Kinfolks
by Evelyn Flood

I received an E-mail letter from William Gorman of Plano,Texas
and would like to share it.

"Evelyn,

I ran across your posting on GenForum's Newton County,
AR message board and clicked over to your home web site.
It is very beautiful, tasteful and well done. I
might also add that in addition to honoring our
ancestors, there is even a pragmatic reason for the
more practical minded who might criticize this as a
waste of time. How can we know who we are if we do not
know and understand those who dreamed, toiled, acted,
sacrificed and blazed the trail that we walk today?
And if we do not know who we are, how can we point the
directions for our descendants to follow?

I have met so many wonderful, selfless people through
my research and, yes, through this internet medium and
we have made a difference in peoples lives. In late
May of this year, I ran across a lady from Globe, Arizona
who was researching the Vinson family of Alabama and Texas.
We discovered that her grandfather was born in Ellis
County, Texas (where I was born) and had moved away back
in the 1930's and that we were 4th cousins. When I
informed her that I helped put on an annual reunion of
residents of the Byrd-Rankin Communities of Ellis County
each June in Ennis, she decided to attend and drove by
herself from Globe, AZ to Ennis, TX in her pickup to
attend our 4 hour reunion bar-b-que. There, she was
able to meet an 80 year old step sister of her
grandfather's whom she had never met before.
They went for a drive together in the country, visiting
the sites of her g-grandfather's farm and discovering
her roots. This was all possible because I happened
across her posting in GenForum.

Thank you for what you are doing. It is truly a labor
of love. Someone, a stranger, on the internet wanted
to pay me for the cost of copying and mailing data I had
on their family. I refused, saying that I was merely
repaying a debt that I owed to others who have done the
same for me.

I left you a response on the message board about my
Seabolt ancestors who lived in Newton County.
I also mentioned the the murder of William Riley
Seabolt, Jr by Daniel Evans near Eufaula, IT in November
1874. He was married to July Elizabeth Holt in Newton
County, Arkansas on March 3, 1867 when he was 17 and
she was 14 years of age. I believe the marriage was
later annulled, for he was listed living at home with
his father's family in the 1870 census and that same
year I found marriage records for July (Julia) Elizabeth
Holt to another man. I was wondering if you had run
across Julia since you mentioned the Holt family on your
home page? The Seabolts lived in the Jackson Twp near
Jasper.

I am attaching several documents which you might find
interesting. The birth certificate in the name of
John Sibolt is for William R. Seabolts father,
John Seabolt, who was born in Berks County, PA into
the Pennsylvania Dutch heritage. I have the original
document which was passed down from William Riley and
through my grandmother and mother to me.
Regards,
William D. Gorman
Plano, Texas"

end of letter

NOTE:
A Kinfolks story regarding the Seaboalt Family and the
murder of William Riley Seaboalt,Jr. is elsewhere on this website.

(see SEABOALT GENEALOGY and WILLIAM RILEY SEABOLT,JR Story)

Evelyn Flood
[email protected]
21 April 2001
Dec 2016

E-mail me:
[email protected]