This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.kemp/1733.1.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: GeorgiaI cannot access your personal e-mail for some reason. I have quite a bit on the Orr family, and some on the McElwain family - there are some Orrs still living in Mt. Pleasant,TN and I occasionally correspond with one of them. I was born and raised in Columbia, TN, which is about 15 miles from Mt. Pleasant. My ancestry gets a bit convoluted as Thomas Kemp is my double great great grandfather. He was the father of my great grandmother, Jane Kemp Perry, and also the father of my great grandfather, William Thompson Kemp. Jane was the product of his first wife, Jane was born in Baltimore and lost her mother at the birth of her sister, two years later. Thomas moved to the Nashville area, met and married Frances Orr, lost her (to cholera?) when their son, Wm. T. Kemp was a small child. Years later, the son of Jane Kemp Perry (William Kemp Perry) went to Texas to visit his mother's half brother, met his cousin, Frances Loretta Kemp, and married her. They had different grandmothers but the same grandfather, which wasn't considered odd back in those days and in the South as cousins tended to marry cousins. Most of the Kemp family is buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Columbia, Tennessee. I have information on the Texas branch - William T. Kemp's son, Joseph Kemp, became quite wealthy - if you go online and just put in his name, it will bring up a good deal of information about him and his partner, Frank Kell. Joseph Kemp was my grandmother's brother. Glad I could be of some help in your research of the McElwain's. Offhand I can't remember but I have another McElwain in my family on the Texas side - I have little or no information on her other than the name - and don't know if she was related to the Logan County McElwain's at all - I doubt it. Marye Ann Perry Thompson Oh, incidentally, the Jos. Russell (attorney you mentioned) is a distant cousin of mine as well - I believe he married into either the McElwain or the Orr family.