Saturday, October 1, 2011

If We Were a Tree In The Forest...

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This is my entry for the 110th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. "What tree best represents your family’s history?"
The Quercus alba L or White Oak is a great match for my Langley Tree. The White oak grows throughout most of the Eastern United States. It is found from southwestern Maine and extreme southern Quebec, west to southern Ontario, central Michigan, to southeastern Minnesota; south to western Iowa, eastern Kansas,  Oklahoma, and Texas; east to northern Florida and Georgia. The tree is generally absent in the high Appalachians, in the Delta region of the lower Mississippi, and in the coastal areas of Texas and Louisiana.
The west slopes of the Appalachian Mountains and the Ohio and central Mississippi River Valleys have optimum conditions for white oak, but the largest trees have been found in Delaware and Maryland on the Eastern Shore.
My wonderful family is 100% US grown.  I know that once I get back to the early 1600's it will be different, but for now they go back to the late 1600's in the US. They are as the Oak tree.  Deep roots that thrive anywhere but in shallow soil.  The family profession was farmers and planters, not city folk at all.
The Oak is long lived. Many of our family members lived to be 90 to 100.  
The tree is characterized by a short trunk with a wide crown. It is the tree on our farm that has beautiful character developed from resilience from storms, adverse growing conditions, and time weathering.  Just as our family has developed as it moved from the east to the central area of the US.  
The Langleys came from North Carolina, to Kentucky, to Missouri and ended up in Oklahoma where I was born. This family is still growing on my genealogy tree making tangled and interesting branches.
The Carriers, Kemps, and Hankins came from Virginia to Tennessee, to Missouri and then to Oklahoma. They had loss of family members from wars, illness, and anger, but survived and thrived.
Just as the oak has a large crop of acorns in adverse times to continue, so did this family have a fine bumper crop of children. 
The Gildons and Sellicks came from Connecticut to Georgia, to Texas, and then to Oklahoma where I was born (oh I said that already).This family is an object of my second submission for DAR.  
The resemblance of this tree and my family is so close, that I think it is the perfect match.

6 comments:

  1. Great post, by the way, have we chatted about the Carrier clan?? If not, we should.

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  2. No Carol, we have not. Did not realize you had a Carrier branch... what area?

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  3. Nice job, Frances. I too love the White oake --- lovely.

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  4. Delightful article. You did your homework in researching where the white oak grows. I had no idea it has such a large habitat. You sure made a great analogy to your family. I enjoyed the read!

    Thanks for sharing in the COG :-)

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  5. Fran, my Carrier line hail from Rockingham County and Shenandoah County Virginia.

    Henry Carrier and wife Mary Nicholas plus one further generation back. He died ca 1810 Shenandoah.

    Stuff on my data base is skimpy, been ages since I looked at this.

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  6. Oaks are such beautiful and so appropriate for family trees

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