July 25, 2008-Just Getting Started

This is the first day for my new blog. I hope that each entry will provide some new information and also record some family history. Being very new at genealogy, I have made some mistakes that have cost a lot of time and lost effort. I started on this quest to understand the family history in July 2007.

I had a very thorough genealogy of my family done by an Uncle in 1989, but I really wanted to see things for myself and look at sources and records that he probably had already seen. I knew I would remember it all much better and put the pieces together in my own mind. At the same time, I wanted to help develop the Brown family genealogy with my husband. Putting aside the Harris, Bonner family for a while I went to work on the Brown's. It was very difficult because the original Brown (1750) was named James, each of his sons had sons named James and so did each of his grandsons. Each son of James Brown (1750) also named their children the same name as their siblings. Really confusing. Decided to focus more on the more recent Brown's.

Starting with Jesse Wilson Brown (1826), we identified his migration from North Carolina, through Alabama and to Fannin County, Texas. In the late summer of 2007, we were going to be in Oklahoma and decided to drive to Fannin County to visit the cemetery where the Brown's were buried. This cemetery visit was the beginning of a very lengthy, time consuming effort to understand how everyone in this small cemetery, Woods Cemetery, might or might not be related.

While there, we looked at all the gravemarkers, took some pictures of ones named Brown and some of Olivers because we knew how they were related and wrote down a few other names. After returning home, we found a good transcription of the names and dates of those buried at Woods Cemetery on the Fannin County Genealogy site. Comparing the Fannin transcription with the names we saw, we thought maybe 15 people were Brown family. There were a total of 82 names listed in the transcription.

Well, how was it, these Brown's came to be buried in a cemetery noted as the Woods Family Cemetery? This was the beginning of an effort that was very time consuming. That is, who were the others? Why were they all in the same small cemetery? After about 3 months of researching census records and re-reading the Woods Cemetery transcription, I had made some progress. Finally, I had identified 67 of the 82 to be related to the Brown's by descendency or marriage. Only 15 people have appeared to be unrelated.

Although, this research and verification of Brown family members took a long time, I have learned not to ignore the names on other gravemarkers in small family cemeteries where your ancestors are buried. In visiting other small cemeteries, I now look around, write down related information and names. But, I haven't been thorough enough. Next time I'll tell you about Liberty Bell Cemetery.