The Ancestral Pen

I wrote this post back in 2009 on my other blog, "Untangled Family Roots." This is one of my favorite treasures from my genealogy research days. Some day I'll write a book about this experience and Grandma's life. However, it's one of those books that I keep starting and then putting down because it holds a special place in my heart, and I want it to be perfect.  ----------------------------------- 2009 As a result of more than two years of research, I was finally able to give my husband's grandmother the gift she had most wanted. When she was a child, her mother, Flora May   (Manning) Conner died after giving birth. Grandma didn't even know if the child was a girl or a boy, and all she ever wanted was to find where her mother was buried and return to visit her. After I found where she was buried at the Llano Cemetery Amarillo Potter County Texas, USA Plot: Section 74 Lot 46 Space 1, my sister and mother-in-law were able to take her on a trip to Texas and ...

Photo shared by Glenda Owen on Ancestry.com My fourth great-grandfather,  Tillman Williamson "T.W." Graham  (1817-1893), was a man perpetually in motion, chasing opportunity across three states during one of America's most transformative periods. But his story also serves as a perfect reminder of why careful record analysis matters in genealogy, because sometimes those convenient Ancestry leaf hints can lead us astray if we're not paying attention. From Tennessee Roots to Texas Dreams Born on May 15, 1817, near Nunnley in Hickman County, Tennessee, T.W. started life in the established settlements of middle Tennessee. By 1841, he had married Jency Jane Williams in Perry County, and their first son, Charles Granville, arrived in 1843. But Tennessee couldn't hold this restless pioneer for long. By 1846, the young family had packed up and headed for the promise of Texas, settling first in Cass County. This wasn't just a casual move—T.W. was investing in land, ...

  Sometimes our ancestors seem to emerge from the historical records like ghosts, leaving only breadcrumbs of their existence scattered across decades and state lines. Willie Marion Crooks was one of those restless souls—a man perpetually in motion, chasing opportunities across the American frontier as the 19th century gave way to the 20th. Born on October 18, 1876, in Hill County near Hillsboro, Texas, Willie entered a world still raw from Reconstruction. His parents, Bolivar Houston Crooks and Martha G. Thomas, were raising their large family in the heart of rural Texas, where cotton fields stretched to the horizon and the frontier was still a living reality rather than a romantic memory. A Texas Childhood The 1880 census captures four-year-old Willie as simply another child in the Crooks household—one of many siblings, including brothers John Porter, General Grant, Daniel H., Guy Melton, and sisters Sudi, Julia, Maggie Delana, and Sarah Jane. His father, Bolivar, worked the ...