, and James Vann - all Cherokees who took Welsh names.

Which explained a lot, except that the great-grandmother was mixed up with the great-grandfather, and the involved story about it was apparently all made up of whole cloth.

[TXNGL]

Funny about the family stories. Where I was told to look for Indian I never found any, though there are plenty of brick walls. On the other hand, I found Cherokee and Powhatan in a place I was never told to look. I see it like the game we played as kids where you whisper something in someone's ear and they whisper to the next person, going around in a circle until the last person says out loud what they heard. These stories get muddled through the generations.

[debzkidz]

I've been working on my family genealogy lately and what I've come up with so far is that most of my family, on both sides of my family came to Texas from Tennessee between 1870-1900. My great-great grandfather, on my moms side was born in Mississippi. My grandfather actually had traced that branch of the family back to the 1600's in Virginia, coming from Ireland. It's funny when I look at it and see that all of these generations were born in Texas except for my own parents. I guess they were both born during the depression and my grandparents had left Texas temporarily to find work. My mom was born in Arkansas and my dad was born in Kansas. Within a year of each of them being born, all the families were back in Texas where they belonged.