The Williams-Rivers Family Reunion 2008

The notices have gone out to selected family members announcing the 2008 Williams-Rivers Family Reunion. I am reproducing it here at the Descendants of Mandi webiste for those of us who are not on the official family mailing list. It will be held in Nashville, Tennessee on August 1, 2, and 3 2008 at the Marriott Hotel (Details about the host hotel are forthcoming).

It has been 30 years since the first family reunion in 1978 and the theme of the reunion is "30 Years Later". According to the initial announcement, the reunion will include a get aquainted night with videos of years gone by and a tour of Nashville as well as a formal banquet on Saturday night.Sunday will include church with our Nashville relatives at the Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church where Julius Williams and Cloreace Williams Eppinger are the assistant pastor and associate pastor, repsectively.

Registration fees are as follows: $100.00 for adults 16 years olda nd up, $50.00 for children 6 to 15 years old, and children 5 years old and under are free. Registrations are being sent to the following Family Members: Lenford Carr, 94 W. Maple Street, Humboldt TN, 38343 (731-784-5565); Bunice Robinson, 16714 Kentfield, Detroit MI, 48219 (313-538-8673); Julius Williams, 1182 Mt. Vernon Lane, Mt. Juliet, TN 37122 (615-754-9978). The Reunion Committee is asking everyone to register by March 15, 2008. They are also asking that photos be sent to Bunice Robinson by April 1, 2008. T-shirts are being offered at $10.00 or youth sizes and $12.00 for adult sizes (cotact Julius Williams for t-shirts).

The Family Reuinion Commitee consists of the following members: Lenford Carr, Chairman, Bridgett Hill, Marquita Patterson, Bunice Robinson, Julius Williams, Cloreace Williams Eppinger, Costella Williams, Alphonso Williams, Clinton Williams, Curtis Williams, Eric Dickerson, William Carr, Vincent Carr, Nana Kweku Carr Asante.

Alversa Williams Lee, 1911-2007

This is a time of sadness and reflection for the Williams-Rivers Family. We have lost one of our most beloved family members, Alversa Williams Lee made her transition on Tuesday October 9, 2007, in Memphis, Tennessee. Mother, sister, wife, cousin, aunt, sister-in-law, grandmother, great-grandmother--She was a matriarch of our family. Aunt Alversa was a driving force behind the Williams-Rivers Family Reunion which has occurred every even numbered year since the late 1970s. She was also one of our Family Griots, who shared her vast knowledge of family history with us all, through her writings in the family reunion booklets and many personal conversations. Her insights are among those that have made the Descendants of Mandi website possible.

She was born near Brownsville Tennessee in 1911, into a very large family. She was the forth child, and oldest girl born to Dennis Williams and Luella Short Williams. Luella was Dennis’ second wife and at the time of her birth, Alversa had 15 older siblings. The family would later grow to a total of 21 siblings. She later married Robert Lee, and they had a large family of their own, 14 kids in all. Over the years she became a kind of mother to us all. It always amazed me that she knew and could remember all the names of members of our family—as I could scarcely imagine keeping up with the names of 14 kids, much less all the cousins, etc. that she had stored in her brain. She was a sharp woman, and remained so, right into her 90s.

With her passing, I was reminded of a quote on the importance of elders and ancestors in our families. The quote is from Alex Haley's commentary in the acknowledgements of his best selling novel “Roots.” Haley said, "Today it is rightly said that when a griot dies, it is as if a library has burned to the ground. The griot symbolizes how all human ancestry goes back to some place, some time, where there was no writing. Then, the memories and the mouths of ancient elders was the only way that early histories of mankind got passed along...for all of us to know who we are."

I think it is fitting that we honor Aunt Alversa with a quote from Alex Haley, as he was an acquaintance of hers, from nearby Henning Tennessee, and he helped inspire her to pursue her quest for a family reunion in the late 1970s after the phenomenal success of his book. I imagine that now, the two of them will be enjoying deep conversations about the importance of history and family to this ongoing journey we’re all traversing.

Our related sister website, The Short Austin Family Tree has also placed a Memorium to Aunt Alversa on it's Elders Page: (the page was up until October 31 2007, it has now been removed)

It can be found at http://www.shortaustinfamilytree.com/elders_page.html

Another tribute, written by her Granddaughter Intisar Abioto, can be found at the PEOPLE COULD FLY Website Blog.

Pray for us in the days ahead.

Making contact with distant cousins

While I was creating the Descendants of Mandi Genealogy Website, I did some searching on the Web based on key family names. One day as I entered some family names and browsed the results, I was stunned to find an exact match on what appeared to be someone else's family tree site. I made a mental note that as soon as I got our site up and running, I would contact the other site's webmaster and let him know that there was family on the Web.

Today, three days after lauching the new website, I kept my promise to myself. I sent the following note to Lamont Beauregard of the Short/Austin Family Tree Website-- Subject Line: My Website, Your Website, Our Family:

---

Hello cousin Lamont!

Your website-- http://www.shortaustinfamilytree.com/The Short Austin
Family Treeis fantastic!!! ...and I am your distant cousin. Our Common relative is Silla Short.

My name is Eric J Williams and I live in Chicago IL. I came upon your
website a while back, and realized that our families overlap to a
considerable degree. I am the great-grandson of Luella Short and the
great-great-great-grandson of Silla Short.

I also have a family tree website charting the Williams and Rivers
Family of Haywood County Tennessee. Our website
( http://www.descendantsofmandi.com/ ) is very new...just
launched last week...though I have been building the Gedcom files for
several weeks from paper charts the family has done for family reunion
booklets and conversations with family members. I would love to hear
what you think about our new website.

If you click the link below, you can see and trace my relationship to
the Shorts who appear in your Short/Ausitin website.

http://www.descendantsofmandi.com/Records/INDIs/II0965.html

My grandfather, Lemuel Williams was the son of Luella Short. I was
very happy to find your webite as I was in the process of launching
our Williams-Rivers Family Tree website-- called Descendants of Mandi.
Your site will allow me to fill in many blanks about my
great-grandmother's family.

In the spirit of your message on the Short Austin website, I've
included a few notes which point out some missing or inaccurate spots
in your family tree--specifically charting our branch the Henry Short
family.

Here is a family record for Luella Short and Dennis Williams--my
great-grandmother and great-grandfather... notice the third child (my
uncle Donald), who your family tree identifies as Darner...which was
his nickname, click Donald's link for the note on his nickname).

http://www.descendantsofmandi.com/Records/FAMs/FF010.html

your page is:

http://www.shortaustinfamilytree.com/lueellashortpage.html

Here is a family record for Alversa Williams and Robert Edward Lee
(you'll find there are two missing children for them in your page for
Aunt Alversa). Click the link and you will find them here---Sandra
Faye and Lewis Edward) the correct place for these two is between
Wesley Gene and Brenda Aleece.

http://www.descendantsofmandi.com/Records/FAMs/FF279.html

your page is:

http://www.shortaustinfamilytree.com/alversawilliamepage.html

You'll also find that our new site contains considerable additional
info on offspring for the children of Dennis Williams and Luella
Short...enough to keep you busy for quite some time.

I would, however, be open to sending you a gedcom file which you could
merg into your existing file to pick up the additonal info...but we
can talk about that later. I will be picking up considerable info from
your site as well. Maybe we could swap files at some point and save
each other considerable typing.

Anyway, Lamont, I was glad to find you, and I hope to meet at some
point in the future.

Sincerely

Eric J. Williams
http://www.descendantsofmandi.com/
ericjw33@gmail.com

Getting this thing up and running

The Descendants of Mandi website is a labor of love to say the least. The site was just created on May 13 2005, but in fact it represents the genealogical efforts of dozens of people over the past 28 years. Printed family trees which were used as the basis for the genealogical links in this site, were first published as inserts in the keepsake booklets from the Williams-Rivers Family Reunions (1978-2004). This site is an outgrowth of the Williams-Rivers Family Website created in July 2004 for the 2004 Williams-Rivers Family Reunion.

I built the Gedcom files in late April and early May 2005, and went live with the website on May 13. There's always a bit of trepidation when going live with a site as large, involved and detailed as this one will one day be. The problem is that you have to start somewhere, and our booklet inserts, while great for showing the basic relationships between individuals, only gives spouse information for the first few generations. After that only descendants are shown, making it difficult to track changing famiy names for female membes of the family and their offspring.

I intend to correct these shortcoming in future editions through family interveiws and continued genealogical research. I am indebted to the following individuals for the basic knowledge and research that made this site possible: Alversa Williams Lee, Elaine Lee Turner, Susan Lee Adekpuitor, Eloise Williams Tolbert, and others too numerous to mention.

For now, I hope you enjoy the site for what it is-- a work in progress-- and please feel free to contact me with corrections, changes, and updates.

COTACT ME: Eric J. Williams

GENEALOGY HOME: http://www.descendantsofmandi.com/
FAMILY SITE: http://www.williams-riversfamily.org/