Holidays: Time to build yourself a History

With Christmas time upon us, I'd like to urge all Williams-Rivers Family members to take a few minutes and talk to your parents and grandparents... our family elders. You never know what you might discover.

A good chunk of the information in this website was sourced through conversations with family members at birthday celebrations, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, as well as Christmas and Thanksgiving Dinners. For me, one of the most valuable sources of information was my grandmother Elnora Evans. She was born Elnora Fouse in Haywood County near Brownsville Tennessee in 1914 and she married into the Williams-Rivers Family in 1935 when she married my grandfather Lemuel Williams. Although their marriage only lasted a few years, she remained close with the family and kept up with births, deaths, marriages and relocations of many family members. Although the family reunion booklets provided the structure that this website's family tree was built on, it was my grandmother Elnora's stories and recollections that gave much of it life for me.

She provided me with explanations for many of the links in the family where her family (the Fouse-Lee Family of Haywood County / Borownsville) had married into the Williams-Rivers Family producing "double cousins" who we see at reunions on both sides of the family. Her insights were invaluable to me as I began to piece things together and to fully understand the magnificent richness and heritage that we all share.

I thank God now for the many hours that we spent talking in 2005 and 2006...and I am sad that I did not have the presence of mind to engage a tape or digital recorder during our conversations. Her insights, wisdom and knowledge are silent now--we lost her earlier this year after a brief illness, at 92 years old.

Strangely enough, though, I feel her presence in the pages of this website, in some of my notes and recollections about family members. It was always her hope that I would one day make a website for the Fouse-Lee Family as well. I still hope to do so one day...and when I do, her stories, recollections and humor will all be waiting, stored in these gedcom files...waiting for one of her great neices or nephews or perhaps one of her great-granddaughters to stumble across it and want to know more about the woman whose memory was so sharp, well into her nineties that she could, with her words bring her two sisters, who died as children, back to life, so that we would all remember them, and know that they had once walked and played upon this earth.

Talk to your elders this holiday season, ask them to tell you about a family member who you never met. Don't forget to write it down...or better yet grab a tape recorder.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

My daughter Chelsea's Family Report

Part of the fun of this genealogy stuff is getting to share it with your kids. My wife Kelly and I were thrilled last week when our daughter, Chelsea, was assigned the task of interviewing us for a report on her family and culture. When the dust cleared, Chelsea had produced a 2-page report that was packed with all kinds of information...probably more than her teacher had bargained for... and we were just getting started!

With Chelsea's permission, I'm reproducing it here because quite a bit of it repeats the History of Grandma Mandi...Oral History....PRICELESS!

Cross your fingers that she gets an A+
_____________________________________________________

11-15-06

Chelsea Williams

Rm 202, Ms Conley Dunbar

My Family History and Culture

1. Does your name have any special meaning?

My name was given to me while my parents were in San Francisco, CA in Oct. of 1996, the weekend they learned they were expecting me. My Mom and Dad spent an afternoon at a bookstore near Embarcadero Center researching names and decided to name me Chelsea because one of my Dad's favorite songs is "I don't want to go to Chelsea" By Elvis Costello. and Chelsea is also one my Mom's favorite neighborhoods in New York --because of the art and culture in the area. Chelsea in New York was named after the same area in London that the Costello song was written about. CHELSEA's meaning in Old English is a Port of Ships or a "landing place for ships [on the river] marked with chalk or limestone"

I have two middle names. I was given McCOY because it is my mother's maiden name and my Mom said she thinks it is important to pass along family names because when people ask you about your name it is an opportunity to tell your family story.

My father added Alexandra because he liked the meaning. ALEXANDRA is a feminine form of ALEXANDER (it is from Greek) and means "Defender or Protector of Men"

2. Where are your ancestors from?

My ancestors come from West Africa primarily, and I have ancestors from other places too, including Native Americans (Cherokee, Shawnee and Choctaw) and a few of my ancestors were European (including French, English, Scottish and Irish), also one of my great-great grandmothers was from New Giunea.

3. Did your family migrate to Chicago Illinois from another state?

My family arrived in Illinois by way of four different paths. My mother moved to Chicago when she finished college in 1988 to work for an advertising agency. She met my father here in Chicago. She was born in Ohio and her family has lived there since 1817. Her mother's family is from the south and moved north during the Great Migration in 1919.

My father was born in Chicago but his father was born in western Tennessee . The Williams' moved north in the 1950's from Brownsville, Tennessee. My father's mother's family are also Williams' and they migrated to Chicago by way of New Orleans and Houston, Texas. They have been here for over 100 years.

4. Name something that is a significant part of your culture.

Oral history is a significant part of our culture. Oral history is described as an account of something passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. People of African descent have always been story tellers and in West Africa the Griot is the repository or keeper of the oral tradition.

Much of what we know today about my mother's family (the Tyler family) is a combination of written, documented history and oral history that was passed from generation to generation. An example of this is the story of my great-great-great-great-grandmother Ann Fowler. The story was passed down that she was brought to Ohio from a small town in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in New York at the age of 5 by a family named the Kelley's in 1817. She grew up, married a man by the name of William McAfee and they had 5 children, one of whom was my great-great-great grandmother Maria McAfee Tyler.

We also know that Ann's mother was captured in West Africa, sold into slavery in Salvador, Bahia (Brazil) and then sold again and taken to North America to the slave markets of Rhode Island. She was bought by a family that lived in Connecticut and it was there that she had a child whom they named Ann.

When my mother was a girl not much older than me, she remembered her great uncle telling the story of Ann Fowler. When my mother grew up she used technology to help her authenticate the story of Ann Fowler. She was able to learn of other family members who descend from Ann fowler and used the internet to research my family's history. My mother was able to make a connection with living descendants of the Kelley family who owned my great-great-great-great grandmother and there was a book written about the Kelley family and they mention Ann in the book. It confirms her age, the year she was born and the circumstances under which they became her owners.

Because Ohio was a free-state, once she came to Ohio she was no longer a slave and her children were born free. We are lucky to have a picture of Ann Fowler and I have brought a copy of it to class.

The Tyler family has been written about in Newspapers and recognized in other ways. "The Tylers... have the longest lineage of any black families with roots still in place in Columbus, Ohio," wrote Bob Thomas, in the Columbus Dispatch, on April 3, 1994. A historical marker was dedicated to the Tyler Family Legacy in 2005 and also in 2005 the Ohio Historical Society developed an exhibit based on the history of the Tyler family. It is the featured topic of Ohio's 2007 National History Day Project "Triumph and Tragedy in History. This part of my family History can be found at the website http://www.tylerfamilylegacy.com.

My father's family traces its origins to several family's of former slaves in Haywood County near Brownsville Tennessee. I went to Tennessee with my grandfather just two weeks ago. This part of my family also has a lot of oral history which has been confirmed by historical records.

My great-great-great-great Grandmother from my dad's family was a woman named Mandi Williams. We know that she was born free in Africa some time around 1805. We know that she was the product of a large African family of 13 brothers and sisters, but we do not know where she fell in this family, the exact composition of the family, the surname of this family or in what exact area of Western Africa they lived. We do, however, know that they (and she) were of the Mende Tribe, and that her tribe's name was the source of her own first name. The year of her abduction, transport and sale into slavery was 1821 after the end of the legal slave trade. She was 16 years old.

We have been able to locate her name in the slave records of the Rayners, of Charleston, South Carolina as well as those of the Williams and Thum families in Tennessee. She was listed along with the cattle and livestock of their farms. She told her daughter, Harriet Rayner, and grandson, Dennis Williams, that upon her arrival in America, she was sold in the slave markets of Charleston, South Carolina for $250.00. After the Civil War, Mandi moved to Western Tennessee and took the name Williams after family of one of her former owners. She lived there for 36 years. At the time of the Emancipation, in 1863, Mandi was 58 years old. Mandi Williams died in 1899, in Haywood County near Brownsville Tennessee. She was 94 years old. No known pictures of her survive. This part of my family history can be found at the websites http://www.descendantsofmandi.com and http://www.shortaustinfamilytree.com.

I am thankful that my family continues to pass down our oral history because I know where my family comes from and I am proud of my ancestors and what they endured.

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