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
