A Wilson Family Tree
Acknowledgements
The first two letters in the link below were my start in genealogy. I had a school project (I think it must have been eighth grade) to make a family tree, so I wrote to one person on each side of the family whom I had heard knew about family history. They were both kind enough to reply, so I owe a lot to P.D. Gathright and Leonie Rinker, and Leonie's daughter, Catherine McGrew. It was lucky I had this project, because otherwise I wouldn't have had much to start with later on, especially on the Wilson side. The next acknowledgement is to my cousin, Gaylon Gathright. When I was starting to be more interested in genealogy, in 1998, he gave me a copy of a Gedcom file he had put together, which had lots of information on my mother's side of the family. It was great to have so much to work with right away. Another thing that helped on my mother's side of the family was copies of several old documents, including family-bible pages, that I got from my uncle, Glen Gathright. A letter from 1952 about a branch of the Kanouse family is included here. An important break on my father's side of the family came when we were going through my grandparents' house and came across a number of old letters to and from my grandfather, Leonard E. Wilson. They were helpful in filling in some of the blanks in the relatively recent Wilson family history; a few of those letters are also included here. The other big breakthrough in older Wilson family history (besides the letter from Catherine McGrew) was getting in touch with James Hotchkiss Jr.; he had done quite a bit of research on the family and he sent me a lot of great materials, including a report that he had written about our Wilsons in the 1800s. It's really hard to sort out Wilsons in the old days because there are so many, and many of them have the same names, so this was a huge help. Also, one of the things he sent me was the Family Record by Dr. Thomas Davis Parks, which is a wonderful resource for Davis and Reeves ancestors. I found out about Jim Hotchkiss through the Ancestral File at http://www.familysearch.org, so I owe thanks to them as well. Aside from individuals, Ancestry.com has been a fantastic resource, and I have obtained a great deal of information from World Family Tree as well (formerly at Genealogy.com, and Brøderbund before that; apparently no longer available). Beyond these acknowledgments, I have gotten a tremendous amount of information on the internet, from books, and through correspondence with many people. The most important of these are included in the source list, but there are many others who are not listed there explicitly. I am grateful for all of the help!
Some recent family letters (1924–1966)
Note: Some of the information in these pages is uncertain. Please let me know of errors or omissions using the email link above. ...Mike Wilson
Page updated May 2018