A few trips to cemeteries finding
tombstones of relatives Charlie and I knew nothing about, I have
saved several photos of those headstones on webpages and tried to
write a little bit about those new
discoveries.
My mother didn't know much about
her parents since she was orphaned at the age of 4 and raised by her
mother's McClain parents.
Once I had my family tree up and
looking fabulous, I began on my late husband's family and found one
of his cousins, Clarence Bearden, posting on the internet, doing the
same thing with the Brooks lineage. I phoned Clarence and he
sent me some research papers on John Brooks born 1837 and some
pictures of Thomas Randolph Carter family. Clarence's
mother is my husband's Aunt Sissy, actually named Elizabeth
Brooks and she had called my husband's daddy,
Bubba.
I never knew that
before.
I called Charlie's cousin,
Sue Carol, about Mary Ella's lineage and found that her husband,
Wayne Bozeman, was also my cousin, WOW !!
Sue Carol drove me and Beverly up
to Central one day to see the tombstones of Mary Partridge and
George Thornton, a couple of there great grandparents from Georgia,
buried behind an old Primitive Baptist Church.
Wayne and Sue Carol had dug deeply
into his lineage and they were amazed with my Bozeman
research. They had been to the graves at Hope Hull, but so had
Clarence Bearden and he had also published an article about his
findings there on the Alabama Cemetery Preservation
webpage.
Beverly took me to Hope Hull and
our findings were extremely fascinating and we took many
pictures
Then we went to Dublin to further
our reearch and to Elmore County and I have many other pictures
within.
Beverly gave me a new computer for
Christmas 2006 with a free subscription to ancestry.com and I have
saved hundreds of old documents, and census images showing the
tracks of our ancestors.
Wayne loaned me his copy of a book
written about the Bozemans and I have also scanned those pages into
my research.
I have posted my huge family tree
on the internet to share at rootsweb.com and there is another
relative online researching the Brooks lineage of Tennessee and
Alabama
New relatives write to me all the
time, I have dozens and dozens of emails from people asking for
information, sharing their lineage, letting me know that we are
related.
I joined several genealogy mailing
lists and message boards online and once tried to contact a Donna
Burdette but her mother wrote back to me, being from the Bozeman
line - Elizabeth is the granddaughter of Ethel Mae Bozeman, the
sister of my great granny Lorena.
Jimmy Ray Bozeman wrote to me and
met me and Elizabeth at Dublin in May 2007, my daughter Beverly
drove us there and we met a lot of Ethel Mae's family there and some
elderly children of Uncle Bob Bozeman's family. We explored
the old family cemetery way behind Hills Chapel Church, out in the
woods and found the grave of Peter Edward Bozeman and his daughter
in law Alice Lorena Stephens Bozeman.
Peter's son John had been married
to Alice. Alice was our great great granny, rich with Cherokee
blood.
I can see how she named my great
granny Emma Lorena Bozeman but where did she get the name for Ethel
Mae. Aunt Ethel had written a story about her parents,
published in the Montgomery Advertiser around
1970.
I asked these people at Dublin if
they knew anything about Lorena 's husband Charlie McClain and they
said he was a good man, cross eyed, and never had a
tombstone.
December 2007 a new cousin, Glenda,
sends an email. Cousin to my mother in law, she is a wonderful
new friend. We are researching Ella Olivia Baxley Hood and her
parents of Holtville. Beverly takes me to Coosa River
Primitive Baptist Church cemetery where we find several family
graves, Louisa Miranda Holt and James Hardie Baxley, of the Civil
War and down the road at Cains Chapel Cemetery we find the grave of
Ella and her husband L W Hood and their children, including
"Bubber" Bessie Mae Hood Thornton ( the mother of Mary Ella
Thornton Brooks ).
My mother was an indian and my
father had some indian blood so I am certainly interested in all
native american history, finding a lot being uploaded to
usgenweb.com
My Dad's sisters are near 90 and
well Bernice is 92 and they sent me information and pictures of the
old ones and copies of their own genealogy worksheets, which have
been very helpful with my Cochran lineage. My grandpa Cochran
was married to a Coonfield which has much indian history coming out
of 1800s Kentucky, Civil War and travels across the
nation.
Several of my ancestors served in
the American Revolution and the Civil War and I find it amazing to
cross their names in our nation's history.
Many books are written including a
portion of our family; Grandpa Coonfield being listed in the history
of Morgan County Indiana; Grandpa Little in the DAR books and
Kentucky History; Sketches of Bozeman published in 1885
mentions Peter Bozeman moving to Alabama; Stephens Ancestors
book at Ramer Library written by a cousin Clyde Stephens who wrote
to me a few years ago and sent a package of papers to my home for my
research; Fenn families in Georgia history and in the Early
Settlers of Barbour County Alabama.
Jimmy Ray Bozeman's daughter is
currently working to get our Peter Bozeman recognized at the DAR
which will open doors for many many Alabama Bozeman
researchers. Peter's son William Henry Bozeman has a large
lineage here.
Peter's son Jesse is the one found
buried at Hope Hull.
Everything I find is printed to my
notebook and also saved on a webpage,
Kathy Cochran
Brooks
Dream Catcher background
with lots of my links
Brooks of Tennessee
