Sometimes it just happens like that. The heavens open up and stuff is dumped right into your lap. God just smiles and gives you a gift. That is what he did for me last week. There is no other answer. It just happened and I am not questioning why. I have waited for more than a year.

We'll wrap up this Cochran family this week with some details on the remaining children of William Allen and Alpha Sophia Johnson Cochran of the McCollum area south of Palmetto. The Cochran land was in the Seventh District which straddles Campbell (now South Fulton) and Coweta counties. Land lots in this district are in both counties. It also is not far from Tyrone in Fayette County. Using today's landmarks, I'd say these Cochrans lived roughly in the Cannongate area (within a few miles of the golf ball water tower). They moved here from Newton County sometime between 1835 and 1840.

I'm going to continue with the Cochran family this week, giving you more detailed information on two of the children of William Allen and Alpha Johnson Cochran. These Cochrans were only one of several Cochran families in the Campbell County area and may be related to some of them. They were in a corner where three counties come together - Campbell, Coweta and Fayette - and they lived in the McCollum community.

I am really big on keeping non-related people in my family tree. Although they may not be related to me, they are all connected to my family somehow. Admittedly, some of the "daisy chains" get pretty long and several are really "way" out there, but I have a method to my madness.

Odd names have always fascinated me. First names, last names, it doesn't matter, just odd names that take some thinking to learn to spell.

There is one more Jones family I want to mention before we move on to another series of families, and that is one I did quite some time ago when we did the stories about the families buried at Bethany Methodist Church in Fayette County. That would be Enoch George Jones and his family. He was the one who survived a load of buckshot pumped into him by his (second) wife one hot summer evening, lived to tell about it, and later divorced her. Several articles appeared in the Atlanta Constitution about the incident and were relayed to me by Deanne Barr, a descendant.

This week, Nancy Jones Cornell, president of the Old Campbell County Historical Society (OCCHS) presents a story of her Joneses. Nancy writes:

As Anne Westbrook wrote last week, Harrison Jones was captured and imprisoned at Point Lookout, Md., but was later released at the end of the war. He returned to Fayette County and, in 1867, received land from his father. We pick up the story there. Anne writes:

We continue this week with the story of one of the many Jones families in Fayette County, that of Jesse Jones and his children. Anne Westbrook is a descendant of this family and has generously shared her research with us. It is hoped that someone out there may see something familiar and make a connection, helping to separate this common surname into family groups.

Those with Joneses in their family pedigree have a daunting task in separating, categorizing, and compartmentalizing the many families of this surname as they migrated to America and spread out over this new land. I, myself, have one Jones that I have only half-heartedly attempted to research - Henry Jones of South Carolina and Troup County who married Nancy Elizabeth Fincher. He was my fourth great-grandfather.

Several months ago, Anne Westbrook wrote me and asked if I'd be interested in doing a series of articles on the Jones families in Fayette and surrounding areas. Since Jones is one of the more difficult families to keep track of, I gratefully accepted her offer. Anne has done a lot of research and gives her sources plainly in her articles. The stories appearing the next few weeks were written entirely by her. She begins with Robert Jones of Clarke County.

We're going to wrap up the Grays this week with the final installment of Carol Hoyt's beautifully written story about her own branch of the Gray family. Carol writes:

We continue this week with the story of the Gray family of the Line Creek area, written and submitted by Carol Hoyt of Kansas. Carol had said that Abraham and his wife had several children but we have information on only three, Nancy, Benjamin and Hosea. Carol's story continues:

When I was doing the stories on the Line Creek families over the past few weeks, I received an email from Carol Hoyt who lives in Kansas. Carol had been reading the stories on the Internet and said that she was from another Line Creek family - the Grays. Well, the Grays were no strangers to me. It seemed that everywhere I went searching for information on those four Line Creek families, I stumbled across a Gray who married into one.

I'm going to try and wrap up this Kempson family this week with, hopefully, some info many didn't have. It is always helpful to know what court documents exist on a particular family and that's what I've been doing - checking with the courts in Coweta and Meriwether to see which Kempsons left a will or whose estate was administered here, and, if land was purchased, where it was located. Last week I checked Meriwether and this week Coweta.

I was mildly surprised that this family, which had lots of children and married into many of the well-known families in Coweta and Meriwether, was not well represented in either the local history books or online. These Kempsons were the descendants of Harmon Kempson, a German immigrant who made his way from Hanover, Germany to South Carolina, and later to Meriwether County, Georgia and left many to carry on his name. His children were Henry, Elizabeth, Peter John Michael, Frederick Harmon, Benjamin and Susannah.

This week we continue with Robin Parker's story of the children of David and Nancy Leitner Gable. Robin names the children in order and writes of them:

“(1) Noah Gable married Sallie A. Wilson in 1858 and they had 10 children. In 1859, Noah purchased the medical practice of Dr. N.B. Drewry in Brooks and, for the next 72 years, Noah and two of his sons practiced medicine there. Noah enlisted in the CSA and was captured and held POW at Camp Douglas in Illinois. Since he was a physician, his services were greatly needed. At the end of the war, Noah had to walk the long distance from Illinois back to his home in Brooks. Noah was the grandfather of Miss Nina Gable, who was a well-known personality in the Brooks community.

Moving on to the next family in the newspaper article of 1907 about the "fruitful" families of Line Creek, we come to the family of George Washington Gable, to whom Robin Parker, author of the two previous articles, also is related. From 1907: " ... These three families (Hutchinson, Thompson, Kempson) live on adjoining plantations and are in sight of each other. Within sight of these three mentioned is the family of our late worthy County Treasurer George W. Gable, deceased, which is composed of ten children and the widowed mother. All of the children are at home with the mother. Thus the four families are 46 children all living within a mile of each other ... "

I guess most of you have noticed that John Hatcher is no longer doing the religion column for our Wednesday religion section. John decided to resign a few weeks ago after writing for us for nearly 15 years ... actually since the paper began back in February of 1993.

We hate to see John go and sincerely wish him well. We appreciate all those faithful columns over the years.

We continue this week with the wonderful story on the Jack Thompson family written and submitted by Robin Parker of Warm Springs. This family was mentioned in a 1907 newspaper article in the Newnan paper, along with the Gables, the Kempsons and the Hutchinsons, as having a very large family and living within a mile of each other on the Coweta-Meriwether line. In this area, Line Creek flows from Fayette to Coweta into Meriwether, separating Coweta from Spalding and Meriwether from Pike. Just a little farther south, Line Creek flows into the Flint River. I have written about many families living in this area (and would love to hear more about them from you).

The ink had hardly dried on the paper last week when I received an e-mail from Robin Parker of Warm Springs who is descended from two of our Line Creek families. Her aunt who lives in Peachtree City had clipped out the column and sent it to her. Needless to say I was thrilled to hear from someone who could tell us a little more, and on a more personal level, about the lives of these people. Robin agreed to share some information on her families and will be writing most of the material for the columns for the next few weeks. Robin writes:

I've been sitting here wrestling with myself for the past week, trying to decide which family to do first (of those discussed in last week's article). I fully intended to do the Kempsons but something just didn't "feel" right. I went over the material again and finally realized what it was. I was trying to write about the wrong Benjamin Kempson! What a disaster that would have been! Let me explain.

Once again we're transitioning out of one family into connecting lines, going from the Herndons into the Kempsons, Hutchinsons, Thompsons and Gables. As you remember, two Herndon brothers married two Kempson sisters and both sisters just happen to belong to one of the families we will study in more detail later.

I'm going to wrap up the Herndon family this week with short stories about the three youngest children of Edward and Nancy Brown Herndon: James, Cora and Walter. Cora and Walter were little more than toddlers when their father died early in 1855 and their mother passed away in December of the same year. James was a young teen. All three had their inheritance put under the watchful eye of a guardian, with Walter Pope taking care of the financial affairs of all three children.

We will continue this week with the children of Edward and Nancy Brown Herndon of Elbert and Meriwether counties, and focus once more on the family of Preston and Ann Amis Herndon. We started this story two weeks ago with the three young children of this couple who died tragically when they were barely able to toddle. This week we continue with more of Preston and Ann's children who lived to adulthood, married and had children of their own.

I'm going to move off the topic of the Herndons this week to bring you some very sad news and spread a few flowers where they so deservedly belong.

The genealogy and history community lost two of its brightest stars this week with the passing of Norma Gunby on Saturday, April 14, and Willis (Bill) Nolen on Monday, April 16. Norma was a shining star in the genealogy community and Bill's bright rays shone down on the tight-knit community of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A Luthersville resident formerly from East Point, Bill had been a Confederate history buff since his childhood.

I spent a delightful day with Nell O'Shields last Wednesday, going over her collection of Herndon information and photos - what treasures she has! However, when we put our information together, we came across several questions which are going to take some time to figure out.

This will probably be a series in several parts since I have so much information on Preston and Nell O'Shields has shared so much of his story not found in the record books. There are still a few questions which I need to pursue through those records, but there is still plenty to tell before we get there.

Once again, I regret that I have to start off with corrections but the sharp eyes of Valerie Freeman in California caught at least two from last week's column. And I have two questions, myself, which I hope someone can answer. There also is a little more on Joel's estate I'd like to share, so we'll use this week to tie up some loose ends.

The third son of Edward and Nancy Brown Herndon was Joel Jasper Herndon, born 18 Oct 1829 in Elbert County, Ga. Joel is the only child of Edward and Nancy to have a biography included in "Georgia Memoirs," a book published in 1895. I ran an excerpt from the Memoirs story in an earlier column as it gave much of Joel's life history and some of his heritage. The book may be found at the Coweta Genealogy Library in Grantville as well as at the Georgia Archives. I found one conflict in that Joel's marriage date in the story disagreed with the marriage date in the original marriage book in Meriwether County.