Hello Fellow Cleveland Co researchers! I am Cristal Simmons living in Chicago and have been on this and other lists for a long time. Hello Jan! Great to see it up and running again. Thanks to the new list owners! Since my mother was born in Rison (Kedron, actually) in 1938 and both of her parents are from the area I am lucky in that I can cover a lot of ground in Cleveland, Bradley and Drew Counties. I have been researching my family's history since 1980 when my great grandmother died and I noticed a strong family resemblance. I was blessed to have a lot of living relatives, my paternal grandfather was one of twelve as were both of his parents and almost all of his first and second cousins left Mississippi for Chicago. He even had two uncles still kicking. On my mother's side pretty much the same situation. I was 16 and very energetic plus Roots had aired a few years back so people knew the importance of genealogy, plus I think they was just happy to have someone to share this info with. Anyway, I am African American and most of my ancestors were too. Many of the Black ones were enslaved, so I am researching slaves and masters in Cleveland County. I am so interested in this story. My ancestors raised themselves up from slavery quite well, we still have land there my grand father and his father and his father purchased. And one of my enslaved ancestors served on the Confederate side and received a pension! I could tell a lot of stories and look forward to presenting my research problems to the list. In doing internet based genealogy for more than 10 years, (I started off with a prodigy account in the late 80's), I have met several descendants from the slave holding families who provided critical information (I have also been able to help them with information they did not know) that in many instances turned me in the right direction. I hope to be able to work with you and share data. See I know that the success of slave genealogy depends on success in tracing the slave holding family and the community. In that respect I have files on several families that I suspect were my slave holders or who were neighbors or who show up in some deed or other land transaction. On the other hand records that are traditionally considered black sources such as the Freedman's bureau has a wealth of information on white families after the civil war. Since I have been studying this county for so long I recognize many of the names I see you are searching. If I have something on your family, I will share it. So for the roll call. I am researching the following families, both white and black Stocker Taliaferro (Toliver) Barker Broughton York Ederington Jackson Burney Stubblefield Frazier Crane (Crain) (wow, Frazier and Crain are on my list but I just realized the link to the television show :D) I am also looking into these families as friends, neighbors, comrades to my ancestors St. John Simms Marks Ward Abernathy There are others and I am doing this from memory so I will post again when I get it together. So anyway here are my names. I will probably post research problems next. Thanks in advance for all your help. And a question. Are any of you in Cleveland County or Jefferson Co? Thanks Cristal