Southwest USA Genealogy & History

A few years ago I read the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kinsolver which was an Oprah Book club recommendation. The story was about an American family who travel to the Congo as missionaries in 1959. It was an eyeopening epic and I was hooked on Barbara Kingsolver the author.

The Bean Trees is a story about a young woman bent on changing her life in a big way. Stuck in a small Kentucky town after graduating high school and not wanting to continue life as her classmates had - pregnant and unaware of the world that awaits them. Taylor Green earns enough money to purchase an '55 Volkswagen with threadbare tires, no starter and no windows.

When she ends up in Tucson, Arizona, she has a three year old Cherokee Indian child on the seat beside her. This trip only took several months, but the story behind this cross country travel is extraordinary and believable.

This book is full of surprises and adventure. It is also full of thought provoking chapters about family, illegal aliens and their plight and hardship. At times every character is tender and giving in nature… and then you turn a page and find this new family unit at odds.

Taylor finds herself employed at a tire repair shop called Jesus Is Lord Used Tires with a huge mural on the outside fence of Jesus with what appears to be a tire yo yo in one hand. This establishment is on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona and also happens to be a sanctuary for Central American refugees.

The young, strong, level-headed young woman who grew up in rural Kentucky, finds love and friendship, abandonment and belonging and finds that apparently empty spaces are full of amazing surprises waiting for her to find them.

For a girl bent on not getting pregnant at an early age, she ends up with a three year old child. She becomes first a protector and then a mother. Just at the end of the novel, when you know life is going to throw Taylor one more curve ball and take her new child away… you see how clever she really is.

I am sure that everyone of you have it a genealogy brick wall.  If you love to research your family tree… then you know what a brick wall is.  We all have them. 

I am not talking about the search for an individual that you don't know who they are. I am talking about those brick walls you hit, when you think you have searched everywhere and you just can't find anything that proves this individual existed.  

I know that my GGrandfather was Benjamin Franklin Trigg and I am pretty sure that he was born in Hickman, Kentucky.  I only have his death certificate as my source document, so I am going to have to find other source documents to prove is birth place.

On the Ben Trigg death certificate it lists his father as James Trigg.  This is the only reference I have to his father.  We have found pleanty of James Triggs in Kentucky during the 1852 time range, but we only find one that lived in Hickman, Kentucky. 

There is a huge book written several years ago - Trigg Family History by James Knox Trigg - and I have combed that book looking for a hint to my family tree.  Benjamin Franklin Trigg is listed in this book, only because my mother sent the author the information.  The author couldn't place our family into any of his research.  Our tree is probably in this book, it is just hiding really well.

This is  our Trigg Family Brick Wall.  

I am going to post my research and findings in a series of articles here… so get on the mailing list, so you can follow me as I try to break through my brick wall.

I love to read about how others broke their brickwall down, because it often gives me hints or clues to try in my own research.  

• The James Trigg we have found in Census would have been to old to have served in the Civil War. 
• Our Benjamin Franklin Trigg would have been to young to have served in the Civil War.
• I am researching a boy - we think is a son - that would have been the right age to have served in the Civil War.

Family Tree Magazine recently published a list of Civil War research sites.  So I am off to dig deeper into this wealth of information:

Family Tree Magazine Civil War Research 

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clipped from familytreemaker.genealogy.com AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY: COLLECTED WORKS OF GENUNG FAMILY HISTORY Published by: Norman B. Genung 937 W. 33rd Avenue Spokane, WA 99203 First Edition September 1996 PREFACE This work is a collection of material written by and about the descendants of Jean Guenon (1640 - 1714) and includes his descendants by all spellings, including Genung, Ganong, Ganung, Ganoung, Gannung and Ga Nun. Some of these works were previously published but none of them are currently in print. In an effort to preserve these works for us to enjoy I have once again published them. These works are all presented exactly as originally published. I have preserved the original spelling, punctuation, etc. so that the works would remain as originally intended.

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