The story about Jesse Cole last week brought several responses I'd like to share with you on the Fambrough and Parks families. The Barnett tidbits came from an unexpected find in the estate records.

You never know where the path will lead when you start out on one of these research adventures. Last week after I posted my queries on the Internet and people started responding, not to the Owen side, but to the Cole side of my questions, I stood at the fork in the path, wondering whether I should really take off on this new family or politely thank them and state that I was only interested in the Cole-Owen part of the family.

This started out to be one of those difficult stories where the wife dies, the husband remarries, and the census records give a different variation of the surname each year. When that happens and you are totally confused, you go to the Internet message boards and mailing lists for help.

About five years ago when a bunch of us were desperately searching for any scrap of evidence which showed our Robert Boyd's ancestry, a fellow researcher and cousin, Dick Stewart, sent me a sheet of paper which popped my eyes wide open. It was the results of an estate sale in Newberry Co., S.C., for one John Boyd, known to most of us as John Boyd of Ballymena, great-grandfather of the Boyds buried at Bethany UMC in Fayette County.

I need to apologize to the good folks in Rocky Mount for an error I made last week in naming one of their cemeteries. I was unaware, as I'm sure some of you were, that there are two Bethel Baptist churches in Rocky Mount: one is Bethel Baptist Church (in Rocky Mount), a white church, established in 1829, and the other is Rocky Mount Bethel Baptist Church, a black church, established in 1867.

It took me the better part of the day, but last Friday I was able to copy all the will and estate information pertaining to Coleman P. Owen, the only provable child of Brice and Sarah Law/Lane Owen of Rocky Mount, Meriwether County. Research has indicated that Coleman may have had a sister, Martha, who married John Moncrief, and I have put out "feelers" on Internet lists to see if anyone has proof. There are several references to Moncriefs in Owen family documents, but nothing that would tell us without a doubt that Martha was the daughter of Brice and Sarah. Early census records indicate that Coleman had a brother and two sisters, but I have not been able to find any information on them at all.

Whenever I do an in-depth study on a family, I try to get as much of a "feel" for them as I can, and try to visit the area where they lived, if it is not too far. In the case of the Brice Owen (senior) family, this wasn't hard to do. Last week I went back to Greenville to gather some more Owen/Owens land records. My route takes me from my home near Thomas Crossroads through Sharpsburg, then through Luthersville, then on to Greenville.

I'm continuing my quest to uncover as much as I can about the various Owen and Owens families in our area, taking first the family of Brice Marshall Owen and his wife, Sarah Law (or Lane) who married in 1812 in Jasper County, moved to Clarke County, Ga. by 1820, and who were in Meriwether County by 1840. Try as I might, I could not find Brice anywhere in Georgia in 1830.

My sister, Kay, and I attended an estate sale in Pike County, a few weeks ago, which involved the descendants of the Owen family. This family (I learned after doing a little research) was in Meriwether County before Pike, and In Wilkes and Jasper counties before that. Since Martin Owen(s) of Upson and Meriwether was my ancestor and he has been my brick wall for years, this event held more than just a mild interest for me. I have long wondered if Martin was connected to the other Owen/Owens families in this area. My sister also was very interested since Bricy Owen, a relative of the family who was having the sale, was buried in the Hollonville Cemetery, just a few hundred yards from her home. Could he be one of our distant relatives?

I was surfing the 'Net the other day and stumbled across a blog which caused me great concern. It was on Ancestry.com and was a place where customers and technicians could share information and opinions on different programs offered by Ancestry.com, probably the largest genealogy corporation in the world (The Generations Network, Inc.). I have been a member (subscribed to their services) since 2000, when they were in their infancy, and, for the most part, have been quite satisfied with their performance.

Happy New Year 2008 and welcome to the start of our eighth year of "Finding Your Folks!" The very first column was published Jan. 12, 2001 and we've really covered a lot of ground (and a lot of families) in the past seven years.

About a month ago I received a letter from Evelyn Fitzgerald Hyde of Buford who is writing a book about the Hyde family of Coweta County. Evelyn was seeking an obituary on a Maurice Herman Hyde, born 23 April 1931, who had died recently and was from Coweta County.

Even though I've temporarily shelved the Byrams until I can find something documentable to prove Beverly Byram's children, I want to thank the people who wrote in last week and sent a little more information on William Dawson Byram (son of James William Byram and grandson of Beverly Byram) who moved from Pike County, Ga. to Blountville, Ala. I could not find him in any census, although I did several searches with several variations on the name.

I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. This family has been one of the most difficult to track I have ever encountered. The main reason is the lack of records in Pike County but there's no use crying about it. They should be there but, for whatever reason, they aren't there and that's that. When that happens you have to get very creative in your research methods and think of other ways - many off the beaten path and possibly unorthodox - to reach your goal. This is going to take a lot more time than I have right now. What I want to do this week is wrap up what little information I have been able to gather, record it here, and set it aside for later.

We continue our series on the descendants (or probable descendants) of Beverly Byram and Sarah Williamson who settled in Pike and Coweta counties in the 1800s. I say "probable" because there are few who can actually be proved, based on evidence I've been able to uncover (and there's not much). I've had to take a piece from here and a snippet from there, put them together and say, "Well … that might be another one … but then, again … maybe not." Quite frustrating. I wish someone would come out of the woodwork with a family Bible and say, "Oh. Is this what you're looking for?"

James A. Parker was the second son (and fourth child) of John and Martha Byram Parker, and the grandson of Beverly Byram and Sarah Williamson who had moved from Mecklenburg County, N.C. to Pike County, Ga. in the 1820s. James was 11 years old when his grandfather died in 1849 and, as close as the family lived, I think we can assume he was well acquainted with his grandparents, aunts and uncles.

I know I promised you James and Henry Parker this week (both children of Martha Byram and John Parker) but they will have to wait. Several things need to be discussed before we continue.

We continue this week with the family of Beverly Byram and Sarah Williamson of Mecklenburg County, N.C. and Pike County, Ga. Last week, we began discussion of the family of Beverly's daughter, Martha, who appears to be the oldest child and one of only two we can really prove, at this point, as being Beverly's. Information on Martha was sent by Chris Wren, a descendant, who lives in Alabama. Martha married John Parker and they had nine children. We discussed the first child last week - Catherine F. Parker Dunn Norris.

I'm still trying to tackle these Pike County Byrams and I have to admit this is one of the most difficult families I've done. Either there is little documentation of information on the early members of this family or those who have it ain't partin' with it. I have been to the Pike County probate office three times and have only found two references to our Beverly Byram, who was there at least from 1826 (when he purchased land) until his death in 1849. One probate reference was his will and the other was a notice that he had been made administrator of the estate of a James Byram Sr. in 1835. This raises a whole 'nother set of questions in itself … the first one being, who the heck was this James Byram? There were a lot of them.

Providence smiled on me again last week when some information on an unknown child (at least to me and a few others) of Beverly Byram fell into my lap. Her name was Martha Byram, she married John Parker, and she was an ancestor of my third cousin, Chris Wren, of Alabama. This child was not among those posted on the Bethel UMC Website from which I obtained my original information on Beverly's children. Martha was born about 1808 in North Carolina, according to the 1850 census.

I had fully intended to give you a nice column filled with goodies from the Pike County Courthouse on the family of Beverly Byrom of Pike County. Beverly was the older brother of James Byram whose family was featured in a series of columns several months ago. Beverly lived and died in Pike but many of his descendants lived in the area served by Bethel United Methodist Church on Luther Bailey Road in Coweta. Last week, I had answered a message on the Rootsweb message board from Heather Byrom Hannah who was inquiring about the Byram book and said she was related to the Coweta Byrams. I had not studied the Pike County Byrams and really wanted the opportunity to do so. I could still connect this family to mine through the other Byrams and then through the Tidwells.

I would probably be remiss if I didn't mention the current "buzz" in genealogy circles which hit the news Tuesday. Georgia death certificates, from 1919 through 1927, the actual images, are now online at the Georgia Archives and LDS Websites. Although Georgia didn't officially start keeping death records until 1919, there are said to be a few from 1917. These are the same death certificates you pay to have mailed to you from the Georgia Department of Vital Statistics. Access is totally free and you do not have to have a membership in any genealogy service to view, download and print them out. The index and images can be searched and viewed at www.GeorgiaArchives.org (Virtual Vault link) or labs.familysearch.org.

Boy, did I make a bad blunder last week. I just flat out lied to you. Didn't mean to but I made a statement that just wasn't true. For a minute there, I seemed to have lost my genealogy savvy and didn't use the genealogy cop-out as I should have done … you know those lovely phrases that allow you to speculate like crazy without committing and showing your total ignorance. Things like … "may have been" … "said to be" … "more than likely" … "probably" … and "possibly." There are more, as you well know. We all use them constantly when we're not quite sure.

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: