Descendants of Matthew Russell and Related Families of Jackson County, Alabama, depicts the life of Matthew Russell and identifies his descendants and their related families; some of whom settled in Jackson Co., Ala. The book is divided into thirteen independent Parts with each part representing the earliest known progenitor and lineage of that particular family. Those families are: Allen, Baker, Cargile, Cox, English, Gonce, Grider, Matthews, McIntire, McMahan, Potts, and Taylor. Some of the other families identified herein are: Allison, Davis, Doran, Harwell, Henry, Jenkins, Loyd, Lyda, McClatchey, McCrary, Millican, Owens, Rudder, Smith, Stewart, Talley, Thomas, Thornton, Walker, Williams, and Wynne, plus many more. Spouses are included in both families and children are initially identified with their parents and, when appropriate, children are further identified within the text. Connections between various families are shown by cross-references.

Collecting and organizing this vast amount of information and materials occurred over a period of thirty-five years. It represents the efforts of many family historians who shared their carefully preserved memorabilia with the author. The combined efforts of everyone involved in this endeavor accumulated more than eight thousand individually indexed names.

Expanded Foreword and Introduction inserts, hopefully, will enhance the readability of this review. The Foreword defines and describes the book’s organization and presentation. The Introduction creates an awareness in the reader of the conditions some immigrants faced in their country of origin that probably influenced their decisions to undertake the arduous ocean voyage to America; it also touches on various problems they immediately encountered upon arrival and subsequent settlement.

Family units diminish with the passing of each generation. Genealogy provides a record and link between our forefathers and those families of the future. Through genealogy there will always be a record of a family’s journey through time.

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Following is a brief history of the two books published by Walt and it includes details for ordering:

HIST. OF THE RUSSELL & ALLEY FAM. BOOKS
(By Walter A. Russell)

Some typical questions that we were all exposed to at one time in our life are: Who were my grandparents? Are we related? Whom did she marry? A typical greeting was “Cousin!” I wanted to know my kinfolks and how we were related. My primary focus was to identify all relatives and assure the accuracy of their data. Secondly, I wanted to create a central record, not only for our current generation, but also one that will permit future generations to know their ancestors, learn about their heritage, and, when interested, provide a starting point where they may continue documenting their pedigrees.
While learning about the kinship in my particular family tree I found a chain of con-nections that not only established my lineage, but revealed the mutual ancestry of our cousins. It became a hobby, but was never my intention to publish this information. However, after several years and acquisition of a tremendous quantity of data, this thought vanished. I came to realize that others might also enjoy knowing something about their ancestors and relatives, as well as having a record of their family. I was assisted and encouraged by some; others were reticent.
Tracing my family roots began in earnest in 1972 while I was a member of the USAF assigned to Okinawa, but I never imagined that I’d spend the next 35 years searching, documenting, and eventually publishing these findings! Also, it didn’t take long to realize that humans multiply almost as fast as rabbits! The accumulation of information soon became unmanageable because I learned that the Russell and Alley clans were connected to just about all the early settlers in Jackson Co., Ala., and surrounding communities as well, and their data began accumulating.
Also, much to my surprise, most of the people with whom I came into contact quickly supported my project by sharing their records, memorabilia, and encouragement. As data began to accumulate, I realized that a manuscript needed to be organized in such a manner that anyone could access and comprehend its presentation. But how can this be resolved without losing valuable data? So, rather than depicting the usual personal statistics presented in some genealogy reviews, I decided on a narrative approach to record the information. The data also had to be organized in such a way that family integrity could be maintained as well as showing their relationship to merging families. PARTS rather than CHAPTERS were used to depict family groups because I wanted the lineage of each family to be independent of each other; cross-references were used to show how and where families connected. (I’m sure there are many unions herein that were not detected by the author!)
Consequently, at one point, I had a draft of more than 800 pages with more than 17,000 individually indexed names and the docu-ment was growing. Eventually, a generational cut off point had to be established. After establishing the “stopping point” I felt it was time to publish, but the publisher thought the manuscript was too large and would be very expen-sive to publish. He recommended that the books be separated into two books, one on each family. This took about a year to finish.
The Foreword and Introduction sections were expanded to be more detailed and comprehen-sive. The Foreword defines their organization and presentation. The Introduction creates an awareness of conditions some immigrants faced in their homeland that may have motivated them to take the arduous voyage to America; it also touches on problems they encountered upon arrival.
But, I cannot take all the credit for their existence - these books are the result of many contributors and family historians who shared their treasured records and memorabilia to assure that memories of their families would never fade. Some of these contributors are iden-tified in the text while others are listed in endnotes. Their combined efforts resulted in two 6 x 9 books, 548 and 412 pages, with more than 8500 and 6500 fully indexed names, respectively. They are very similar in appearance. The books are available in both hardback (with a dust jacket) and softback.
Books may be ordered from: Lisa Vaught, 1445 War Eagle Dr., Crossville, TN 38572, email: hawaiianlika@frontiernet.net or Walter A. Russell, 433 S. Highway 22A, Panama City, FL 32404, email: russellalleybook@bellsouth.net Checks or other type payment can be made out to either Lisa or Walter. Paypal is available.
Prices: The Matthew Russell hardback is $28.95 and the softback is $23.95, plus $5.50 S&H for each book. The Walter Alley hardback is $26.00 and the softback is $21.00, plus $5.50 S&H for each book. (Please add $3.00 S&H for each additional book in the same order to the same address; this includes combination orders, i.e., Alley and Russell.) Please contact either Walt or Lisa for any details not otherwise covered.
Please anticipate a short delay if books are ordered from sources other than Walt or Lisa as the books are printed on demand; Walt & Lisa have books available for immediate distribution.