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ABOUT THIS DVD (AND WEB SITE) AND HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM IT

Coverage is not even. The families and individuals are not given equal treatment. Nor is it complete. The time and care I was capable of spending was not unlimited, and the contributions from relatives were uneven or were a result of chance discoveries or encounters. Neither is this product professionally designed. I hope you can overlook that.

More attention is given to sensational matters than ordinary matters. That is because notorious material is more plentiful. If it was not notorious, or noteworthy, then there were fewer mentions to be found.  Therefore relatives who lived good and ordinary lives in one place are often not documented well.

John Connor White, Joe Ingram, Joan Dixon, and J.W. White reviewed most of this content of this DVD as it existed October 2011. However all errors and opinions are the author's.

PERSONAL NOTES and WHAT'S NEW

March 2013 (rev. Apr 2017)
By Travis Hardin (grandson of William Ausie White)

Family stories, also called family lore, are items of family history that have been handed down through the generations, sometimes by writing but mostly by telling. The main Teller in my lifetime has been Melvin White talking through listeners Connor White, Theoria White, Larry Dixon, and Joan Dixon. Melvin's father James White was told the exciting and generations-old story of the troubled Atantic crossing, and of a name to remember -- Fasue -- a name seemingly treasured by James White's mother. Recently I've been able to verify the Atlantic crossing story thanks to Martha and Rick Glisson of Atlanta (descendants of Victoria Bale), and to old Massachusettes newspapers online at genealogybank.com.

Other stories and sections on this DVD briefly present the family of Lovia Lane (Ausie White's wife and my grandmother) and her ancestors. Those sections will be of interest mainly to the descendants of William Ausie White and Lovia Lane. The surnames in Lovia Lane's history include Lane, Johnson, Griffith, Farrar, and Barnett, the latter four being the maternal line arranged in reverse chronological order.

This is the last White CD or compilation I plan to do, because I have other families to compile and other jobs to do unrelated to genealogy. Newer photos I colect, and by chance a few old ones I haven't found yet, will be put on my genealogy Web sites. The current site is gen.intelec.us. The site for my downloadable tree is http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=travhard
Also I have begun a tree called Lane-Johnson-White-Martin in the Ancestry.com manner, using their sources, at trees.ancestry.com/tree/52986688/family.

I'm grateful to Connor White, J.W. White, Lynn White, Joan Dixon, and others for sharing photos and to the many other family members who have provided genealogies, stories, histories, and photos.I don't consider this material copyrighted, so it is yours to include in a record more specific to your own family. I request the courtesy of your attributing the original compilation to me. Processing the photographs to improve or restore them would improve the presentation greatly, and you are welcome to restore the photos.

Very few people develop an interest in family history. If, after seeing this attempt of mine, you develop an interest in improving and adding to it, appoint yourself a researcher and begin. First, ask questions of the oldest relatives (before they die). My generation is 60 and 70 years old and waning, so if you are younger than 60 it is time to begin. There is no substitute for listening to the older generation. More and more records are appearing and are being indexed and organized on the Web, which may allow you to fill in many blanks and to push further back in time in your searches. One of the most valuable resources, and one you may be very grateful for, is J.W. White's making available his Y-DNA test results. Two major repositories of records are the familysearch.org by the LDS, and the commercial site ancestry.com. Several sites speialize in putting old newspapers on line.


Poking into the past sometimes brings unexpected revelations -- revelations that at one time could have been embarrassing, disgraceful, or downright dangerous. However, we now live in an age when 150-year-old secrets about race can be revealed without fear of consequences. I am grateful for the liberalization of society, hard-won by others in my lifetime, that leaves us all -- regardless of race or racial mix -- more personally secure and unthreatened than in those days when anxiety about race hung heavy in the air around us. Since young adulthood I have realized that dimunition of human misery and suffering is at the heart of morality. Abolition and later the civil rights movement were the beginnings of righting an abhorrent moral wrong -- a wrong that was for long ages perpetuated by the Southern establishment and internalized and defended into modern times by descendants of their white vassals. The 1960's equality movement by blacks challenged whites to discover the meaning of morality. Many whites found that meaning. While resisting white peer pressure, they began to treat everyone as human beings. For people who have made that transition there is no fear of consequences because the anxiety has lifted and the matter is no longer of any consequence. Safety, freedon from threat and violence, no more night riders; peace, equality for all, and we can smile at whom we wish and associate with whom we wish. Those are some of the fruits of liberal thought and action exercised by kind and determined souls across the last five decades and more. Pause a moment to savor the sweet fragrance of the age of post-slavery.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a nationally-known college professor of mixed race, reminded viewers on the PBS program "African American Lives 2," broadcast first in 2006, that a mixed-race person who in times past wanted to "pass" had to cut every tie with his family and his past. For that reason I would not be surprised to learn that Jim White "passed" by leaving and ignoring his mother Mary White (who herself had light skin and might have also passed). I have no facts or hints to show what their relationship was. I can only say I've found no record of Mary Adams White in or near the household of her son James White since 1880 when he was 17 years old.

You may find errors here. The material is uneven and some material is unverified. I am an amateur researcher and I am human. Possibly my greatest fault is rushing to conclusions on too little evidence. I did that with the Atlanta Mary White some years ago. My recent re-examination of widow Mary White of Atlanta shows clearly she is Mary White of Conyers, Georgia, not Mary White of Floyd County. I have walked back that premature conclusion in this DVD and on my Web site.

 

March 2013 (rev. Apr 2017) by Travis Hardin, P.O. Box 485, Meridianville, Alabama 35759