Forever Family

My dad wasn't famous or rich, he was just an ordinary man who was far from perfect, but I loved him all the same! He was a hard working country boy who loved to hunt, who loved country music, Hank Williams, an ice cold beer, his family and he loved me! Daddy was the seventh child born to Sam and Eva  Rivers Craig. He was born August 25, 1937 just as the great depression was coming to an end. He was met by five older siblings, Thelma, Herman, Joe,  Dorothy and Margie. There was another sister that died the year before my dad was born, her name was Helen Ruth and he named me after her. The family was poor, but they managed to get by! As I started to write this I realized that as much as I know about him, there were things that I still don't know. Dad died in 2005 and as I sit here writing I realized there is so much that I didn't ask! Daddy was the one person that loved hearing about my family research. He would sit with a big grin as I told him about the ancestors I...

       Genealogy has been one of my long time passions for a while now. But over the last few months I've developed another one. I frequent our local Goodwill stores searching for art that others have discarded. The photo on the left is one of those framed pieces that I've recently purchased.. When I saw it, it spoke to me and I knew that I had to take it home! Texas and Louisiana are a large part of my heritage. When I started my research to find out where my ancestors came from, I found that many had been there since Texas was ruled by Spain.    My research on my Rivers line was one that took me down that Spanish trail. I had no idea where my Rivers family came from and our "set" had always been told that they weren't related to the other Rivers in our community that appeared to be of Native American or Hispanic descent.  But over the years, I have collected enough information that leads me to the conclusion that my 2nd great grandfather Josep...

The search for our ancestors is never over! One discovery always leads to another and another. The less I know about an ancestor the more I want to know. My great grandmother Cora Alice Parker Rivers died in 1960. I was only two at the time and have no memory of her. I am from a small town in Louisiana and most of the people there can be traced back several hundred years in the same community. Cora was different, she was from Texas and she was a Parker! That fueled my curiosity! Prior to my research on this family, I had seen a copy of the death certificate for grandma Cora and it stated her parents were Henry Clay Parker and Emma Watson. As I begun my research on my great grandmother's family, I contacted her son, Clarence Rivers. Uncle Clarence was nearing 90 at the time and he was the only one of Cora's four children still living. He was thrilled to talk about his youth and what little he knew about his mother's family. Interviewing your older family members is imperat...

The world of genealogy is always offering new roads to travel, new cousins to talk to and new friends to help! Today has been an eventful day in my world! 1) A few days ago I  told one of  my "cousin/genealogy BFFs" (her term) that I needed an expert for our Mooney family line! Our ancestor is Alabama Mooney Craig, daughter of Andrew J. Mooney Sr., and Nancy Pierce, son of John Mooney and Mary Hubbard and then, not one, but 3 Hans Jacob Mooneys...when I look at the tree and I'm looking at hints for those 3 men, my head wants to explode. I'm second guessing each item...not sure if it's listed with the correct Hans Jacob, or even if I have the correct wife with each of them. So, this morning I log unto Ancestry.com to find that I have a message from a lady that I don't know. She messaged me to tell me about a Facebook page titled Booker and Southern Kin...it seems that there are some distant Mooney cousins on this page from Monroe County, Alabama which is wh...

There has been amazing progress in the field of genealogy over the years. The internet has put the world at our fingertips! With the stroke of a few keys we can find records, photos…information on our ancestors that would have taken years to gather before modern technology intervened! Now, there is something even more exciting. DNA and all the doors that it can open and sometimes even unlock. On May 2, 2016, I was contacted by a young lady. She was writing to let me know that we were somehow related. The problem was she had no clue how. She had just discovered that the man who raised her wasn’t her father. She had taken the DNA test to find her mom’s biological family (her mom was adopted) and realized that she did not have any matches to her dad’s family. She confirmed this by having a paternal 1 st cousin test and the outcome was that they weren’t related. As she studied her matches on Ancestry.com and uploaded her DNA results to third party sites, she began to see a few surn...

Even though I've been at genealogy for many years, I occasionally find a new surprise. I come from a small town. A town where everybody knows everybody; or in most cases they are related to everyone. But I have one line on my mothers side that I'm still finding new ancestors to research. My mom and her sister were raised by their paternal grandparents. This, along with the fact that her mother died when she was 7 years old and her maternal grandmother had passed away before she was born, left us with limited information about her mother's maternal side. For years the only knowledge that I had on this line was that my grandmother was Mrytle Meshell and she was the daughter of Joe Meshell and Lizzie Crowell. The Meshells  have been well researched in our neck of the woods; but, who was this Crowell family. Finding Lizzie's parents was somewhat difficult because Lizzie was born after the 1880 census and she married Joe Meshell in 1899. You know what that means, Lizzie ...

I would like to introduce my family! Front row: Frankie Craig, Dean Craig, and Charlie Craig (my father) Second Row: Joe Craig, Charles Pleasant, Thelma Craig Pleasant, Dorothy Craig, Margie Craig and                          Herman Craig Back Row: (My grandparents) Sam Craig and Eva Gertrude Rivers Craig holding the youngest child Jerry Craig I know that it isn't the best photo in the world...but it's the only one I have with all of the family. Grandma and grandpa got married in the early 20's. Their oldest child, my aunt Thelma was born in 1923 and the youngest son was born in 1947.  They would go on to have a total of four daughters and six boys.Nine of the children reached adulthood, a little girl died at the age of three. The oldest two daughters would grow up and leave the small town where they were raised. The oldest sister raised her family in Norfolk, Virginia and the middle sister would end up in ...

I grew up in a small town in northwest Louisiana. The community is heavily populated with descendants of Spanish soldiers and the Native American women who married them. Common surnames for the area include Rivers (del Rio), Manshack (Manchacha), Ebarb (Ybarbo), Sepulvado, Remedies (Ramirez), Garcie (Garcia), etc…I think you can get the picture! My maiden name is Craig and for as long as I could remember, I wanted to know where we came from. So, on that first trip to the library I searched books for possible Craigs that were in the area. I found a few, but I was new and at that moment I couldn’t connect them to my dad and my grandfather. Then it was onto the census records! I worked backwards searching for my grandfather’s family. Once I found his parents I was able to continue searching until I found my 3 rd great grandfather James Craig Sr. James Craig was my first ancestor to live in Sabine Parish, Louisiana. I found him on the 1840, 1850, 1860 and 1870 census records....

This journey began in the early 90's. I became a grandparent in July of that year and the drive to find out more information about my ancestors was even stronger. I’ve uncovered some amazing people in my tree. So, you would think that after 23 years, what more is there? My husband, who does not share the enthusiasm that I do for researching the dead...is always asking, “Haven't you found everybody by now?” or “There can't be anyone left to find.”  He is so wrong! As a child and young adult I had always wondered how my families came to be in Louisiana. Who were they and where had they come from. It was 1993 when I walked into the Shreve Memorial Library for the very first time. With very little to go on, I began my search. It was before the age of the internet. Research was tedious and slow. I remember going to the section of books for Louisiana, looking for the books on the parish I was raised in. Then I went through those books looking for common names that I recog...