Good Intentions

This is, of course, my first posting to my blog. My primary intention here (although it may not be my only intention) is to begin posting much of the family history that I have collected the past thirty years. It's hard to believe it's been that long since my grandfather, Woodrow McQueen, let me take a file of family history on the McQueens home to look at. (Much of this information came from the early research efforts of Rosemary Hill and Jackie Barclay Barnes who had contacted my grandfather inquiring what he knew and remembered about the McQueen and Barclays of Tyler County, Texas.)  I devoured the information and very quickly, on three sheets of posterboard, detailed from myself back nine generations to Dugal McQueen.


James Polk McQueen Cabin
Birthplace of Woodrow McQueen, b. 1915
Tyler Co., TX
picture taken 1986

Since then I have published two books on my family history which are still in publication through Gregath Publishing Company. The first was Metes & Bounds:  Dugal McQueen and Some Descendants.  The second was Metes & Bounds:  David Crews, Ancestors and Descendants.  I have an unpublished history on the Hechlers (my Dad's side of the family) and I have files and files of scattered pieces of information on my family as well as other families which intertwine my own.  I have traced back both officially and unofficially lines farther back than nine generations on several branches. Much of this information is too scant to be put into a book as I did the McQueens.  However, I want this information to be available to my family as well as others researching those lines.

Family, both past and present is very important. In the olden times, families sat around in the evenings and retold stories about the family. In the intervening years, it was done by books such as I have written. Now, I am using the internet to keep these stories alive.

Feel free to spread the word to other family members as I get going on my blog!