There's More Leaves on the Tree Part Two: The Descendants


Book Description

A statement that is often said in genealogical circles is, “If you can prove it, it’s genealogy, if you can’t it’s mythology.” This book includes extensive appendices of death certificates, marriage licenses, tombstone inscriptions, church histories, and funeral programs that support other records found in the earlier chapters of this book. “There’s More Leaves on the Tree Part Two: The Descendants” is the author documentation of four generations of his great-grand father Frank Bilberry and Emma Roberts descendants. Also included is additional descendant research on families that that were related to the Bilberry family or were part of the community that they lived in.




February 2013 Catalog


Book Description







There's More Leaves on the Tree


Book Description

There's More Leaves on the Tree is about the author's 14 year journey in search of his great grandfather's Frank Bilberry's white father and African American mother. The book starts out with a visit to his grandfather's Ladell Bilberry old home site. The visit reveal that the old home site was now overtaken by the forest where it can barely be found any longer. The home he knew as a child has now fallen down with a few remnants left from the past. It was a place where his ancestral family and extended families once bought land raised and sold crops to make the best living they could. He reminiscences about how his mother and father once lived in this area. His mother really didn't like living on a farm and designed a way to convince her husband to move closer to the town of Marion, Louisiana. The author writes a chapter about "The End of Jim Crow Education" in Union Parish, Louisiana. He recalls how the Plessey vs Ferguson doctrine of 1896 and the Brown vs Education doctrine of 1954 co-existed at the same time. One law allowed African Americans to have separate but equal facilities as Whites but in 1954 the Brown vs Board of Education stated it was acceptable to go to the same schools. The book delineates the struggle his high school, the community and the Union Parish School Board had in trying to reconcile this dilemma when it was time for the senior class to graduate in 1970. The Bilberry surname originated from White immigrants from Alabama who made their way to the rich fertile land of Union Parish, Louisiana. Most of them bought land, raised and sold crops to make their living. Many owned slaves. Slaves were valuable property to the slave owners. Many mulatto children were fathered by slave owners with the slave female. It was not uncommon for this to continue after the emancipation of the slaves. The latter is the case with Frank Bilberry. He was born circa 1878 to a former slave holder that lived near his mother's family. His white father sired several other sister and brothers other slave and former wome. Like many other slaves of South several slaves used the surname Bilberry after their master's name after being emancipated. The book is filled with pictures that follows along with the story of the book. It has an extensive appendix at the end of the book that includes death certificates, marriage licenses, land patents, obituaries and photographs of both white and black Bilberry's and their extended families (Honeycutts, Horn, Nelson, Bridges, Feazel, Wilhite, Warren, Burch, Ellis, Archie, Armstrong, Roberts, Robinson, Montgomery and more) of Union Parish, Louisiana. Every Family has a family story to tell but someone must be willing to tell it.










Family Maps of Winn Parish, Louisiana, Deluxe Edition


Book Description

364 pages with 92 total maps Locating original landowners in maps has never been an easy task-until now. This volume in the Family Maps series contains newly created maps of original landowners (patent maps) in what is now Winn Parish, Louisiana, gleaned from the indexes of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But it offers much more than that. For each township in the county, there are two additional maps accompanying the patent map: a road map and a map showing waterways, railroads, and both modern and many historical city-centers and cemeteries. Included are indexes to help you locate what you are looking for, whether you know a person's name, a last name, a place-name, or a cemetery. The combination of maps and indexes are designed to aid researchers of American history or genealogy to explore frontier neighborhoods, examine family migrations, locate hard-to-find cemeteries and towns, as well as locate land based on legal descriptions found in old documents or deeds. The patent-maps are essentially plat maps but instead of depicting owners for a particular year, these maps show original landowners, no matter when the transfer from the federal government was completed. Dates of patents typically begin near the time of statehood and run into the early 1900s. What's Mapped in this book (that you'll not likely find elsewhere) . . . 6186 Parcels of Land (with original landowner names and patent-dates labeled in the relevant map) 42 Cemeteries plus . . . Roads, and existing Rivers, Creeks, Streams, Railroads, and Small-towns (including some historical), etc. What YEARS are these maps for? Here are the counts for parcels of land mapped, by the decade in which the corresponding land patents were issued: DecadeParcel-count 1830s3 1840s225 1850s584 1860s1656 1870s41 1880s342 1890s1115 1900s1874 1910s281 1920s36 1930s13 1940s2 1950s7 1960s5 1970s1 1980s1 What Cities and Towns are in Winn Parish, Louisiana (and in this book)? Alonzo (historical), Atlanta, Beal Crossing, Beech (historical), Bethlehem, Brewtons Mill, Calvin, Carla, Chester, Coldwater, Colgrade, Couley, Crews, Crockett (historical), Curry, Curry (historical), Dodson, Emden, Fay (historical), Five Forks, Flat Creek, Gaars Mill, Gansville, Hatfield, Hickory Valley, Hill, Hudson, Jordan Hill, Joyce, Kelly Front (historical), Lofton, Mars Hill, Menefee, Milams, Mill, Moore, Mount Zion, Mulberry Hill (historical), Murray Junction, New Moore, Newport, Old Newport (historical), Packton, Pine Ridge, Pleasant Hill (historical), Prairie Home (historical), Ringwood, Royal, Saint Maurice, Salt (historical), Sardis, Sikes, Smith (historical), Tannehill, Tansey, Tunica (historical), Union Hill, Wheeling, Whitford, Winnfield, Winona (historical), Worsham Crossing, Zion Hill (historical)