Pathway:
A Family History
Illustrated family stories compiled by Michael David McGinnis, from Ireland, Germany, Bohemia, England, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas, including Edmund McGinnis, Polly Hoagland, Christopher O'Bryan, Thomas Berwick, Robert Perry, Rebecca Nurse, Hiram Langdon Nourse, Christoph Ashorn, Carl Findeisen, and James Harvey Kidd and a hundred others.
Search Index Conclusion and References Autographs Music
Preface: To My Family
Fourteen generations and four hundred years: that's the span
from my earliest American immigrants to our latest infant offspring. Between those two
generations, more than 8,000 direct ancestors were born and married, have given
birth and died: martyrs and tricksters; stowaways, castaways, runaways; men who trusted in their
fists, men who trusted in their God.
| After six years, now available in paperback! Pathway: A Family History (formerlyPathway), 4th edition, 142 pages plus photographs. And your own family photos and stories can be included at no extra charge! Price: $20 postpaid, $15 for additional copies. Send check or money order to: Michael McGinnis, P.O. Box 73, Waring, TX 78074. For more information, contact me at pathway@biographiks.com. |
New features in this fourth biennial edition include more about the courtship of Elva and Alpheus, who was really on the Ashorn rooftop that Christmas, what Franzeska did when she got her Confederate widow's pension, a photo essay on the "New Years Twins", the scandalous 17th century story of Cecely Reynolds Baley Jordan Farrar, and additional sketches of the Texas descendants of Edmund and Polly McGinnis. Special thanks for new Pritchard and Meredith stories to Emily Pritchard Cary, author of The Pritchard Family History (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 2001), who as a writer is both fastidious and interesting.
With the 1999 third edition came the amazing tales of faith of Polly Hoagland and the ancient legends of the days when the McGinnis clan ruled northern Ireland, as recorded in John F. Meginniss' 1891 McGinnis family history, published while Polly McGinnis's sons were still living. Much golden material about Louisiana branches came from the late Virginia O'Bryan, who bequeathed her life's work of family research to the Wallisville Heritage Park. Descended from both the Nourses and the O'Bryans, Virginia shared all of Ruth O'Bryan McGinnis's ancestral lines. The Ashorn section was greatly enhanced by a rich eight-hour interview with Riley Ashorn, a boyhood neighbor of his grandparents Edward and Rosalia Ashorn. Cousins, including Mack Kidd, Yancey Watkins and Peg Gordon, emailed me 19th century letters written by Southern ancestors.
The second edition in 1997 owed much to old letters from distant but much-appreciated cousins who sent me information via email and "snail mail," or animated conversations over barbecue with great-aunts and uncles, or relaxed interviews with Gloria Garrett, or from on-the-scene conversation at 40 miles an hour in Lesta Lovejoy King's Toyota Camry as she tried to find the old house in Freeport where she had spent her summers 70 years before. Les King sent me some pages from her memoirs, from which I lifted the unattributed quotes in the sections on the Enoch and Rex McGinnis families. Some of it came from stacks of letters preserved mostly by Addie Sylvania Lawson beginning in the 1880's, to and from West Virginia and Texas. The 200-year-old Hoagland family stories were told by Samantha Beuhring McGinnis Coplin Young, a daughter of David Allen McGinnis.
Since I am a better storyteller than I am a source-tracker, I have left detailed documentation to those who are more skilled at it than I. For your convenience, this book is heavily hyperlinked, often to letters and other original
sources. 
You can reach any chapter from the beginning or end of any other chapter. Each of my
direct ancestors has a standard reference number next to their name. A father's number is twice
his son's, and in-laws are numbered consecutively. Click on their name to go to the main source
of information about a person. This feature also makes it easier to connect different branches.
The index at the conclusion lists several generations of my ancestors, with their reference number
linked to the chapter where they appear, if any. Click on a person's name to see how they fit into
the family tree. Whenever you see a tree icon, it will take you to a concise four-generation
pedigree chart. The links below, mostly to linked pedigrees, allow you to explore branches far
beyond what is detailed here. This book includes autographs for some of the people whose stories are told here.
Each chapter is symbolized by the small illustration found in the corner of the first page of the chapter. Clicking on that symbol at the bottom of any page will bring you back to the chapter. If you click
on the symbol at the top of the page, you can hear theme music for that chapter. Musical links elsewhere are indicated with a notes-on-staff symbol.
So many times as I've done my research, I've been able to say with the Psalmist, "Surely my lines (my boundaries) have fallen inPathway." I myself have found thesePathway in a new way this year, for "Pathway" is now the name of the farm where we live. My hope remains that this book, in a small but personal way, will help you to rediscover the boundary stones which helped our ancestors discern the pathway laid out for them. May you enjoying reading this book as I have enjoyed writing it.
Michael D. McGinnis
Waring, Texas
November 2001 AD
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Narratives are taken from Pathway: A Family History, ® 2001, Michael McGinnis and may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes. To order your own copy (available for the first time in paperback), email pathway@biographiks.com, or send $20 for one copy, $35 for two copies, to Michael McGinnis, P.O. Box 73, Waring TX 78074.
