Ancestor Overview

To begin this blog, I will give a brief overview of my main ancestors and go into more detail in future blogs. This is being done in the hope that it will help others in their search for common ancestors as well as possibly locate some cousins out there. I am grateful I have already found some direct and distant cousins through my genealogical endeavors.

Also, history is one of my major interests as well as geography, and genealogy helps to satisfy these interests. Therefore, I will include historical details of all that relate to my ancestors as I encounter them.

All of this is dedicated to my Mother who spent 20-30 years in researching our family's ancestors and compiled three rather huge binders of information on the Doss, Strange and Vaughn direct lines of our family.

My Mother researched in the days prior to computers and I am amazed at her ongoing dedication and commitment to finding and putting this information together in a highly organized manner. She also wrote stories about key ancestors using as much information as was available to write something interesting. In addition, she became interested in the family history after first married and was able to know a lot of the people listed on these pages that were still alive in her younger life.

I am simply trying to help fill in some of the missing information due to the vast amount of information now available on line.

The four main family surnames are:

DOSS - Paternal Line - From 1600's in Virginia, through North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois to finally settle in Texas. Some of our Doss Ancestors went on to settle in Sonoma County, in mid-Northern California.

McLELLAND - Paternal Line - The earliest proven ancestor was living and married in Richland County, South Carolina. His son, born 1812 in South Carolina put on all found census records that his Father was born in Scotland. This fact has not yet been proven. This same son lived in South Carolina, and Mississippi before moving to Texas.

STRANGE - Maternal Line - This name was originally "Le Strang" from France, then through England, Wales and onto America. In America our branch of the family began in the 1600's in Virginia and moved on to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and finally Texas.

VAUGHN - Maternal Line - The earliest known ancestor was born in either North Carolina or Tennessee in 1814, moved to NE Arkansas, and eventually settled in Texas. My great grandparents moved on to live in New Mexico for some while, before ending up in the Riverside area of Southern California.

As can be deduced from the above, a lot of my direct family history lies in the state of Texas. Bell County and Coryell County, Texas were mainly where my paternal line comes from. My maternal line was in mid-Northeast Texas near Navarro and Upshur County, Texas. Eventually, my parents were both living in Dallas, Texas when they met and married.

Other than a short foray into Kentucky, Indiana and settling in the Hancock County, Illinois area for twenty years in my great great grandfather Doss' line, (who also ended up in Bell County, Texas), ALL of my direct family is from the Southern States. I think it's interesting that I would end up directly in the middle of the country in Kansas City! This was due to my father taking work in Denver, Colorado and then being transferred here where he stayed and raised his family until his death in 1993. My Mother, God bless her, is still with us - as of 2013.