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African American Genealogy

Reflecting on 2014 and setting Genealogy Goals for 2015

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Blog wordle Goals-2

The Start of a New Year

I cannot believe that it is 2015 already! I remember this time last year I had just started blogging on my website and was being inspired by the community at African American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research (AAGSAR) and the “No Brick Walls Challenge” that was lead and mentored by Lucky Daniels of Our Georgia Roots. I had always wanted to start a family website for my passion of genealogy and I did it! So again, this year I will reflect on 2014 and start setting new goals for 2015.

I was a little nervous and intimidated to start this blog, because I have not really journaled since the early college years in the late 90’s. I consider myself a novice blogger/writer aka “Story Teller”. I feel like I should definitely brush up on my writing skills and perhaps take a class to get reacquainted with the written word which will hopefully allow me to be a more creative and eloquent writer. What is funny about this is that I use to love to write stories and research papers in high school and college. I hope to reconnect with my “inner youth” which is an essence of hope, inspiration and passion that I seemed to have a lot more of 20 years ago. Wow, I can’t believe I am reflecting on 20 years, it really seems like yesterday that I was just 19 years old.

As time passes, the older I get there are so many things that I want to accomplish and discover, I wonder how I will ever be able to do everything in this head of mine. Maybe I won’t be able to get to do everything that I want, but I definitely realize that it is important to prioritize your goals both personally and professionally. So here is what I have learned about setting genealogy goals in 2014 on my genealogy quest.

Pat your self on the back for setting goals!
I am patting myself on the back because this was the first year that I really wanted to start setting goals for my genealogy research and truly move past and start to crumble down some brick walls. The first step to accomplishing anything is setting a goal to do it. Although I may not have achieved everything I wanted to do, I made some significant strides in my genealogy research and finding many of my enslaved ancestors and their names.

Revisit and Revise your goals often!
This is something that I wish I would have done more of this year. As new discoveries were unfolding I should have been setting new goals to help me answer questions to these new discoveries. I set some general goals but I should have applied the SMART technique: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound. I also find that it is best to have a good mix of short and long term goals to keep you focused and motivated.

Collaboration is a huge help!
Collaborating with other genealogists, family members and others about your research is enlightening and will bring new found knowledge to your research. I would have never gotten so far in my research without talking to family members and other genealogists about my research. I was also lucky enough to connect with new cousins this year who have helped to inspire me with their research and that helps to keep me motivated in discovering new lines of my family.

DNA, DNA,DNA!
This topic will be discussed more by me in the coming year as it has already helped me in so many ways. Any researcher who has brick walls should definitely take a DNA test to help them in their journey. DNA has disproved a very important family story in my family. I would have never questioned it until I received my DNA results. I spent a lot of time researching another family line that was not directly connected to me, however the research did help lead me to the facts that I genealogically had no DNA ties to this line as I had been told. Because I had already researched the names I knew that none of those surnames were coming up as my common ancestors in my DNA matches. But the best thing so far that I have found via DNA is many new cousins that love genealogy research as much as I do! When it is 1 am in the morning and I am up doing genealogy research, it is great to send an email to a fellow genealogy researcher and cousin, who is on the same genealogy quest that I am.

So what new goals have I set for 2015? I have some lofty goals for my genealogy research this year so here are a few:

* Work on taking my passion for genealogy into my primary profession
* Take a writing class
* Write more about my research
* Take a genealogy road trip or two
* Research and learn more about my Vann and Brantley family lines
* Make more DNA connections to help find my enslaved ancestors

I think this is a good start what do you think?

52 Ancestors #3: Julia Miller Jackson

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Julia Miller Jackson

Julia Miller Jackson

This is my grandmother Julia Miller Jackson and I was terrified of her. She was born in Syracuse, MO and lived there her entire life.  I was her youngest grandchild and the one who unfortunately knew her the least, however looking back on it, I am so glad I got to know a little about her first hand,  because as an adult looking back on what I remember I now know that she was a strong lady who must have been somewhat independent in nature and a “do it yourself kind of woman” which is very similar to myself.

There are a few things about my grandmother that I remember telling my friends about when I was a young kid that I thought was “no big deal” until they all started laughing at me. The first thing I remember is that she smoked a pipe. Come to find out years later as a teenager, that was not a very fashionable thing for a woman to do. Secondly, she had no toilet inside her house, until she was finally forced to have one put in by family. Yes, that’s right even in the 80’s my grandma had an “outhouse”. Oh, I so hated visiting grandma every weekend and thinking about how I would have to use the outhouse and that stench.  She also, had chicken’s everywhere, which I didn’t quiet understand, but I sure did love chasing them around. She also had this little dog, named Candy that constantly barked at you if you even came close to grandma. Why was I so afraid of this woman as a child? Thinking back to it, is that she always wanted me to kiss her and all I saw was this old woman who smelled like tobacco and constantly yelled at the TV when wrestling was on. Yes, my grandmother was an avid wrestling fan. Something that still makes me laugh hysterically as I thinking about it today,  especially as I think how Grandma and my husband Kyle would have kicked it off!

Grandma Julia Jackson smoking a pipe

Grandma Julia Jackson smoking a pipe

I wish I could have had an adult conversation with Grandma and picked her brain and got as many family stories as possible. My grandma’s mother was Georgia Miller Roberts and it has been said through family stories that my grandmother’s father was white. This was one of the reason’s why I wanted to take a DNA test to see if who the father is from family stories is true. I have not tied the surname of Keevil to my DNA lineage and I think the family story may be incorrect. Let me re-phrase that, I think the family story got altered throughout the year’s, however, the family story led me to a huge clue and coincidence in my research. I am going on a theory right now, but I believe my grandmother’s father is actually connected to the family of the Keevil’s, but actually the wife of Mara T Keevil, Gladys Hubbard. How did I come to this theory? First, my DNA connects to no Keevil surname, which I find suspicious since it would be from the male line which would have been carried down for many generations. Secondly, I keep coming across the surname Hubbard in many of my DNA connections. What a coincidence that the Mara T Keevil was married to a Gladys Hubbard? Gladys had a brother about the same age as Mara T Keevil. My great grandmother Georgia Miller was supposedly working for the Keevil’s family store.

I continue to keep getting more questions on this quest. I wonder if I will ever find the answer. I think when we look at the DNA of my uncle, it will give me more definitive answers.

IJK

52 Ancestors # 2: Hubbard(aka Herbert) Jackson

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Finding Hubbard Jackson
Whoever says that African American genealogy research cannot be done prior to 1870 is incorrect!  I am making it a personal mission to recreate the untold stories and facts of the life of my ancestors.  Through continued persistence and making connections with other genealogists a brick wall has been shattered!  Here is how it has unfolded…..

My genealogy quest for the 1st Hubbard Jackson (aka Herbert), who was born a slave in or around 1850 has been an ongoing brick wall for many years.  This past year I have revamped my genealogy methodology by reading great books, going to conferences and doing a lot of collaboration with other genealogists.  A fellow genealogist led me in the direction of a possible slave owner of Hubbard Jackson, John Kelly.  I had always wondered if this “Herbert Jackson” on the census was my Hubbard as he is listed as white.  Well, I remembered my Uncle Donald telling me the family story that this Hubbard was passing for white and I always thought he was referring to the 2nd Hubbard Jackson.  It turns out that I had got the generations of the Hubbard’s mixed up.  There has been 4 Hubbard’s/(Herbert’s) my Uncle Buster being the last name sake.  So when my friend told me she had found the slave owner I went back to the 1870 census to revisit the information of this white Herbert Jackson and tracked his employer John Kelly down in Clark County Kentucky on the 1860 census.
Willow Fork Township

Willow Fork Township, Moniteau County, Missouri

In the midst of this research I had decided to do an AncestryDNA test to help me narrow down some of these brick walls that I have.  However, it was not Ancestry.com that helped me solidify the link of Hubbard, but it was a DNA cousin that I found by uploading my DNA results to Gedmatch.com a free website for DNA testers to upload their raw data to compare to others outside of Ancestry.com.  I cannot say enough great things about this website because it helped me connect with 2 distant cousins and one who connects with me on Hubbard Jackson side.  He was able to share his tree with me and we narrowed down that our connection is in Clark County, Kentucky.  We are very close to discovering who Hubbard’s father was through our DNA.
Probate report listing Hannah and Hubbard

Probate report listing Hannah and Hubbard

So here are a few facts that we have discovered in the probate records.  Hubbard moved from Kentucky to Missouri with a son, John Kelly, of the slave owning family between 1860 and 1866.  I personally don’t think it was until after the civil war and after the death of John Kelly’s mother in 1864, but I am still gathering more information around this family.  Another great find in the Clark County, Kentucky probate records is we are able to identify Hubbard’ mother Hannah, who was born around 1825, and siblings.  So many questions with so little time.  Of course I now want to know what happened to Hannah after slavery and where did Hubbard’s siblings go?  Also, will I be able to trace Hannah’s origins?  Who were her parents?  Can I get back even further?  But right now I will focus on who is Hubbard Jackson’s father?  Do you think this mystery can be solved?
IJK

52 Ancestors #1: Iva Mae Brantley

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I have decided to jump in and take the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge started by blogger Amy Johnson Crow.  I have been thinking about this challenge since the beginning of the year as I definitely have 52 ancestors and many more to honor through this forum.  Genealogy and Family History is very personal for me.  I find it to be very therapeutic in nature for me since I did not grow up in the traditional sense.  My genealogy quest is a way for me to find out more about the people who came before me in hopes of understanding their lives from a different perspective. So, with all the many fascinating people in my family history, I decided to approach this writing and research challenge similar to how you start your genealogy research and start with your parents.  So my first entry will be about my mother Iva Mae Brantley.

My mother Iva, who I am affectionately named for, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1950 to Dorothy Vann, my grandmother and grandfather Ivan Brantley.  Sadly, I never got to know my mother because she died several hours after I was born in 1975.  My father Billy Jackson, her husband, felt as though he was not capable of taking care of me so entrusted me to friends and family.  When I was four years old, my Aunt Cathy, my fathers sister, took me in and raised me until I was seventeen.  I grew up knowing I had a half sister named Chuggy from my mother, but I knew very little about my mother’s side of the family.

Until recently, I didn’t even know my grandmother’s maiden name(Vann) until I got in contact with my uncle who gave me some great leads on my Brantley and Vann side.  My mother’s kin is from the Oklahoma area and were part of the Five Civilized Tribes.  The information that I got from my Uncle was amazing and it lead me to a world of information that I had never known about my history.  I had no idea that Native American’s owned slaves and I have now become engrossed in learning their history and excited to tell their stories.  My genealogy quest has been such a learning experience into things about history that I am embarrassed that I did not already know more about.

I have one picture of my mother with my half sister below and this was taken December 1971 and my mother would have been twenty one years old and Chuggy would have been six years old at the time.  I love this picture and every time I look at it I see that I have her eyes and her hands.

My mother and half sister

My mother Iva Mae Brantley and half sister Chuggy

Some of the things that I know about my mother are, she was a short woman in stature, a great friend to my Aunt Cathy, a nice woman but who could be tough when she needed to and everyone loved being around her.  I am told that my mother worked at the Kansas City juvenile detention center and had to deal a lot with troubled teens.  I also know my mother had to have had her own troubles as a teen as she had my half sister at fourteen years old. My mother also had another daughter a year later who she gave up for adoption at the age of fifteen.  All I know of this other daughter is that my mother had named her Gidget.  Two kids by the time you were 15, makes me wonder what could have possibly been going on in her life.  However, my mother did get it together by the time she had me because she was 24 and married and had a good job and was well respected by family and friends.  As an adult now who is reflecting back on my own life and I have lived 14 years longer than my mother, I know that there must have been some turbulence in her early life as I know that being a teenager is not easy.

Part of my genealogy quest will be to get to know more about my Vann’s and Brantley branches and get to know the people who knew my mother for the short time that she was here and honor her memory in every possible way that I can.  I also hope this forum will lead me to connecting with family I have never known.

IJK

Genealogy Tip #2 Use your Local Library Resources

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Currently, I am working on my maternal lineage and I have discovered that my family was part of The Five Civilized Tribes, which is comprised of the Native American tribes: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole. My family was part of the African American Freedman in the Tahlequah District. Thanks to the Dawes Rolls, which I will discuss in an upcoming blog post, I was able to get some very valuable information on part of my maternal lineage. Much of the information I was lucky enough to find online, but I got to a point I where I needed to get further information. The Dawes Rolls interview of my 2nd great grandfather Daniel Vann Jr. has given me many clues to track back already to one slave owner on my 2nd great grandmother’s side (Smith) which will lead me to further research into Texas and Georgia. I needed to go back to the 1880 Cherokee Census, but unfortunately I did not find any online records for this source, but what I did do is Google what I was looking for and found that there was a published book out there which contained the information I was looking for. I was super excited about all these findings, but I was just as excited about using a resource that did not come to mind right away and I wanted to remind others about using your local library’s Inter-Loan Library program. I believe that most libraries offer these services so definitely visit or call your library for details. My local library has an online form that you fill out to tell them what book you are looking for and then they borrow the book from the nearest location and you pick up at your local library . I filled out the form on a Sunday and I had an email from the library the following Friday telling me that my book request was in. I was super excited to find that there was a published book, which is called The 1880 Cherokee Nation Census Indian Territory (Oklahoma). So now, I am compiling a list of genealogy books that will help me in my research. As many of you know, your genealogy hobby costs can add up over time as you begin to purchase this book and that book, but this is a great way to fray those costs and try a book out first to see if you really want to include into your own personal reference library.

Another great thing that I utilize my local library for is their Microfilm reader for my growing collection archived microfilmed records. I found that for me purchasing microfilm from the Missouri State Archives would be worth the investment as I would need to look through deed information and since I am now on the East Coast, getting back home to my Midwest roots is unfortunately rare, I wanted to have the Cooper County Deed Indexes on microfilm. Although I am on the lookout to purchase a used microfilm reader, until one comes across my lap, I order the microfilm that I know I will use for years to come and view it at my library. Generally these are not in high demand at the library so I have not had to wait to use as most patrons are looking to use the public computers and not the microfilm reader.

As a final note, the library also offers free access to Genealogy Databases such as Ancestry.com, HeritageQuest, American Ancestors. My library even allows to remote access for HeritageQuest with a valid library card. The Boston Public Library also offers an obituary database as well as historical newspapers. All of these resources are free with your library card.

We have a plethora of resources, we just need to know how to find them. Thanks for stopping by My Genealogy Quest!

IJK

Genealogy Tip #1 Connect with Genealogical and Historical Societies

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At a recent meeting of my local genealogical society the Massachusetts Society of Genealogists Inc., which I am a member of, they discussed a great topic about doing Family Trees and Charts and how to organize family history. For those who do it the more manual way there were some great tips offered for this method. I am a proponent for utilizing a family tree software as I find for myself it keeps me more organized and I have pretty much digitized all my records on my computer, however there is still somethings that I like to have also printed, such as maps and other records that I need to highlight and thumb through to thoroughly get at the information. Although I wont be utilizing the manual method for my charts and trees I did come away with some other great tips that were a part of the larger discussion, which lead me to a thought about sharing my own genealogical tips. I thought it would be fitting to start with my first tip which is connecting with Genealogical and Historical Societies.

This past year I decided that I wanted to go further with my passion for family history and I wanted connect with others who were just as passionate. I decided to become of member of the Massachusetts Genealogical Society Bristol Chapter. Although my roots are not from Massachusetts, I have found that connecting with other genealogists is still a great source of information. They offer the chance to help you learn from many different speakers on various subject matters as well as help you break down your own family “brick walls”. Some of the upcoming great topics that my local chapter will be discussing are “Passenger Lists for the Port of Boston”, “Azorean Family History” and “Advances in DNA” to name a few. I am also looking forward to the “Round-table Research” sessions which is a discussion by the members on specific topics and how to break down those brick walls.

Another great thing that many genealogical societies now offer are free classes or webinars to their members. This a great way to be able to attend a class or webinar at the convenience of your own time by attending the class online. This is also great for genealogists like me who are not near their home town roots or for genealogists who want to explore different information that is offered by many genealogical societies across the states and world.

Lastly, many if not most of the genealogical societies that are online today, also have an online repository to their previous newsletters and surname lists which could offer you a wealth of information of articles and family history information from previous years research by others. This is especially important for those of us who are doing research from a far.

These are just some of my favorite things that I have found from the Genealogical and Historical Societies, but there are so many others. Check out the links below to some of my favorites Genealogical and Historical Societies.

Massachusetts Society of Genealogists, Inc.

New England Historic Genealogical Society

Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, Inc.

Welcome to the Missouri State Genealogical Association

Kentucky Historical Society » Research, Collections & Genealogy

Federation of Genealogical Societies – Conferences

NERGC

Moniteau County Historical Society Resource page

Cooper County Historical Society

Welcome to the Genealogical Society of Central Missouri

Morgan County Historical Society | Morgan County Historical Society

Midwestern African American Genealogy Institute – HOME

National Genealogical Society | Home

Welcome to the Missouri State Genealogical Association

Missouri Digital Newspaper Project – Newspaper Collection – The State Historical Society of Missouri

Kentucky Historical Society

Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society | New England Chapter

2013 Seminar-2013 Seminar

Southern California Genealogical Society: Benefits of Membership

Thanks for stopping by My Genealogy Quest!

IJK

 

Wounds of Family History

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I decided today that I would try and write a blog about something that has been on my mind all week.  My challenge this week was going back to basics and really getting those details that may have been overlooked and making sure that I have all my source citations in place.  As I was confirming and verifying new data, I could not help but to think about my ancestors and how they endured many tribulations throughout their lives just like we all do.  It took me many years for me to understand that life is not always easy and you sometimes have to embrace and/or overcome life’s tribulations.

Growing up I always felt that I had got the short end of the stick by not being raised by either one of my parents.  Part of me buying into that was the fact that people constantly reminded me of it and would tell me that they felt sorry for me.  I took that to heart thinking that something was wrong with me and because of that I felt unworthy.  What I didn’t understand was that those things were out of my control and that as a child I am a product of what was inherited to me and that this would be my own wound that I would have to embrace and overcome in my life journey.  If you would have talked to me about this 10 years ago, I would have still been a mess and had not embraced my wound.  But, this week as I went through each and every one of my family members, everyone I know living and passed has had to deal with much adversity at some point through their lives.  Every person will carry a wound of some sort and many of us will carry the scars, but so much in life is the journey of how we heal.  I wish I could know all those stories of my ancestors and how they made it through.

So now I am pondering how do I cover the many wounds that I know of, as I am a descendant of all different types of family exploits.  How do you explain to people that you might be connected to them because of an outside relationship that someone had with another person?  I am not just talking about things that happened during slavery, but things that happened within the past 40 years.  Are there rules or a protocol in dealing with this in genealogy?  How much detail is too much to detail in telling your family history?  Should I just be a “transparent” family historian and let others draw there own conclusions?  I would love to know what others think.  Please leave your comments and suggestions below. 🙂

Reflecting on 2013 and Setting Genealogy Goals for 2014

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I must say that I ended 2013 off with a bang!  I have had two amazing genealogy things happen just in one day.  I have set some very lofty genealogy goals for myself in this upcoming year and I have also accomplished a few things this past year that I had not even set out to accomplish in the first part of the year.

One of my overall goals that I am continuing to work on is setting goals that I can accomplish even if that means setting them on a smaller scale first so that I can work towards the larger goal.  I think sometimes we fail to realize that we can accomplish many things, if we put a plan in place and and execute the plan methodically and as organized as possible.  I listened to a great audio book over the summer called “Chose yourself” by James Altucher and this year began my decision to “choose myself” on so many different levels.  My passion for genealogy was something I decided that I wanted to revisit and immerse myself in this forever addicting past time.  I always wanted to create a family website and I decided to take the plunge and just do it.  I watched a lot of videos on WordPress and how to build websites and shabang!  I did it!  I also had the great encouragement and resources of the many online community Facebook groups such as African American Genealogy and Slave Ancestry Research (AAGSAR), Our Black Ancestry and Technology for Genealogy.  I strongly recommend joining similar groups when you are on your quest for genealogy resources and support.

So although the website was a great success and accomplishment of 2013 I also had other genealogical successes.  One of the most important messages for me to convey to other African American family historians is that genealogy research can be done.  It may be more challenging, but it is possible.  That is one of the great things about being part of this growing community is that you are able to see the success of others and learn great skills.

I decided over the weekend to go back to the “genealogy basics” so that I can truly be methodical and consistent in my approach and make sure I am not missing anything.  I decided to go back through old records and notes that I did from over 10 years ago and see if there was anything I missed.  Sure enough there were some gaps on data I had not completely gathered between the 1870 and 1940 censuses.  There was also some contact notes that I had from connections I made from a distant great,great cousin.  When I talked to my great,great cousin Geraldine Jackson (Hogan) over 10 years ago she was about 80 years old.  I decided to google her to see if she was still alive and if there would possibly be any other cousins to connect with.  Unfortunately, when I googled her I found out she had recently passed per her obituary, but her obituary gave me the names of her kin.  Sure enough I searched via Facebook and already made a connection and many more to come.  Although one door closed, many more were opened up to connect with this family.

The 2nd thing I decided to do in going back to the “genealogy basics” was to start interviewing my family, starting with all my fathers living brothers and sisters.  The first on my list was my Uncle Buster who carries the namesake of the many Herbert Jackson’s that run through my family.  I would have to say that was one of the best phone calls I had all year!  My Uncle Buster is the oldest of all the kids on my fathers side.  We talked for about and hour and it was the most insightful information that I had ever learned about my uncle.  He told me about his service in the Korean War and how he was drafted and how he was one of the first integrated troops in 1952 as Harry Truman was the President who lead the integration of the military.  Uncle Buster stated, “race didn’t matter when you were in combat, that all went out the window when you are trying to survive”. He was a radio guy and the mountain he was on during battle was referred to as K4FM. He also discussed with me that he had a hard time proving his age when he was drafted because he didn’t have a birth certificate.  He was born at home and Dr. Dick (The physician that delivered him) never registered the birth so he had no birth certificate.  This seemed to be an issue at the time with many men who were drafted and enlisting in the military at the time because during the time of his birth most people were born at home.  The military ended up saying that he was born in 1934 but he said that was incorrect he was born in 1932.

See the following links about the Korean War integration:

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/anniversaries/desegblurb.htm

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/desegregation/large/index.php?action=chronology

Uncle Buster

When I was talking to my Uncle Buster, I got a completely different perspective on life that I was not initially seeking, but I am so glad for it.  He has opened the door for me to learn about about my fathers service as well as my other uncle’s service in the military.  What a great gift Uncle Buster has given to me.  I look forward to many more conversations with my Uncle and other family members.

This past year I also reconnected with an uncle on my mother’s side as well as made a connection with a cousin on my maternal side via Ancestry.com.  More blog posts to come from this side as I reconnect with family I have never known.

So 2014 is looking to be an exciting year with my new discoveries.  I hope you all follow and share with me your knowledge on my genealogy quest.  Happy New Year!

IJK

The 4 am blog…the start

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I started creating my website a few months ago in hopes that I would one day have this great repository of information and records for others who are also doing African American research in central Missouri, and hopefully that will be the case one day. But what I have realized is that this journey/endeavor that I am taking is exactly what it is, a journey that will take time. So I thought a great start to my blog would be to talk about what got me here on “My Genealogy Quest”.

First, I have been a lover of history since I was in elementary school. While most kids hated history class I was enthralled with it at a very young age and asked tons of questions in history class. Mr Kalbfleisch, my fifth grade teacher,was one of my favorite teachers growing up and he inspired my inquisition into everything history. I still to this day love reading and learning about world history. So the desire to know the past has all ways resonated with me.

But more personally, my genealogy quest for me is in hope to understand how my family came to be. I was not raised by my parents but with my Aunt Cathy, my fathers sister, so I was always wanting to know more about my family. My uncle Donald talked a lot about my paternal side and he really set my ground work into motion for my research. His oral history and details was right on target. He had written out our genealogy when I was in my early 20’s and I took that information and spent days in the Kansas City National Archives pulling census records. How exciting it was to get back to the 1870 census and see relatives names who were once enslaved.

So now it is 13 years later and I have dabbled here and there over these past 13 years, but I am now back fully committed to doing my family history to the fullest and breaking down the brick walls. I truly believe it is important for us all to document our family histories and have this information passed down for many generations to come. So this blog will touch on many different genealogical topics as I continue my exploration into my family’s history.

I am currently focusing on my paternal lineage which includes the following surnames: Jackson, Yancey, Keevil, Miller, Fowler, Hogan, Finley of central Missouri. For my maternal lineage, which I have only recently started to researching the following surnames: Brantley, Vann of Tulsa, Oklahoma. My maternal lineage is also linked to the Cherokee Indians of Oklahoma. I have already made a connection to this line and look forward to exploring further. I have also started researching my husbands side who is from Texas and Alabama, surnames include: Ketchum, Hooey and Stringer. I am truly looking forward to the future so that I may one day look back at my blogs to tell the story of my genealogy quest. This is just the start…..

IJK

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