Our Families from Far and Near
Welcome to our family tree and history site! Here, you can explore the branches of our family tree, view old photographs, and read stories of our ancestors. Whether you are a close relative or a new friend, we are glad you are here. Please look around, check the names, and reach out if you have updates or questions. Please note that GUEST users will not see the names of living people.
There is MUCH, MUCH more to this site than just this home page! The main family tree that is included in this website has over 65,000 people. As more and more people share their trees, the more people we'll have overall. To actually 'see' people in the tree, you have to SEARCH for a name using the SEARCH menu option. Give it a try!
We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before.
We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do.
In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, 'You have a wonderful family, you would be proud of us.'. How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do.
MidwayFamily.org changing to FamilyGenes.org
I have recently made several upgrades to this website.
The community pages are up and running. A calendar of events is now available. All links are operable.
Name changed from Midwayfamily.org to FamilyGenes.org. You can use either name however to get to the new site.
I'm always open to suggestions on things to include on this site to make it more helpful as well as user friendly!
Thank you for visiting.
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My name is Bill Thomas. I am the owner of this website.
The family tree on this site is the result of more than 50 years of me researching my family and ancestors. It has more than 65,000 people in it! While the website is still a work in progress, it is meant to be a way for me to share my research with other family members and future, like-minded genealogists.
If you have something you'd like to share or if you want to just say 'hello', feel free to drop me a line. GeneResearcher1@gmail.com
The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us.
It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do.
With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers.
That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us.
Between 1909 and 1911, about 1,000 to 1,500 Black Americans—mostly from Oklahoma and Texas—migrated to the Canadian prairies in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Why They Left
Jim Crow Laws: Following statehood in 1907, Oklahoma rapidly instituted strict segregation laws in schools, public transit, and everyday life. Great Plains Quarterly research.
Disenfranchisement: Black citizens lost their voting rights and faced systemic violence, intimidation, and the threat of lynchings. Oklahoma Historical Society and UNL Digital Commons.
Canadian Homestead Ads: Accidental and intentional promotional ads by the Canadian government promised cheap land (160 acres for a $10 fee) under the Dominion Lands Act without explicitly stating racial restrictions.
I've been researching this family for over 50 years. I found lots of information in the Archives, but once the internet exploded with genealogy and DNA, many more doors have been opened for me to research.
If you have something you would like to add or if you would like to submit documents for inclusion on this web, please let me know.
If you do not see your surname, please use our search engine.
We make every effort to document our research. If you have something you would like to add, please contact us.
