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Hi, I'm Linda Kay Morgan Clark, daughter of George James Morgan, Sr., and Ruth Mary Chesney Morgan. I have two brothers - George James Morgan, Jr., and Byron Keith Morgan - and two sisters - Marna Louise Morgan Swim and Roseann Morgan (aka Megan Rose Moore). I was born in Hutchinson, Reno, KS, where all of us were born with the exception of Marna, and all of us lived until we left home, i.e., married, went to college, changed jobs, etc.
I have been researching my family history for about 40 years. I started when my now "ex" received a copy of one of his parents' family tree books - the John Family. That was my introduction to how people collect information and create family trees. This particular family's roots extended through the Deep South which was where I was living at the time myself, so that added another layer of interest for me. I had not grown up in the South so I began my education in how Southern families migrated and - this particular family started in New Jersey and ended up scattered across many of the Southern States - how to trace several generations of descendants of people who immigrated to America. It should be noted at this point that I eventually came to live in the same town where one of the women lived who had assisted in that John Family research, and who turned out to be, along with her husband, a well-known citizen and whose husband had ties to the original Dawes Commission that set up one of the rolls that Native Americans now use to trace their own ancestors. You see, I now live in Muskogee, OK, the home of the Dawes Commission, on land that was originally alloted by the Dawes Commission to a Creek woman.
It is indeed a small world! Especially when you work on your family tree.
My interest in genealogy has grown from that initial experience into full fledged research on just my own family - on my dad's side: Morgans from Texas, Alabama and Georgia; Reynolds from Texas, Mexico and Wales; Knightons from Texas, Georgia and South Carolina. On my mom's side: Chesneys from Kansas, Illinois and Maryland; Mizes from Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky; and Duboises and Evans from Kansas (I have not done a lot of research on these lines, although I have a family tree book for the Evans family).
Along the way I've collected cousins from all branches of the family - mostly relatives who are also tracing their own family histories. I've gathered up photographs, old negatives, letters, newspaper clippings and copies of family histories. My files are not exactly voluminous - thanks to computer technology - but I've had to set up a corner of a spare bedroom as my "genealogy corner" where I can shelve my hard copy notebooks, books, and files along with a lot of CD's.
Now I'm moving into more and more computer-based outreach and sharing efforts. I've selected this particular method in order to connect with a new and younger generation of computer and internet-savy cousins. What I'm finding is that there is no one single perfect application to accomplish the connections I envision. So this wiki is one of several applications I'm working with.
I'm curious to see how it works.
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