My family names are Wadley (Arkansas & Tennessee) paternally, and Williams, Griffith, Gage (yes, part of the family that is so well documented in 'The Gage Family of the South' booklet), Reames, & McClendon maternally, mostly from Mississippi or Tennessee, to name just a few...

My family line includes murderers, suicides, victims of influenza, and slave owners and traders, and courageous folks who left their former homelands for the great unknown, the America of the late 1700's & 1800's. Like America itself, a mish-mash of the good and the not so good.

######

A WORD ON COPYWRITE PROTECTION FOR OBITUARIES

A note to the do-gooders out there, ahem, unless a staff member of a newspaper actually AUTHORED any particular obituary in their paper (and note when they do so, that piece will typically include a byline) then the newspaper DOES NOT OWN the copywrite to that obituary. The copywrite is retained by the actual author, whether that is a family member or a funeral home employee, and no newspaper has the LEGAL RIGHT to assert copywrite unless they can prove authorship of the individual obituary itself, in its entirety.

My family names are Wadley (Arkansas & Tennessee) paternally, and Williams, Griffith, Gage (yes, part of the family that is so well documented in 'The Gage Family of the South' booklet), Reames, & McClendon maternally, mostly from Mississippi or Tennessee, to name just a few...

My family line includes murderers, suicides, victims of influenza, and slave owners and traders, and courageous folks who left their former homelands for the great unknown, the America of the late 1700's & 1800's. Like America itself, a mish-mash of the good and the not so good.

######

A WORD ON COPYWRITE PROTECTION FOR OBITUARIES

A note to the do-gooders out there, ahem, unless a staff member of a newspaper actually AUTHORED any particular obituary in their paper (and note when they do so, that piece will typically include a byline) then the newspaper DOES NOT OWN the copywrite to that obituary. The copywrite is retained by the actual author, whether that is a family member or a funeral home employee, and no newspaper has the LEGAL RIGHT to assert copywrite unless they can prove authorship of the individual obituary itself, in its entirety.