I'm so pleased you dropped in to visit my site.
I've worked for years on these families and their connections to our ancestors. The work is forever expanding, but I think you'll like what I've found so far.
I'm a member of Clay County Genealogy Society (Louisville, Illinois) and Richland County Genealogy Society (Olney, Illinois).
I'm constantly updating and adding new content, so I encourage you to visit often.
In honor of our non-English speaking ancestors who immigrated to America, this website is multilingual.
Here you'll find:
Les was the Sexton for Elmwood Cemetery in Flora, Illinois for many years. He has done extensive research on Clay County, Illinois Veterans of all wars. I thank him for his hard work and dedication.
Kaleb has an extensive collection of military uniforms and equipment from Richland County, Illinois Military Veterans and has hosted many displays around the county. His displays can also be seen at the History Museum in Olney, Illinois.
We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us.". How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do.
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Clayson and Grace McDowell
Clayson Adrian McDowell and Nella Grace Luke were married in 1925. They had 11 children:
The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before. 'It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before.
' by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943.
Carl Wayne Gray Genealogies - created and maintained by Carl Wayne Gray Copyright © 1980-2026 All rights reserved.
https://carlwgray.com/tng
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