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Weaving Webs Index of my Genealogy Contact Barbara Neel Blizzard: bjblitzen at yahoo dot com Our Gedcom on Rootsweb April of 2012 the 1940 census records will be allowed for viewing online. |
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LINKS: Original Blizzard and Pool Page on Rootsweb Barbara's South Carolina Ancestors |
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American Thinker |
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THIS IS THE GATE to my genealogy online.
I hope you will become excited about discovering family history and dig deeper into who you are. You never know what bit of information will surprise you.
I didn't get into this much trouble all by myself. My cousin Ron Potter is my partner on the Headley page. My cousin Judy Richardson is my partner with Rowles genealogy. And my husband Tillman's cousin Pat Bonneau is my partner with Pool genealogy on the original Blizzard and Pool Family page. Other cousins whose help has been relied on in the early days of this web-page are Glenn Headley, Jo Mercer and Carolyn Stober.
Both sides of my family were early settlers in Missouri in early 1800's. Both were named Smith----neither stayed.... My maternal gggreat-grandfather William F. Smith came to Missouri but moved on to Iowa. My paternal gggreat-grandfather General James Hans Smith was a state senator and congressman in both Missouri and Arkansas and written about in history as a great orator. He moved to Texas and was murdered.
On my mother's side of the family, my ggreat-grandfather William D. Rowles was a senator and congressman in Nebraska. (More about them below.)My great-grandfather Prof. J. Walter Newman was superintendent of schools of Sarpy County, Nebraska. My paternal grandmother, Ione Donalson Neel(without a second "d" in Donalson, is an Irish name,) went to Denton college for women and became a schoolteacher. Ione was the great-granddaughter of Hans Smith. My daughter Sybillina is also a schoolteacher, and my youngest daughter Elizabeth is a biology scientist, and both graduated from college Magna Cum Laude. My maternal grandmother Sybil Newman was a nurse in Nebraska. Both of my sisters and several cousins are also nurses. My husband's first cousin Dr. Hubert Blizzard is a mortician and owns the Blizzard Funeral Home in South Carolina.
The foundation of my genealogy began with info from these sources: my cousin Ron Potter in 1962; My grandparents Sybil and Clyde Hadley 1962; my husband's parents Purvis and Nettie Poole Blizzard and my father Jim Neel in 1963. A big jump came from my brother and sister-in-law Jim and Pat Neel about my grandmother Ione's royal family history in late 1970's.
My husband's Pool and Blizzard families have all been within a radius of 30 miles of Lexington County, South Carolina for well over two centuries. The American colonies were a great melting-pot of nationalities. So Tillman and I are both a little of everything, and descend from royalty through our Gunter/Awbrey line, of William Gunter of Abergavenne, as well as other lines.
Among the ancestors of three of my grandparents are Ramses the "Great" Pharaoh of Egypt, Emperor Charlemagne, and the great Spanish warrior "El Cid," Rodrigo Diaz, and are in the book Royalty for Commoners, 4th Edition. I am descended from Lady Godiva who made her famous bare-back ride to prove the innocence of her husband. And William Marshall the undefeated knight, Regent of England, through four of his daughters. An Irish Bishop cursed William and all his male descendants died within a few years.
My Smith great-grandmothers, Nancy Nora Smith, and Caroline Smith, were both of royal descent but not related to each other. On my father's side, Nancy's father, Al Sidney Smith was the son of Capt. James Hans (Shmidt) Smith, School-teacher from Pennsylvania, was a Senator and Congressman in Missouri and Arkansas as stated above and on the Neel page. Not to be outdone, my mother's great-grandfather William D. Rowles was also a Senator and Congressman of Nebraska, on the Rowles page. And on my mother's side, Caroline's grandparents, William Smith, mentioned above, and his wife and cousin Elizabeth "Betsy" Smith are on the Headley page. William and Betsy were cousins and both descended from the brother of Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame. Caroline married George W. Headlee who rode with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
Everyone on my gedcoms is either connected to me by blood or marriage except the Blizzard Gedcom on Rootsweb, which is mainly for research for the Blizzard DNA Project.
DNA
Genealogy is on the cutting edge of science with DNA testing. It can create great changes in who we thought we were with a simple swab of the cheek. In DNA testing we are actually looking for your earliest proven ancestor and not you per se so that you may remain anonymous if you so choose. The point is matching ancestors. In projects with only surnames listed, you are still publicly anonymous because they only list your surname with your DNA results and no further information. Our Blizzard family came to South Carolina from Maryland, so they are on both the Blizzard DNA Project and the Maryland DNA Project. Our Headley family is in the New York State DNA Project.
Maryland DNA ProjectBlizzard DNA Project
New York State DNA
Naturally, as the Administrator of these two DNA Projects, I am excited about DNA in genealogy. DNA testing changed the history of my paternal Pace line. The Pace Chart of my Pace ancestors William Pace and wife Ruth Lambert, has the same y-DNA as Richard Pace who married Elizabeth Cain, but has been linked with an entirely different Richard Pace line.
DNA testing has proved there were three different Pool/Poole families in early South Carolina. And all the Blizzards tested so far are different as well. It has also proved that our ancestor the Pharaoh Ramses II was a Berber from Libya. Ramses is listed in the book Royalty for Commoners with the spelling Rameses.
The World is a DNA Melting Pot!
There is no right or wrong DNA. It is just branches of a genetic tree, and you are a UNIQUE leaf on it somewhere.
Our family were basically Bankers, Nurses, Politicians and School Teachers. My daughter Sybillina is an artist as well as a school teacher. My grandmother Sybil was a nurse, and her father was a Professor and Superintendent of Schools in Nebraska. Her mother's father was a Nebraska Senator and Congressman, William D. Rowles, descendant of Hon. Edmund Jennings, acting Govenor of Virginia. Her maternal grandfather, John Crowthers, Sr. was president of his own bank in Maryland, and three of my aunts were also bankers. My grandmother Ione, great-granddaughter of Senator Hans Smith, was a school teacher, and her sister was a published poet. My grandmother Sybil's cousin Gwen DeLaney (Gwen Delano stage name) was an actress on radio, TV and films.
My Welsh Headley relatives were very musical and beautiful singers. The Headley siblings held barn dances on Saturday night at their farm in Iowa. My mother sang "God Bless America" acappella at the Hollywood Bowl on the first I am an American Day for President Franklin Roosevelt which was broadcast on the radio, 12 June 1939. My cousin Ron Potter sings in Nebraska. And our cousin Gene Pursell sang on TV, and his sons and grandsons are singers as well. A 1951 video of our cousin Gene Pursell, the very first "Irish Tenor" on the Lawrence Welk Show on TV, in on you-tube. It is out of sync but a rare find and worth the viewing. Gene is the grandson of Aunt Nora Headley Bendon, oldest sister of my grandfather Clyde Hadley, and Ron's mother Golden Daisy Headley Potter. But hey! you knew that, didn't you!
