“Let’s cut to the chase.” Genealogy? Honestly, I can’t recall ever using the word in a sentence or even knowing its true meaning before my retirement. My family—parents and brothers—lived together but never took the time to communicate with one another. Mom and Dad never mentioned their parents or used the term ancestor in my presence. Both Mom and Dad had reasons for staying silent about their pasts, reasons I only discovered after they had both passed away. Everything I write about my parents and their ancestors comes from my own efforts to uncover their stories and understand the reasons behind their silence.
What changed? A distant cousin (although I didn’t know it at the time) who was more interested in the name of my grandmother than I was, and his telephone call, changed everything. When I answered the phone, Sam Jones introduced himself and immediately said that he was my mother’s cousin. He then asked me if I knew the name of my grandmother. My answer to his question was short and honest. All I knew was that I had a “Granny” and “Uncle Doc” who owned a farm in north Florida. My brothers and I had visited the farm several times with Mom to help with curing tobacco, but other than that, I could tell him nothing else. That simple question started me on a 25-year, on-and-off research journey. It turns out that “Granny” was my great-grandmother, “Uncle Doc” was my great-uncle, and the two of them, along with my great-grandfather, raised my mother after the death of her parents. For reasons I can’t explain, I was thrilled to know that small bit of information.
During my research, I discovered understandable reasons behind my not knowing the names of my grandparents. Mom’s parents were dead by the time she was a little over six years old, both having died from complications of pneumonia. She had very little memory of her parents to talk about. As for Dad’s parents, they died a violent death when he was 18, which will be explained later in Dad’s page. I had no idea where my research would lead me, but I knew I had to find the missing names.
Stories of Murder, Suicide, Assassination, Ku Klux Klan, Deserters, and Other Mysteries
In the early days of my research, census information and family trees of ancestors were almost non-existent on the newly launched website Ancestry.com. My quest for information relied on my car becoming my Internet, transporting me to various Latter-Day Saints libraries, genealogy centers, and public libraries, not to mention the many interviews I conducted. I put thousands of miles on my poor car throughout the southern United States, driving on interstates, county dirt roads, and wooded areas leading to cemeteries that had not been attended to in decades.
By birthright, I carry the Chancey surname; however, I also proudly descend from many other great families such as the Severans and Severance, Brooking and Brookins, Walker, Osteen, Williams, Stalvey, Wright, Davis, Dees, Jones, and many more that I have yet to discover.
On 15 November 2002, the Florida State Genealogical Society (FSGS) officially recognized my paternal ancestors Joel Walker, his son Little Berry Walker, Mary Kinsey (wife of Little Berry), and their son Jesse Walker as “Florida Pioneers.” The award certifies that my proven ancestor (Joel) settled in the State of Florida before March 3, 1845, on which date Florida became the 27th state. This recognition was in response to a report I submitted to the Florida State Genealogy Society containing two years of documented research. My personal reward for submitting this report certifies me as a seventh-generation Floridian, for which I am extremely proud.
I found the good, the bad, the rich, and the poor. I found a case of murder and then suicide. I found those who fought on the good side of the Revolutionary War and those who fought on the wrong side, and those who fought on the winning side of the Civil War and those who fought on the losing side. Most of my ancestors, once they arrived in this country from England, became farmers—some rich, some not so rich. I found a great-great-grandfather who was a doctor and was conscripted into the Confederate army. He immediately decided that he did not want to fight against the country he loved, so he deserted and joined the Union army. After his discharge, he became a state senator and was later assassinated by the Ku Klux Klan. I found a great-great-grandmother who had to go to court to obtain permission to sell a slave to pay her deceased husband’s debts. To steal a phrase from Clint Eastwood, “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.” Their stories, in more detail, can be found throughout this website.
Note: The photos of Dr. John Newton and Rebecca Wright Krimminger were obtained from Florida Memories. I have reason to suspect the photo is of John since his war records list his height as 5 ft 10 inches tall. We shall see.
The Genealogy section is partly published at this time. It is coming soon so check back later.
© Copyright 2025
Richard “Rick” Chancey