I about fell out of my chair when I read my email from Jim this morning! Forty years?!!! He must have started searching before I was born! ;-) I recall Jim and I looking for ggg grandpa Volney in the Memphis TN library as teens. Long, long before the internet and these message boards!!!

I would echo his advice to not give up! I remember my mom saying to me, "I see why you like this so much. It's like a treasure hunt" and one good find keeps you motivated and hopeful of finding the next one. It probably took Jim and I twenty years to determine our family lore was wrong and one of our gg-grandfathers was not in the 4th Tennessee (CSA) and the Ardmore Confederate Veterans Home -- the key was when we realized he was buried in the GAR section of the Ardmore Cemetery. He served in the 4th Tennessee (US) and was in the Admore Union Veterans Home. It is this family that migrates west, eventually into the Cherokee Nation and intermarries with the Cherokee West/Harlan/Fields/Brewer/Taylor/Starr families.