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This is the story of how I found my Stephens relatives. It will probably bore you to tears, so don't worry.
For many years I've known almost nothing about my father's paternal family. His father died three
years before I was born, so I never knew him. And my grandmother never talked about him, at least, not to me. So when
I started working on my family tree I didn't have much information on him. I knew his name was David Spencer Stephens (my
parents and sisters referred to him as Dad and my grandmother called him Spence) and that he was born on February 1, 1880
and died on April 12, 1950 and that he married Callie Fuller (Nannie) on August 1, 1901 and that was pretty much it.
And I began to wonder. So, of course, my first source of information is always my mother. She told me that his
mother had remarried and had children by her second husband, whose name was Dome, but she didn't know anything about
Dad's father. Well, I searched and searched for Domes but couldn't find anything.(I have since learned that the name is Doan.
I've found marriage records for Nancy & William Doan in Arkansas.) I knew where my father was born; Emory,
Texas, in 1921, so I thought maybe my grandparents were living in Raines County in 1920. I checked the 1920 census for Raines
County and found D.S., Callie & Haskel Stephens listed. D.S's birthplace was listed as Arkansas. So I went to the 1880
census in Arkansas and found David S. Stephens listed in Greene County, Arkansas, age 4 months. That had to be him!
He was living with John S. (age 23) and Nancy Stephens (his parents, of course) and they lived next door to Spencer P.
Stephens and his wife and children. So I made the assumption that Spencer P. was John's father. I looked in the Tennessee
census for 1870 - because Spencer's children who were 10 or older were born in Tennessee. I found Spencer with his wife and
children - among them 13 year old John. Then I checked the 1860 Tennessee census and found Spencer with his wife Elizabeth
(in the 1870 and 1880 censuses his wife is Sarah) and his son John (age 2) and daughter Ellen. I could hardly believe that
I had found not only my grand parents, but my great grandparents as well. So I looked up whatever records I could for
Greene County, Arkansas, on the internet. I found marriage records and cemetery records for several of John's siblings.
So, for whatever reason, I decided to post some family graves to findagrave.com. Why I chose to post some of the Stephens
ones I found on cemetary listings on the internet, I'll never know. In December, 2003, I received an email from Edward Gerdes
asking if I was related to Spencer Stephens. I wrote him back that I was his great-great granddaughter. Turns out that
Edward's wife, Catherine, is Spencer Stephens great granddaughter. I was so excited. So was Edward. He said that he have been
looking for our branch of the family for 15 years. In early February 2004, Edward and Catherine came to Ft. Worth to
visit his sister. Beverly, Jerry, JoAnn and I met them in Arlington for dinner.
They invited us to come up to the Stephens reunion the last Sunday in June.
Sadly, I received
word in March that Edward had passed away.
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