#18 Royal Descents, Notable Kin, and Printed Sources: The Border and Deep South
Gary Boyd Roberts
Published Date : April 24, 1987
Today we shall consider the
border and Deep South. The Bluegrass region of Kentucky, which includes
Louisville and Lexington, is largely a western extension of the Virginia
Tidewater; major national figures from this area have included W.C. Bullitt,
R.C. and Thurston Ballard Morton, James Speed, the A.E. Stevensons, and William
Wirt. The first references for Kentucky research should be the GPC journal
consolidations -- Genealogies of Kentucky Families, 3 vols, Kentucky
Marriage Returns, and Kentucky Tax Records.
Tennessee divides
into three sections: (1) Knoxville and western North Carolina (an extension of
the Shenendoah Valley); (2) Nashville and central Tennessee - the northernmost
"nouveau" Cotton Kingdom (presidents Jackson and Polk); (3) Memphis and the
Mississippi River culture. Major sources include the pre-1861 marriages and will
index by Byron Sistler, newspaper abstracts by S.E. Lucas and the Goodspeed
mugbook reprints (collective county histories).
Alabama, Mississippi,
Louisiana, and some of Georgia compose the Cotton Kingdom (with a large
migration from Virginia and the Carolinas) and the Delta and Creole culture
(French, Spanish, Anglo, and Black). Alabama Records by the Gandruds extends to
245 vols., over 50 I believe for Madison County (Huntsville) alone. The works of
Winston de Ville and Gary and Elizabeth Shown Mills cover the Gulf Coast. The
volumes by Reverend D.J. Hebert cover southern and southwest Louisiana, New
Orleans Genesis is the major journal for this area and the major source for
Arkansas is again a set of Goodspeed mugbook reprints.
The Mississippi
River culture has midwestern connections via St. Louis and extends to Memphis,
Natchez, and New Orleans. For St. Louis see especially Cristy Bond's Gateway
Families, probably the most lavish genealogy ever produced, which covers the
families of explorer William Clark, St. Louis founder Réné Chouteau, and several
brewing families (Busch and Pabst are both in the index).
For Texas major
regions or settlements include (1) the Mexican Rio Grande Valley and San
Antonio; (2) New Englanders in Austin’s Colony and the Republic of Texas; (3)
German New Braunfels; and (4) post-Civil War migration from the Deep South,
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. The eastern half of Texas is spillover Delta
and Cotton Kingdom (Galveston, Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth) plus cattle (late
19th century) and oil (20th century) kingdoms centered in Ft. Worth and Houston.
Since World War II industrial transfer and movement from small towns to county
seats to suburbs has created the "Sun Belt," with major "capitals" in Miami,
Houston, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. Major sources include W.P. Webb's Handbook
of Texas, 3 vols. (both a geographical gazetteer and biographical
dictionary), Debrett's Texas Peerage (with genealogical charts of several
Spanish families, the King-Klebergs, Lyndon Johnson's kin, etc., Burnett's
Yankees in the Republic of Texas, various Goodspeed mugbook reprints, and
my own "New England in Texas" in NEXUS 4 (1987): 240-44. This last covers
the New England derived Allen-W.M. Rice (born in Springfield, Mass.)-Howard
Hughes-W.S. Farish clan of Houston, the H.L. Hunts of Dallas (with much
Nantucket ancestry and a line from James Chilton of the Mayflower), the
King-Klebergs of the King Ranch (with lines from William Bradford and Richard
Warren of the Mayflower), S.F. Austin (of the Charlestown, Mass. family),
Gail Borden (of the R.I. family), cattleman A.H. "Shanghai" Pierce (born in
Little Compton, R.I.), Senator John Tower (of the Hingham, Mass. family), and
the two George Bushes (president and governor).
Once again I hope readers
have enjoyed this excursion south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Next week we shall
return to New England and I will comment on some general observations derived
from perusing the charts of many Society members in tutorials and
consultations.