and I signed up for the 14 day trial at Ancestry. I then started making calls to find out as much information as I could from relatives who could provide names to get me started. A lot of research had already been done on my mother's side, so I focused on my father's side. I made phone calls to people I barely knew in hopes that they would be willing to share information. I was grateful when my uncles gave me the base to get started. My father passed in 2002 so I would have to start with relatives I barely knew.
The surnames are Smith, Dunagan, Patten, Mckaig, Jones and Harris beginning in Oklahoma. I can remember tidbits of stories from my father of preachers riding shotgun with a bible in their hand going from church to church; circuit preachers. A story of a Smith whose wife died. He was a very handsome man and caught the eye of many ladies. He ended up fooling around with a married woman and came home one day dead on the back of his horse. Rumor was he got caught. There would be no death certificate on him I was told. Don't know what Smith that may have been as of yet. George Washington Smith remarried and lived to an old age. A lot of documentation on him so... James Thomas Smith would be a likely candidate. He left his wife and six children in Pennsylvania. Told his wife "he was going to go kill Indians" and never came back. James met up with my great grandma, Maggie May Patten, in Oklahoma. He was 26 years her senior. She was a school teacher. He married her and lived to a relatively old age of 69. So not quite sure on this oral story. Could be a story the elders told to keep the young men in line, lol. If your wife dies, you go marry a single or widowed woman. You don't mess around with a married one as you might end up dead.
I have put preliminary info in the pages and just discovered how "links" work. This is a work in progress and looking forward to seeing this evolve.
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