Colleen, thanks for your entertaining reply!

I just returned from a genealogy trip to Southern OH and Central KY, looking (with great success! what stories to tell!) into both sides of my maternal lineage.

I'm sort of speechless hearing your elaboration of the Black Jack Baisden story! Since my parents split, and since my sister is a half-sister with a different father, this has been "my own" personal story for years and years. Imagine my complete pleasure at finding someone to share this story with as more than just a tongue-wagging tall tale!

Here is what I know (or think I know) about my paternal family so far, thanks to help from others on the net:

My father Dallas Albert "Jack" Baisden, born c.1924 in Logan County, WV (I think at a place called Turtle Creek?), was the son of Susan Vanilla (!) Bryant and John Elbert Baisden. Jack had several --seven or eight-- siblings, including Ruby and Imogene and others...

From what I can ascertain, J.E.B. was the son of a French Clinton Baisden. I have no information on the Bryants.

From here, I'm a little stumped. I believe F.C.B. derives from a Riland Baisden, but I don't know if as son or grandson. I assume the former. I have no spousal info on R.B.

If this is a "good" connect, then R.B. takes the line back to VA and Joseph S. Baisden Sr., husband of Lucinda Osborne. J.S.B., as far as I can tell, is a son --the eldest, I believe-- of the (in)famous Jean Schmidt Baisden and Rhoda Branham.

Now, I've heard this-and-that about the elder J.S.B., including that he served with Lafayette, coming from France or Belgium (someone mentioned Alsace-Lorraine) by way of Bermuda, and that branches of the family spread all over the south-central colonies, from VA to GA to NC to TX!

As you can see, I have more pieces than when I started a few weeks ago, but they are all fragments and rather disconnected... Very inspiring!

I would gratefully appreciate any information you would like to share. I have spent many years drafting a genealogy of my maternal lineage (prompted by a visit from my grandmother the Summer I was 18), but have had the barest scraps of information about my father's line (I've tried to track him down with no success, then had a remarkable dream one night in which he visited me and made plain he had passed; since then, I have confirmed that he has).

So, I share your excitement at being able to trade information and stories with you, though I have only the few my father told me as a young boy (I haven't seen him since I was in fourth or fifth grade --in fact, I visited the last place I saw him last when I was back east last week).

Please let me know how I might send you fuller information about what I know, and I will gladly pass it on to you.

If you have hard-copy material you'd like to share with me, please feel welcome to write me at home,

4709 Meridien Ave. N / Seattle, WA 98103

My home # is 206.675.8084.

Thanks again for your reply. I'm looking forward to sharing the hunt with you!

P.S. Where do you fit in the family?!?! Roberts must be your married name, of course...

with blessings and best wishes,

Gregory