Clover Wall of Honor

Clover Family Research Compendium

Edited and maintained by June Clover Byrne 

For the Clover Family Historical Society

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Clover Wall of Honor

        Sometimes we forget that our task is easier because of those who went before. It is easy to stand tall when we stand on the shoulders of others. And each of us who strives to uncover new Clover facts today is standing on the shoulders of others even though some newer researchers may not be aware of it. I want to take this opportunity to honor past Clover researchers and to show how much I respect and appreciate their contributions. So many people are new to genealogy and have no idea what it was like in the years ago. Nor do they know who did the early tough spade work on their family. Nor do they realize that research used to be really tough and very time consuming.

        Think about no census indexes, no 1930 census, no 1920 census, no 1880 soundex. The 1910 census was not even available in 1983 and even then there was no soundex for 21 states. Now all of that is available online. Think about jumping in your car and driving off to spend days paging censuses instead of sitting at your desk and casually checking something on the Internet. Think about the new rolls of microfilm that are now available through the LDS Church. They are still adding a thousand rolls a day to their catalog. Think about the massive extraction projects that the LDS Church has sponsored. Those marriage, birth, and christening records were previously buried and difficult to locate. Think about the Ellis Island Project which is such a wonderful database.

        When Robert Frampton was working in the first quarter of the 20th Century, he had so little available. The 1850 census was not available until 1923. It is hard to even imagine all of the many books which have been published in the last 80 years. We have so many indexes, so much material, we are so very lucky. That information explosion has grown geometrically in the last three years. I am amazed at what I can find easily now that I spent weeks looking for only a couple of years ago. The FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, Rootsweb.com, Heritage Quest.com, Genweb and Genealogy.com are all amazing resources. These are just a few examples of the way that the world has changed in the last few years.

        It has only been in the last 40 years that copy machines have been so common as to be taken for granted. So people had to had copy papers again and again. It was exhausting and laborious. They wrote group sheets by hand with a pencil so it could be easily changed without rewriting the whole thing. Even 10 years ago, you couldn't get on line and request a lookup. You had to write a very nice begging letter and then haunt the mailbox. Maybe the response would take months to come back. Or it wouldn't come at all and you had to send another letter to another place and start waiting all over again. You didn't have half the indexes that are available now. Research even five years ago was tougher. When you see some of the material that was published then, you should be amazed at what all they found. I am awed by the work it represents. I am perhaps more aware of this than some of you because I started researching and publishing well before the current information explosion.

        When I think of the limited resources our predecessors had available, I am amazed that they found anything at all. But they managed to their way and carve out a path in the wilderness for us to follow. Genealogy should be thought of as a process, not a product. Every genealogical fact is actually a conclusion and every genealogical conclusion is subject to review as new information becomes available. What is most important is that we honor the pioneers and respect their work and understand the enormous effort that they expended even a few years ago. We should not concentrate on a few minor errors, but on the wonderful body of work that they have produced.

        I am going to name just a few here and tell you a bit about them. Many of you who are new to the field will not know them. Some will remember them as old friends.

        Bob and Marguerite Clover made an enormous contribution to the research world because they were the first editors and publishers of the Clover Family Exchange Newsletter. They continued the newsletter for several years until their health problems made continuation impossible. I acquired the rights to the newsletter from Bob and Marguerite in 1998 because I wanted so badly to see it continue. I have researched, edited and written every article in every Clover newsletter published since then. I hope very much that they would be proud of what I have accomplished.

        Robert Frampton was a giant in the history of Clover research on the descendants of John Peter Clover. He was a Frampton and Roll family researcher who started researching as a teenager and continued to his death in the 1950's. Because some Pennsylvania Clover families intermarried with the Frampton and Roll families, he also gathered Clover material. He wrote letters to people about their family. At his death, he had an enormous collection of letters written to him containing family data which covered a period of 40 years. He had information from the pens of those alive 100 years ago who remembered stories told to them back another 75 years. This information is absolutely irreplaceable. Upon his death, his collection was given to an archive in Pittsburgh. The very sad thing is that they have damaged its value considerably. At one point, the collection was sorted by family. I hired a researcher to copy all of the Clover folders from his collection. Unfortunately, before I did this, they mixed it together and sorted it by the date of the letter which means that you have to handle every piece of paper in a dozen large boxes. Someday, I hope to make a trip there and get these copies myself. It appears that this is the only way it will happen. Meanwhile, I consider this to be a real tragedy. 

        Helen Harriss was very active in researching the descendants of Philip Clover and Mary Cooper. She was a Certified Genealogist some 20 years ago. She contributed important material to the Clover Family Exchange. Her expertise was a terrific asset to the family. Her collection of data has been donated to the Pittsburgh Genealogical Society. I am told it has not yet been cataloged. There is a very slim possibility that she had a copy of the lost Gamaliel Clover bible. This is perhaps the last hope of finding a copy of that bible.

        Peggy Howard researched the Monroe County Clovers. However, truth be told, she couldn't contain her curiosity and dabbled her fingers in a lot of families trying to find connections. She was of the letter writing era and spent her days writing to a large group of correspondents. Although she died just as the Clover Family Exchange was beginning to be published back in 1983, much of what was published on that family in the 1980's was actually her work. She was filled with an incredible energy and those who knew her speak of her with great respect and enthusiasm.

        Dorotha R. Davis researched the descendants of Philip Clover of Berkeley County, Virginia for many years. She was born 29 September 1905, Scott Township, Marion County, Ohio and died 7 July 1990, Franklin County, Ohio. Much of the material on this family which was published by Bob and Marguerite Clover was her work although her name does not appear on all of it. Even though she made some errors, she must be given credit for her tremendous contribution to early research on this family. She spent years trying to solve Clover problems and spent much money sending off for copies at a time when the Internet did not even exist and getting copies of anything was so difficult. And it is amazing that she came up with as much as she did.

        Edith Skrlec researched the descendants of the John Clover in the 1790 census in Connecticut. Her research was not published in the early Clover Family Exchange newsletters. I don't think she ever subscribed. Her work is available to us because she was a member of the LDS church and made many IGI submissions. She was responsible for locating the Connecticut church records for this family. You can see her many submissions to the IGI as early as 1971. Those of you who have never researched in New York State have no idea how tough it is. She did an amazing job in a very difficult area.

    Susie LaVerne (Clover) Wagner and Lyra Joyce (Robertson) Clover were two of the very early Clover researchers into Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas records.  Susie was an early subscriber to the Clover Family Exchange and sent in material for many years.  According to information in the IGI, she was born 16 February 1918, Okolona, Clark County, Arkansas, died 28 January 2005.  She was married first to John H. Wagner.  After his death, she remarried.  She worked closely with her friend and cousin, Lyra Joyce Robertson, born 25 January 1914 in Mexia,Texas, married Thomas L. Clover 4 July 1942, in Seguin,Texas.  Lyra died 7 October 1997 Angelina County,Texas.  They were extremely active in both the fight for the preservation of records and early research into these difficult families.
Susie Clover Wagner
Susie Clover Wagner

Leo Causey

http://www.vanzandtnewspapers.com/news/120/ARTICLE/7399/2009-08-04.html
        Leo Causey, 74, Ben Wheeler passed away July 3. The family invites anyone wishing to express condolences to a public celebration, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, August 1 at Van Community Center.
Mr. Causey was born August 1, 1934 in Loraine, Texas.
        Survivors include his wife, Flora; children, Pam Walker, Michael Causey, Linda Wilkes, Darla Daniel, Karen Long, Cathey Causey, Teena Witt, Linda Harden, Cheryl Anders, Roberta Hardin and Clifford Hardin, 34 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren.
 
    He served in the Korean War discarged honorably.  Leo was an avid gardener and enjoyed  genealogy, politics and founded a prayer ministry than spaned the globe.Leo was an avid genealogist.  He specialized in the Clovers, Massengils, Gann, Baker material in Texas which is a difficult state to deal with.       
He is one of our gone but not forgotten friends.  He was also a great fan of this website for which I was truly grateful.
 

         There were a lot more of these early researchers and I certainly don't pretend to know them all. If you know of an early researcher in your family whom you would like to have honored, let me know. I will put their names on this Clover Wall of Honor. 

        This is my own personal thank you to all of these researchers who went before us and who have made our tasks so much easier.

June Clover Byrne [email protected] or [email protected]

Editor, Clover Family Newsletters

 Copyright 2003 June C. Byrne. No material on this page or any other page on this site may be used in any publication or for any commercial purpose without the written permission of June C. Byrne. This page was originally published on my AOL site in 2003.

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This page last updated 18 January 2009.