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My name is Ramona Tarrant Bryant. Although I am interested in both my maternal ancestoral line (Edwards, Combs, Killingsworth and Saye) I am primarily working to organize and enter my paternal line into my computer at this time. I do have baskets of notebooks filled with library and courthouse findings which I am pleased to share. I spent hours in library stacks and musty courthouse basements as well as on country roads searching for cabin remains and houses orfamily cemetaries. My line of Tarrants descends from Leonard-which Leonard? To my mind they are all related as time and again brothers named their children the same names! Really makes it confusing, especially in my case for my rev. war veteran was Capt. Samuel Tarrant and some researchers said my Sam was dead--no children! Well, I am here and I knew his name so I knew that was the wrong Sam! Charlie Tarrants of Delphi,NY really helped me on this one! He is an excellent researcher and writer! He was able to get his hands on and copy VA records to prove Sam was a soldier and helped me tie in my research with court records of his business and land ventures! James Tarrant of Falls Church, VA, is a researcher to be trusted! He is always on the chase of a new lead and being in Virginia, has access to original court records. He is also a wonderful writer. I have done a lot of Englich research and have located 7 Tarrant villages on the Tarrant River in Dorsetshire. I said I fel tall the Leonards were related for there are so many back through the years! In the13th century in "Canterbury Entrances", Leonard Tarrant is listed twice--as a "hostelier" and as a "vitular"--I would think. an innkeeper?! I found birth, marriaage and death records from the records of St. Olaive's church. Southwork, London, from the 1200s forward. I also have a copy of the unpublished manuscript of Susan Tuggle Herdon that tells of her families weaving and tailoring business with Herndons, Tarrants and Tugwell--(Tuggle)-- "the Frist Alliance" she traces her family from the Tarrant's Rest estate near Bradford on the Avon to the colonies. Her family names tie in with ours both in England and later in Kentucky. I am from Champaign,Illinois. My father thought he was the only Tarrant in Illinois. I was surprised to fing Susan's book on the shelves of the tiny Danville library, placed there by Larkin Tuggle! The staff told me there had been Tarrants there--the last woman was a teacher and had recently died--others had moved to Effingham,Ill. I was directed to a small Tarrant graveyard. A widow Jones had visited England and married Frederick Tarrant. That they should meet and return to an area whee Tarrants lived seems more than a coincedence to me.
Now I am puting together a collection of "mini-bios" for my family. I am trying to tie in the history of the family and the times in which they lived. I do have a picture of Minos Tarrant which has to be from the mid 1800s and also a group portrait of the first John McConnell Tarrant, his wife Nancy Potter Tarrant and their 8 adult children taken soon after the civil war in Dadeville, Missouri. I want accurate information, but I also very much desire word of mouth family stories! I want to capture their personality as much as possible to make them real people to the reader--not just names and dtes on a chart! I started this when my young daughter, Donna Melinda died. I wnted her to be remembered. I threw myself into research to work out my grief. As I found more about one person another name would appear and I heard,"Tell my story!" It seemed to me that new doors would open! I have enjoyed this and at last acknowledge what Thalia Tarrant, an elderly cousin who was a college history teacher, told me. I presented her with what was a family history. She laughed and said, "That's a good outline! Now get back to work! You'll never be finished because history is a living thing!"
I want to share and will mail copies of informa
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