The Family of
John Warner and Marancy Alexander
This family history website is devoted to sharing information about the family of John Warner (1816-1858) and Marancy Alexander (1824-1901). The site is maintained by Dave Smeds, a great-great-grandson of the couple. The site is divided into the following subpages, which can be reached by clicking on the pertinent line.
Life
of John Warner and Marancy Alexander
Ancestry
of John Warner and Marancy Alexander
A Simplified List of
Descendants
Their Five Children
What
you will and will not find here:
This website includes biographies of John, Marancy, and their five children, along with summarized descriptions of the clans each of the five children founded. It is not intended to be a comprehensive record of “raw statistics” genealogical data such as birthdates, birthplaces, deathdates, wedding dates, burials, and so forth. While that material has been gathered, much of it has been relegated to an off-line archive, to be shared only by those researchers within the family who have the patience to wade through all the dry facts. What’s here on the web is the “good stuff” -- i.e. the stories of who these people were and where they came from, presented as text in the form of full paragraphs, supplemented with photographs if available. This approach is intended to bring the subjects into focus as real people rather than just names on a list. I hope you will come to view the results as refreshing and more interesting than what you would see on a run-of-the-mill family history website.
There is one nod here to standard charting. The “A Simplified List of Descendants” page shows a basic outline of the first three generations of John and Marancy’s descendants. This may or may not be a complete list, but if not, it comes close. Otherwise you will find summarized descriptions of each group of descendants on the pages devoted to the members of the first generation -- Araminta, John, Frederick, Clifford, and Charles. In one instance, however, you will find much more. This website is a sub-section of a larger genealogical site. One of the other sections concerns itself with the family of Nathaniel Martin (1816-1905) and Hannah Strader (1829-1919) of Green County, WI. That section features full biographies of all of Nathaniel and Hannah’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Inasmuch as John Warner (the younger) married Eleanor Amelia “Nellie” Martin, a daughter of Nathaniel and Hannah, his descendants receive this extended treatment. A link appears in John’s biography that connects to the Martin/Strader section, where you will be able to read at length about John and Nellie’s eight children and fourteen grandchildren.
Your first reaction just now was probably, “Why aren’t the four other Warner lines covered so fully?” After all, John and Marancy are a set of my great great grandparents, and according to general principles of fairness, the entire family they founded is just as deserving of a full-scale effort as is the one founded by Nathaniel and Hannah. My apologies. The fact is, I am exhausted by the amount of work that went into Nathaniel and Hannah’s section, and before that, a section devoted to my 49er Gold Rush great great grandparents John Sevier Branson and Martha Jane Ousley. At this point I am telling myself I just can’t tackle anything so ambitious again. I will extend an offer, though. If any member of the Warner clan is willing to volunteer to expand this section of the site, please get in touch and together maybe we’ll be able to make it happen. It has in fact happened once (in November, 2013) when I added a page for John Warner Ladd. Eventually I do intend to create individual pages for Laura Warner and Edna Warner because I’ve been supplied with some excellent input. Meanwhile, if you find it satisfactory just to share the usual raw-stats genealogy of the clan via a GEDCOM file or what-not, that I can manage right away. To make requests, send me an email at the address below. (I haven’t created a link. You’ll have to enter the address manually into your email client. Furthermore I’ve distorted the address so as to thwart spammers’ webcrawling address harvesters. Sorry, but I used to get a lot of unsolicited email and I’m still cautious. I think you’ll find it legible.)
Regarding photos: My grandfather Albert Frederick Warner maintained a very nice collection of photographs of his Warner relatives, which I inherited. I’ve used quite a few of these images to spruce up the webpages, supplemented by other photos that a granddaughter of my great aunt Emma Warner Hastings loaned to me for scanning during calendar year 2007. You are free to download these jpgs from the site. However, be aware that they are relatively low-resolution, small file-size versions of scans made from original photographs. I am happy to provide versions at high resolution suitable for top-quality print-outs, and sometimes I can supply additional images of the person or persons you are interested in, above and beyond the ones I have posted. I would love to have been able to simply upload all photos in their highest quality form, but that would make the webpage slow to load and would take up too much server space. And speaking of photos, I’d love to receive some, if you have them. One key need is to obtain an image of Clifford Warner. My grandfather loaned the one he had to one of Clifford’s descendants in 1979 so that it could be copied, and it was not returned as promised.
Note: One large page of this site, the one that deals with the way-back ancestry of John and Marancy, is still inactive. There is a lot to say about Marancy’s heritage and it is taking some time to pull it all together.