Notes for MCGOWAN:
McGowan surname inserted here for 'marker' purposes. Date is just an estimate.
SUMMARY OF THE McGOWAN FAMILY HISTORY PROJECT
Revised & Updated November 26, 2005
The Beginning: I became interested in family history visiting with my Uncle Robert Harry McGowan in the early 1970's in Hawthorne, CA. Uncle Bob wasn't married and had looked after his parents, Perry Leonard McGowan (1875-1967) and Etta Estella Bechtel (1883-1959) during their retirement. Consequently, Uncle Bob was the recipient of his parents' family Bible and several boxes of my grandparents' old letters and photographs. Grandma had inscribed into the Bible the name and birth of each of their eleven children. . A collection of letters and postcards from the early 1900's through the 1960's contained various bits of information on our relatives, and the names of a few cousins, particularly in Iowa. Significance was letters and documents from Cecille (Phillips) Herring whose interest and preservation of family history was very helpful. I spent hours looking over all this material and trying to piece together how everyone related. On a subsequent visit Uncle Bob let me take the photographs and letters. One of the photographs was taken in 1882 of my great-great grandparents Sarah Ann (Sterrett) (1827-1906) and Joseph McGowan (1826-1896) and their children. Another photo is of a McGowan family reunion in Scotland County, Missouri on May 16, 1937 with some hundred family members.
I delved into a self-taught course on genealogy, reading books, acquiring forms for family groups and ancestor charts. The books encouraged starting with your own family and moving back in time as you built a pyramid of knowledge of the current generations. I started with my parents and moved on to my parent's siblings and their families and wrote hundreds of letters, accompanied by family group sheets soliciting dates and places of births, marriages and deaths and requesting names and addresses of relatives. As letters and family group sheets were returned I typed information onto master forms and noted the source of information and any interesting details.
From 1975 through 1978 I devoted almost full time to the project even visiting DeSoto, Iowa where my father was born and Scotland County, Missouri the birthplace of my grandfather and Lee County, Iowa the birthplace of my great grandfather, Robert Elliott Sterrett McGowan (1853-1932). I also visited the McGowan family farm near Azen, Missouri where my great-great grandfather Joseph McGowan served in the Missouri National Guard protecting his and other farms during the Civil War. Perhaps the highlight of my visit was meeting Cecille (Phillips) Herring who had done so much to preserve vast amounts of family history. I could have visited many more relatives in Iowa and Missouri but didn't know of them.
Eventually Uncle Bob gave me the tattered family bible with a broken spine. It suddenly dawned on him that I was the eldest son of Neil who was the eldest son of Perry who was the eldest son of Robert E S who was the eldest son of Joseph. I had the cover of the family bible restored and the binding hand stitched. It's to be passed down to my son Richard Jr. (1958- ) and my grandson Hikaru (1984- ).
The project remained nearly dormant through late 1995; as for nearly eighteen years I only occasionally recorded information into the several notebooks of typed material. Family group sheets from my father's side filled one notebook and my mother's side another. Still more notebooks were required for my wife and ex-wife families. Over 1,500 relatives had been recorded. To handle all this manually was becoming difficult. Several published family genealogies, on my mother and my wife's side, had come into our possession, which provided family records as far back as the 1590's.
Computerization: In 1995 we computerized the project with a Broderbund Family Tree Program. Almost a month was spent entering thousands of records from the manual system. Now we can easily turn out family group sheets, family trees, descendant lists, kinship reports, ancestor charts, labels and have provision for entering photographs into a scrapbook section for every person. Every family member has a "folder" in the computer program providing space for photographs, notes, facts, lineage, medical information and addresses. Our database file now numbers7505 relatives with 50,791 text records and about 1000 photographs and documents.
Our Family History: Response to the project has always been positive and encouraging. Most people wonder about their heritage but most have only a sketchy outline of their ancestors. It is great fun to learn more about our relatives and ancestors and where they came from. It's a time consuming and expensive process to keep expanding the knowledge of one's extended family. We have four grandparents, eight great grandparents and sixteen great-great grandparents and by the time we reach 10 generations we have 512 grandparents! That's roughly 250 years of family history calculating about 25 years per generation.
Publishing: We have no plans to publish the project but will submit it to Broderbund's WFT project at some point.
Hundreds of people have contributed information to the project and most of my records have come from family members. Many have gathered information for years and shared material with me greatly increasing the project's base of knowledge. A few of the large contributors have been: Cecil Ailleen (Herring) Phillips (1903-1984) and now her daughter Shirley Veneita (Herring) Logan (1927- ), Helen Margaret (Shannon) McGowan (1917-1997) and her daughter Janice Kay (McGowan) Ash (1943- ), Isabelle (Bechtel) Hayes (1920- ), Clifford Neil Pelton (1917- ), Sylvia (Lovegren) Petras (1950- ), Larry Edward Bartholomew (1937- ), Joette Ann (Eggers) Thomas (1936- ), Mary Ann (Morris) Pickett (1947 -), Nellie May (Weaver) Wamsher (1924-), Nadine Louise (Bechtel) Foerster (1923- ), Alice Marion (Tompkins) Summer (1920- ), Violet Gwendolyn (Scott) Hewitt (1916- ), Penny Reita (Moore) Wolf-Spears (1940- ), Clara Marie (Sell) Finkenbinder (1920- ) and Timothy John MacGillvray (1943-) and Kenneth N Smith
A number of genealogy books covering sections of the family have been used to gather information and been computerized: 'Posterity Of Moses Pierce', 'Salt of the Earth: Whittaker-Stones', 'Hodgins...Kindred Forever', 'Pelton...375 Years of Family History' (1892 & 1992) and 'Emily...Wife of PFT'. Considerable collateral information has been drawn from Broderbund's World Family Tree CD's. The 'source' code in each record defines where I obtained information although for many early entries the source may be found in the 'notes' section of each persons record or at the beginning a family spouse.
What I Need From You: Fill out your family group sheet (FGS) to the best of your ability, including first, middle and last names (maiden for spouses) and send me the names and addresses of other family members so I can mail them information. As spouses enter our family tree I record their parents and siblings to make it easier for later research by family members. I would appreciate receiving a short biography on yourself and other family members and I enter the information in the notes folder. I would like photographs of everyone to "scan" into the computer and these appear on family group sheets and ancestor charts. Portraits are best. Copies of obituaries are very useful too.
At some date we will 'donate' the tape to Broderbund to include in their World Family Tree project which makes the information available for purchase (about $30) on CD's (they exclude information about living individuals except for their name, gender and family links. All pedigrees can be exported as GEDCOM files).
It Never Ends: Quite obviously there continues to be marriages, births and deaths. It's a project that never ends, and, because the project is so all encompassing, one has to keep up routinely with family groups. Meanwhile I keep searching into old records for family members that have been missing, records that are incomplete or researching further back along certain family lines. It would be nice if you could put us on your mailing list for announcements of marriages, births and, also, unfortunately, deaths.
Financial: Richard & Louise McGowan and donations from some family members have financed the project.
Revised November 26, 2005
Richard Earl McGowan
575 The Alameda
Berkeley, California 94707-1644 USA
510 527 0572
Fax: 510 527 0187
Toll Free: 1 - 800 562 7298 (home/office)
Email: richard@nextadventure.com
July 14, 1997 Received the following email message. One of the earliest recordings of McGowan name in US I've seen: "Hi Richard: Thanks of the email and forgive me for taking so long to answer. McGowan is one of my favorite surnames and I'd love to know more about them, However I am stuck at Mary McGowan, born in Ireland. She immigrated to PA about 1750 along with her father, James. She married Andrew Mitchell and settled in NC. Sorry this is all I have." Beverly Amaral. San Luis Obispo, CA
April 18, 1998: "Dear Richard: Since my only known McGowan was b in VA late 1700s - we'll have quite different lines. I expect to find her family in NC or southside VA, and to be part of groups that went on to TN as she did. There are lots of families who started in PA and went on to the Valley of VA and to NC, certainly, it's just our times have too much a gap for that. Pat Patterson [patpnyc@escape.com]"
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Canot connect any of this but interesting REM\\
April 25, 2005 email: "You asked my McGowan line. We're pretty sure, but havren't yet proved it, that we're descended from John Mackgowen, one of ninety "servants" transported on the Batchelor of Bristol to St. Mary's, Maryland in 1674. We believe his son or grandson was my ggggg grandfather, William McGowan (c.1708-1782) who moved from St. Mary's Co. to coastal North Carolina (Perquimans Co., then Tyrrell Co.) in the early 1740's.
From William, my line goes like this:
Joseph McGowan, Sr. (c.1745-1801)
James McGowan (c.1774-1854)
William McGowan (c.1814-1855)
James William McGowan (1847-1882)
Dorman S. McGowan (1874-1950) my grandfather.
One branch, Joseph McGowen, Jr. (c.1769-1850's) moved in 1819 from Hyde Co., NC to White Co., TN with his five sons and a nephew. They later movedf to AR-MO, AL, AL-MS, KY and then to TX, MO, AR, OK, KS, to the North-West and West coast. The nephew moved to IL by 1857, but after the Civil War his sons moved back South to AR, MO, OK & KS." John McGowan
