Before there were Blogs there were WebLogs. My first self-published writings on the web were my genealogy research at the old GeoCities. Just for the fun of it I thought I would put up the original weblog here for your perusal…At that time my WebLog was not a daily journal. I doubt I was online daily in those early years.
I found these posts at the Internet Archive. These posts were archived on Nov. 28, 2000,
WebLog Page
This page will contain my thoughts and the comments I generally make on my revised Home pages. As the home page is updated the comments there will be moved here. Hopefully this will become a journal of my Genealogical Odyssey. My main hope is that this will force me to update these pages with a little greater regularity than in the past.
26 November 2000
Thanksgiving is over and the update to these pages is about concluded. I probably have a few links to fix and some additions to make. I want to link the reports to the family pages as they were in the old web.
On a family note Thanksgiving at my Mom’s this year was less stressful than some have been. All of the children (my sisters and brothers and I) made the trip. As we gradually migrate further from home, these get to-gathers are getting harder to pull off. Christmas’s have been minus Sandy since she and Nigel moved to the lake. It looks like this year will be the year we children begin our own traditions with just visits to Mom’s. All of us have adult children now so the family continues…
Happy Holidays to all of you who bother to look at these pages.
12 November 2000
Beginning again.
It seems to be the nature of the internet. Always beginning. Always evolving.
This is the first major evolution of this site. Whether it is any better than the last, you will have to be the judge. The main thing that has changed is my database has been updated to remove some of the non-relatives that had been there since my very early days.
I’ve staked my claim to my homestead in cyber-space. It’s a lot like the 1870’s in Texas when my Great-Great Grandmother Eliza Freeman Boyd was allowed to stake her claim on the land she was already living on.
Other than wanting to put my genealogy out where other researchers can find it and possibly make a connection, I don’t have a definitive reason for doing this. But, come to think of it, I might have just typed the key to the Internet subliminally. After all, isn’t the entire reason for the Internet to make connections?
June 2000
It’s been another year and the 41’st Annual Boyd ~ Cox Reunion was held in Wallis, Texas this year. As always I enjoyed meeting with the family and the visit was rushed as always. The core group doesn’t change much each year. It would be nice if we could encourage a greater participation. If we don’t recapture some of our cousins, we could see the end of this family get together in a few years.
Next Years Reunion will be back in East Bernard at the Community Center / Library. This annual event is held on the second Sunday in June every year.
March 2000
Made a trip to North Carolina for work. I had a chance to spend a couple of days up in the mountains. It was my first trip up into the Smokies and I must admit I was impressed. While I don’t have any records to tie my line of Linville’s to the area, I did enjoy driving through Linville, NC and I made a side trip to Linville Falls. Beautiful… It almost makes you wonder why anyone would leave the area and go further west.
November 1999
What with a fire that destroyed our offices at work and all of the rebuilding going on there, I haven’t had much of a chance to get a lot done on my research. I was able to spend a few days in central Texas doing a little research…
I spent a few days running down some leads in the County Court House of Brown County Texas. I was looking into the death of Phillip Caleb Cox. I wish to thank the very helpful ladies working in the County Clerk’s Office, They made it very easy to do some research.
After going through the probate records, I could find no record or mention of the rumor of the murder of Caleb Cox Sr. by his brother-in-law. All I could find was several petitions to be appointed executor and a final listing of his estate. It does appear that Caleb Jr may not have survived his father for very long. I will eventually put the transcriptions on this site.
October 21, 1999
Since I last worked on this site a number of things have happened…mainly work related, that have kept me from working on this site or tracing my roots.
As I mentioned in my last opening…we did the Boyd-Cox Reunion in June. It was fun seeing all of the family that attended, I wish more of the younger generation would attend. That above statement makes me really feel old, as it wasn’t long ago that I considered myself part of that younger generation. I need to thank my cousin Jim Boyd for the copies of the original land patent papers for Great-Grandpa Silas Wilson Edward Boyd. Both he and his mother Elisabeth Freeman Boyd homesteaded in Coryell County, Texas along Beehouse Creek in the 1870’s. I am planning another courthouse trip to that area next month. I’ll let you know if I find anything new after I return.
One nice thing about this site is it leads some of my cousins to me via email. I have had a few messages from Kenneth Dupay correcting and adding some of the info on this site. I have made the changes to my database, but, I will not be updating this site until year end. Please, be aware that I have used a privatizing program to strip out any data about living people in my database that would violate their right to privacy. So all of the blanks you come across in the data on this site is not necessarily unknown. Although, anyone wishing to feel in the holes, please email me or leave a message in the guestbook.
I have also been in touch with my cousin Shirley David Smith. She has spent years researching our common Sewell Ancestors. I have spent days reading the info she has put together, and now feel I really have an example to follow in how to make this more than just data. Shirley, if you see this, Thanks for the inspiration.
July 1999
The past 2 months have been fruitful for my Pearson / Cox research. I finally was able to find a connection between the Benoni Pearson Family and Phillip Caleb Cox. It seems that both Benoni and Caleb were listed on the Tax Lists for Polk County Arkansas in 1845. From the evidence thus presented we have Benoni in Johnson County, Arkansas in 1840, in P
olk County, Arkansas in 1845, my bible record has him dieing in 1845, his widow and sons are back in Johnson County in 1850 while Caleb and Elizabeth are in Texas in Limestone County. By 1860 the whole clan is in Austin in Travis County Texas.
June 8, 1999
OK…OK. I have been very busy and have not updated this page or anything else in six months. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been shaking that family tree as often as I could.
If anyone is interested… The Boyd – Cox Annual Family Reunion happens this Sunday in East Bernard Texas. I will be attending with my family and will try to post anything new next week. In honor of the occasion the picture above is Sarah Cox and James Boyd’s Marriage License. Also, my wife’s family will be holding a Yount Reunion in August, and we hope to attend that one also.
As I stated above, this has been a very busy time and I really haven’t updated or posted any new info to this site. I hope to have more time this summer to spend getting my files in order and new info posted here.
I have had some minor finds in the first half of the year. I have spent quite a bit of time on my Pearson Family. They traveled west from North Carlina to Indiana sometime in the early 1800’s. Started raising families before packing up and moving to Arkansas. They ended up in Texas in the 1850’s, along with a group of families they met up with along the way.
I am still not having much luck tracing my Boyd ancestor, Edward. I have found reference to his marriage to Eliza Freeman in Collin County Texas in 1853 (thanks FamilySearch.org my first search on the site). If anyone out there can help with information on this man it will be very much appreciated.
December 1998
And thus begins my sojourn on the world wide web. And, since I never start small, this site began life as about 2,500 pages. Granted most were automatically created by GedPage, (which I still need to register), the program I chose because it gave the most elegant output to my eye. I hope that the info I publish will be of use to someone else out there.
June 12, 1998
The following is the forward to the Family History Book I published (in very limited editions…like about 5 a year – for our annual Boyd – Cox reunion). I decided it might be something relevant for these pages…
TEXAS
There is a mystique about this land that has endured for the two centuries settlers have been packing their belongings to leave family and acquaintances behind to start a new life in this land of promise. What was the attraction that caused our forebears to pack all their worldly possessions and leave the settled (relatively) and familiar setting of their homes to travel to the wilds of frontier Texas? Yes, when our ancestors arrived in this land we have grown to think of as our own, it was frontier. Limestone and Lampasas Counties in the 1850’s and 1860’s was still prone to wandering bands of Indians. The entire western edge of civilized Texas was a very rough place to be living during the Civil War. This was due partially to the withdrawal of the troops from the Forts along the frontier.
So, the question remains what were the attractions that brought our ancestors to this land? Most of what I have learned about our folks places them in the same class of people as Daniel Boone, always moving along just at the edge of civilization, looking for a better life, better land, better living conditions. I suppose it says something about Texas since once they arrived they stayed.
When I think about the travel conditions these people had to deal with, I am amazed that they managed to settle anywhere. The distance from Northeast Texas where most of our folks entered Texas to the area they settled is now a matter of at most a days drive, but, in their day the trip by oxen and wagon would have taken months. If they were lucky, some relative or neighbor had already made the trip and sent back a description and directions.
At this date, the earliest ancestor of ours that I have found who was born in Texas was Benjamin Franklin Cox (Benoni Cox). The 1850 Census for the County of Limestone has him listed as being 1 year old with his place of birth listed as Texas. This same source tells us his father was Phillip Caleb Cox born in Missouri about 1824, his mother was Elizabeth Jane Pearson born in Ohio about 1826. From this source we also can make the assumption that Caleb and Elizabeth were living in or passing through Arkansas in 1844 because they state that their daughter Sarah A. Cox was born there.
As we celebrate this anniversary with our 40th Annual Boyd / Cox Family Reunion, I hope that some of the facts and stories that follow will allow some others the chance to build upon the legacy our forebears left for us.
I know that in my search for information, I have had the opportunity to spend time out making the acquaintance of both the land on which our folks lived, and, the land on which they were laid to rest. I think I shall never forget the day this past March when on a visit to the Capitol in Austin I came across the record of the death certificate of Wilson Edward Boyd and read where he was buried in the Driftwood Cemetery. I went from Austin to San Marcos, where I had a copy of the certificate made, to Driftwood. Once at the Cemetery it was a short search to discover Great-Grandpa’s grave beside his oldest daughter Viola’s. As I sat there on that rainy and cold March afternoon, I contemplated what he must have seen in his lifetime and how nice and peaceful his resting place was. I have now found out that it is highly likely that our Grandpa James Pleas probably spent a part of his time growing up within ‘hollarin’ distance of that very hillside. It gives you a since of belonging, even to a place you have never been.
I do want to promise that I will continue to enlarge upon the data and the stories that the data contain. I know I will never have the full stories of these lives, but, I have discovered that most of the real joy of this type of learning is in the search and the unintended stories you learn as you hunt.
Gary Boyd