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Welcome!
My family tree has
nearly 18,000 members so one can certainly get
lost in the midst of the many names involved but
the searchbox will help locate almost any name or
location that I have researched..
I managed
to locate my dad's parents Luella Coonfield and
Frank Delbert Cochran on a few census images, the
one in 1930 included my daddy at age 3 and then
the four great grandparents were also traced back
a ways. Frank Delbert's parents were Clora Jane
Miller, a pipe smoker who could read the ashes and
Jacob Benjamin Cochran, a Civil War Vet who had
moved his family to Kansas in 1882 from Iowa..
Jacob had been married and had six
daughters before he was widowed and met Clora. I
had heard that he had joined in the California
Gold Rush and sure enough, found him and his
brother in the California census, while I also
found his wife remaining in Ohio with the children
on another census, right next to his brother
Alexander Cochran. Most of them migrated into Iowa
Territory by 1870
His daughter Elzira wrote
a letter, in my files, about her daddy coming back
with socks of gold dust and about the move to Iowa
where she married her true love.
Clora's
brother John Miller seemed to have followed them
and I do have pictures of my daddy with some of
the Miller boys who were his
cousins.
Luella's parents were Lattie
Cedonia Little born in Kentucky and Benjamin
Wallace Coonfield of Indiana, but his parents had
migrated to Arkansas many years before..
I
had found that Jacob Cochran was born in 1822 Ohio
to parents from Pennsylvania, Martha Henderson and
William Cochran, a son of Alexander. Apparently
William and Alexander were the only two Cochrans
in Guernsey Ohio at that time. Clora Jane's
parents were Mary Clara Parker and James Madison
Miller of Illinois, while Mary's father was a
Doctor Wanton Horatio Parker, so the story is told
that Mary would help the Indians with medicine
needs. Wanton's parents were Sarah Tefft and
Archelaus Parker who's families were in
Massachusetts and Rhode Island during the 1600s
and then into New York Indian Country, but also
with connections to the history of King Phillip
where he killed one of the Tefft brothers.
Many
tribes of these areas migrated into Ohio and
Kentucky...blending with the early
settlers.
Lattie was a beautiful mixed
Cherokee indian and family tale is that her father
refused a land allotment in Oklahoma's Indian
Territory and moved his family into
Arkansas.
Benjamin's family of
Indiana were Benjamin Wylie Coonfield, another
Civil War Vet and Martha Frances Young and the
photos of this family indicate they mixed. The
Youngs and Coonfields go way back into 1800
Kentucky near where Daniel Boon's family lived,
finding Squire Boon on the census..
Lattie
Little's parents were Mary Catherine Crigler and
John Wright Little, a Civil War Vet, both having
family in early Kentucky history books, pages I
have copied into my webpages. Catherine's parents
were Nancy Catherine Roby, (daughter of Reason
Roby) and Abraham Crigler. John's parents were
Catherine G. Wright ( daughter of Catherine
Weatherford and John C. Wright. Catherines father
was Charles Weatherford and we know his wonderful
place in history with Sehoy) and Doctor Hiram
Lucius Little who was a surgeon in the Civil
War.
Hiram's parents were Betsy
Douglass and Jonas Little who were married in 1798
Union County South Carolina. Hiram was widowed
young and moved to Texas with a very young teen
bride ( 14 !! ) and started a new family in Bosque
County.
Parents of Betsy Douglass were Mary
Handley and Alexander Douglass and after his
murder in Pennsylvania, she moved to South
Carolina and later on married her daughter's
father in law.
It was Mary Handley's brother,
Captain John Handley, a surveyor like Daniel Boon,
who urged these families to move into Vienna,
Kentucky and gave land to his sisters.
John
Handley and his son became wealthy land owners and
Senators who are mentioned in the History of
Kentucky books. Hiram Little's brother was named
Douglass and he had his own wagon making shop, but
became a wealthy lawyer as well as his own son
Powhatan Little, also mentioned in those books, as
well as the controversial murder of brother Wesley
Little.
While the Criglers connect to the
historical Germanna Colony of Virginia and the
Millers connect to 1700 Rockingham Virginia where
Reverend Alexander Miller is written about and
buried, I find the story of Captain George Little
born 1733 Scotland so very awesome, as he settled
into Union County South Carolina, served in the
American Revolution, had ten children, and moved
into Kentucky in 1802 where he is mentioned in
several pages of the Kentucky Bios and Kentucky
History Books
Most of these families also
had a great grandfather who served in the American
Revolution.
My mother's side was a little
difficult to trace at first, since she was
orphaned at age 4, but it soon came to light. Her
parents were Alice Emma McClain and Cecil Earl
Fenn Carter but he did not use the name Fenn,
since his mother Anna Lou Stone had remarried a
few times. Cecil's death certificate was signed by
his brother Emmett Marvin Fenn who added the
parents names of Annie Stone and William Franklin
Fenn, so I ordered William's death certificate and
found his parents were Emily Harrell and John F.
Fenn of Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama, and
census records show they were born in Georgia in
1829.
Anna Stone's family also came out of
Georgia into Macon, Alabama on the 1850 census,
Augustus Marvin Fenn and Mary Ann
Hendrick.
One item to disrupt our genealogy
of Cecil Carter is that his brother Frank Fenn,
often told his children, that Cecil and Carrie
were only "half-siblings" and that puzzle will
haunt us forever.
Perhaps Uncle Frank Fenn
did not want to be related in any way to the
indian blood that ran through their veins -
perhaps he lived as white and shunned his siblings
- perhaps they were darker skinned than he was -
perhaps their mother did fool around with a Mr.
Carter long before she married him - we will never
know the truth, but she did remarry and give Cecil
the Carter name that he used for the rest of his
life, and his sister Carrie did marry a Choctaw
Indian Ben Johnson and they died in Indian Nation
Oklahoma. Ben signed an affidavit that his mother
was full blood indian America Mills from Alabama
and that his father would not let her sign onto
the Indian Rolls so this sets a fine example of
the difficulty our families dealt with and how it
affects our research. But my grandfather Cecil
Earl Fenn Carter was proud to be a Cherokee and so
was my mother. Another tidbit in the puzzle was
Cecil's younger son being named William Lawrence
Carter in 1935 - where does the name Lawrence
enter the family history? Was Cecil's adopted
father a Lawrence Carter? There are no records, no
paper trail thus far to confirm anything! Then
again where does the name Earl enter the family?
It was not Anna's father's name nor her husband's
name? Cecil's other son was Cecil Earl Carter Jr
and he named his sons Cecil Mark Carter in 1950,
Jeffrey Earl, Michael, and Bradford Earl Carter.
Parents of Alice McClain were Lorena Emma
Bozeman born 1890 Ramer, Alabama and Charles Allen
McClain born 1886 Ramer. His parents were
Elizabeth Broadway and Josiah Marion McClain, a
Civil War Vet, but I never found a marriage
record. Elizabeth's parents were Mary Susan
Stephens and Abner Broadway.
Lorena's
parents were Alice Lorena Stephens and John Thomas
Bozeman of Ramer, Alabama. The Bozeman lineage has
been a fascinating study of our ancestors in 1700
North Carolina, living among the indians and
fighting in our War of Indiependence, before Peter
sold his Land Grant in 1826 and migrated into Hope
Hull, Montgomery County Alabama and beginning this
new legacy, where he lived amongst some of the
most historical families of our state.
The
Stephens families had several plantations around
Dublin and Ramer and a family history book was
written by cousin Clyde Stephens, with a copy in
the Ramer Library. Perhaps Lorena and Charles were
cousins a few generations back. But Clyde wrote
that our grandfather John Stephens joined the
American Revolution in the Carolinas and then
married a full blood indian, then migrated into
Montgomery Alabama. Some of his descendants
ventured into the new Texas Territory and returned
with most going into Florida and then into Panama
where they now grow bananas and sell to the world.
Lorena's grandmother was Nancy Jane
Anderson and I found her grave at Greenwood
Cemetery!
Elizabeth Broadway had a sister,
Rebecca Lou Broadway who married Clopton Gibson
and had a son named Jason Gibson.
Jason
Gibson married Lorena's sister Ethel Mae Bozeman,
and had a daughter named Ruby Gibson.
When
I talked with Ruby and her sister Peggy, on the
phone years ago, she told me that Charlie McClain
and Jason Gibson had talked about being first
cousins so this gives a better confirmation to
this research.
Ruby's daughter Elizabeth
gave me a copy of a letter written by Ethel about
her childhood days, about the death of her mother,
and how they had to live with grandma Nancy Jane
for a while and the difficult times they
had.
I can remember the ladies all wore
long dresses, no such thing as slacks for women
back then!!! But Lorena could buy dresses for a
nickel at the Salvation Army and we enjoyed
shopping there. She could also cut older garments
into squares to make her quilts and I still
possess three of them that I helped her to make in
the 1960s.... .
When I began researching my
husband's family tree, his cousin Clarence helped
out a lot, sending old photos and letters.
Clarence had studied a cemetery in Hope Hull where
one of their grandfathers was buried but it was
also on property once owned by my Bozeman
ancestors.
Cousin Clarence wrote the
article you will find on the website called
Alabama Cemetery Preservation regarding the
cemetery in Hope Hull that they just call Stokes -
Carter but I would like to call it Bozeman -
Carter for the wonderful families we have buried
there affecting both my family and my husband's
family who came together then just as they do now.
My husband's parents were Mary Ella
Thornton and James Edgar Brooks, Jr. Mary's
parents were Bessie Mae Hood and Milton Elijah
Thornton. Milton's parents were Mary Angeline
Partridge and Charles Thornton of Georgia.
Bessie's parents were Ella Olivia Baxley and L.
Wesley Hood of Holtville Alabama and Ella's mother
was a Holt. The parents of James were Susie Mae
Cooper and James Edgar Brooks of Montgomery.
Susie's parents were Sarah Elizabeth Carter and
Levi Benjamin Cooper of Hope Hull, Alabama.
Sarah's parents were Mary Josephine
Hereford of Virginia and Thomas Randolph Carter, a
Civil War Vet, but he had been widowed from his
first marriage to Lacy Jane Bozeman. Parents of
Levi were Sarah F. Lee and Charner P. Cooper, both
from Chambers County Alabama until he moved after
serving in the Civil War.
Parents of James
Brooks came from Tennessee, Annie Clark Ballard
and John E. Brooks. John's parents were Roxanna
Permilia Smith and John Brooks. Parents of Annie
were Dora Craig and James C. Ballard, all with
rich Tennessee History of the early 1800s.
All of these families are linked within
this webpage
where I have a little study on each of them and on
this
page and for a much longer list of documents
that I have collected click
here and the memorial I made for my husband is
here and
of course the Family Tree
Maker page.
I hope that my
children and theirs will someday realize that all
of the people named above are their family - they
are your grandparents and great grandparents and
bring you a vast family history worth much more
research than I can offer. We have dozens of men
who served in the American Revolution, which set
our country free, and then dozens more in the
Civil War, and many listed in stories of our
colonial history.
Credits:
My children
and my sister.
My daughter's mother in law
My dad's sisters and cousin Stanley.
My
Gibson and Bozeman
cousins in Montgomery AL
My cousin Jimmy Ray
Bozeman
My cousin Wayne Bozeman who is married
to my husband's cousin.
LDS
USGenWeb
My
cousins Dick and Connie
Rootsweb
Charlie's
cousin Glenda Baxley who introduced us to Coosa
River and the many patriotic men in this
line.
Charlie's cousin Clarence who
introduced me to Hope Hull and his article in
Alabama Cemetery Preservation and their cousin
D.J. Smith who has the nice webpage on
Rootsweb.
And many more who corresponded by
email when they viewed my family tree webpages!
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