Chilton County Alabama Yahoo Group and John O Smith

I joined a Yahoo group yesterday for Chilton County Alabama researchers that led me to some interesting discoveries.  While searching through posts and looking at files for this group, I found a list of Chilton County names that come up in the Alabama Inventors Database.  One of my husband's ancestors, John Owen Smith (abt 1833-abt 1900), invented an apparatus for drying and curing lumber!  The Inventors Database connects to the U. S. patent drawings and specifications for his invention.  I was so excited to find something like this!  Patents for John Owen Smith

In the files of this Yahoo group, I also found a reference to a database on FamilySearch.org of Alabama County Estate Records.  This time I found the estate records and will of John Owen Smith, the inventor!

For more information on John Owen Smith, see also this page that is a personal recollection by one of his grandsons:  John Owen Smith.

John Owen Smith is my husband's great-great-great-grandfather.

Audio of Nancy Brasuell Neal

I'm so excited about being able to save the old cassette tapes I have of my grandmother, Nancy Neal.  Though not of particular genealogy value, in the way of gaining information, they are special because they are her sweet voice.  My grandmother had lost most of her memory, but she still loved to talk and sing.  The recordings make me both happy and sad at the same time, but they are definitely precious and worth saving.

Granny Neal

Audio of Mamie Cordelia Smith

We've had an old cassette tape for some time of my husband's great great grandmother being interviewed about her family.  I'm not sure who the interviewer is, but the tape was originally recorded in 1959.  What we have is most likely a copy of the original.   Now we've found a way to convert that cassette tape to a mp3 file that we can save and share!   I'm so glad to be able to save such a treasure from being lost if that tape were to become damaged or destroyed.  I've been listening to tapes of my own grandmother also that were made in the 1980s.  Some of them have already been damaged and are almost unusable.  Hopefully we will be able to preserve these and share them with our families.


As you will hear in this clip from the tape, Mamie Cordelia Smith was born in 1875 in Bullock County, Alabama.  Her parents were Jasper William Smith and Dulcena Elizabeth Moss.  This clip is just the beginning of about 30 minutes of dialogue.  She goes on to give the names and birth dates of her children and tell about what her life was like.  If you are interested in hearing the entire tape, let me know. 
Audio of Mamie Cordelia Smith