Our oldest identified Alexander ancestor is William L., who married Keziah (maiden name unknown). They lived in Lincoln County, Tennessee from probably a few years before that county was created (1809). Keziah is said to have been born in Tennessee in 1779, which was the same year the Donelson Expedition that brought the first families to present-day Nashville left Watauga Settlement. So far, we still don't know where William came from, but Y-DNA test results indicate his family probably originated in Scotland.
My GGG Uncle, Charles Henry Alexander, Sr., was an entrepreneur in Dallas, Texas, where he and his brother, George W. Alexander, Jr. (my GG grandfather), and some of his other relatives had removed in the 1880s or 1890s. Charles made his fortune by starting the first electric streetcars in Dallas. His brother, George, thought "electricity is just a passing fad" so he didn't become a millionaire. Oh, well.
Uncle Charles finally prevailed on their mother, Mary Jane Shores Alexander, to come live with him a few years before she died. While she lived in the Ross Avenue house, he arranged to have her dictate her autobiography. Mary Jane may have been the compiler of the Alexander family album that is included in this site. My cousin, Delia Everman, loaned it to the Dallas Women's Forum, who now own the Charles Alexander mansion on Ross Avenue. One of their members scanned the pages and emailed the scanned images to Delia, who passed them along to me. Delia's grandmother (my great-grandmother), Ida Cora Alexander Watson, was probably the oldest grandchild, so she inherited the album. Ida Cora, or "Nanny" as Delia calls her, lived with her daughter, Delia Watson, who left the album to Delia Everman. Next time I'm in Dallas I hope to make higher resolution scans of the album's pages for archiving, with Delia's permission, but we appreciate having the images that were made by the Women's Forum.
Please note that at this time the collection on this site is not complete. I will add the remaining pictures soon.
When we visited Dallas in Spring 2010, Delia Everman arranged with the Dallas Women's Forum for me to have a tour of the Alexander Mansion. I took photos, of course, the best of which are now in a picture album on this site.
If you haven't already found it by clicking on people's names in this page, I have posted a collection of "web cards" that were exported by my genealogy database software. These cards, beginning with William L. Alexander and Keziah, give information about all their descendants I know about, and many of their cousins, in-laws, and connections. Enjoy browsing the Alexander Connections subsite.
My cousin recently passed along to me two Bibles that were among her mother's effects. One belonged to my great-grandfather, Thomas A. Watson, Sr., and has no personal marks in it except a dedication on the flyleaf, dated "11-11-28" (11 Nov 1928). It was evidently used by his widow, since tucked into the Bible I found a bookmark with the date 1932, dedicated to "Delia's mother" (who was Ida Cora Alexander Watson). Images of these pages are here.
The other Bible is more valuable from a genealogical point of view, since it has annotations in the "Family Records" pages, and some notes about family births tucked in on a loose sheet of paper, but in the same handwriting as some of the records. These pages are reproduced here.
© 2010, 2015 Katherine
Prawl
20100328