A year or so after my retirement, while working in my woodshop one afternoon, the phone rang. The voice on the other end introduced himself as Ferris (Sam) Jones of Dothan Alabama, formerly of Branford Florida. Branford, the place that Mom considered her home, is a quaint country town in Suwannee County, which holds many fond memories for me. Sam asked the name of my mother and if I knew the name of my grandmother. Being suspicious, I would not give him Mom’s name and told him that I did not know the name of my grandmother (which at the time was the truth).

Sam, for the next few minutes, told me how he was related to Mom. To my surprise, he also gave me the names of my grandparents, along with information on how and where they died. I was spellbound the entire time and began to realize how much of my past was missing. Because of this great void, my research the next few years was to become an obsession with me. One newly discovered name led to another. One new story passed on by a newly discovered relative gave me more names to research and many more stories.

With the project of tracing our family history underway, I more or less confined my research to learning the names of our ancestors and little else. As with many family historians just starting their research, I was more interested in the number of ancestors we had, rather than trying to understand the relationship between our many families and our ancestors’ quest for new lands. Then months later and well into the project, my outlook changed, as did my research. I found that many times the old records (some more than 150 years old) stored in basements and archived files, had a story to tell. These stories along with the stories passed on to me from personal interviews of relatives, were in my mind, now beginning to give life to our ancestors. I then realized that I wanted to know much more about them and their journeys, as well as their name and place in our family history.

After more than seven years of probing into thousands of records covering more than ten generations, the results of these probes, and the anecdotes associated with them, will be passed on to you. My sincere hope is that those who do have the opportunity to review my findings will gain a much better understanding of who our ancestors were, how they fit into the family, what conditions induced them to leave their homes, and finally, I hope that you come to appreciate the hardships they must have encountered. If I can pass on to you the same closeness that I now feel toward our ancestors, I will have accomplished what I set out to do.

We may never know the specific reasons behind our ancestors’ wish to move on to these new lands, but I feel certain that most of them wanted a better and more enriched life for their families.

The information contained within the following chapters comes from numerous sources. First, there were personal interviews conducted with relatives and friends of relatives. These interviews prompted me to visit the Clerk of Court offices located in Georgia, North Florida, and Central Florida in search of marriage, land, and probate records. In many instances, the Clerks of Court had passed their historical records on to the local Genealogical Societies, which became my next invaluable source of information. The Latter Day Saints (LDS) Family History Centers and public libraries became my next stop. Finally,numerous family histories and records, many containing entries without reference to their source, were passed on to me by U.S. mail and e-mail.

 

On 15 November the year 2002, the Florida State Genealogical Society (FSGS) officially recognized our paternal ancestors Joel Walker, his son Little Berry Walker, Mary Kinsey (wife of Little Berry), and their Jesse Walker as “Florida Pioneers.” The award certifies that my proven ancestor settled in the State of Florida before March 3, 1845 on which date Florida became the 27th state. This recognition was in response to a report submitted by myself to the FSGS containing two years of documented research. My personal reward for submitting this report certifies me as a seventh generation Floridian for which I am very proud.

Although this book is entitled CHANCEY – Our Family (The Inside Story), it is in truth, the story of many families. By birthright, we carry the Chancey surname; however, we are also descendents of a great many other surname families such as the Severans and Severance, Brooking and Brookins, Walker, Osteen, Williams and the list goes on.

 

 

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