Hello Allen! My name is Hal Espy. I’m your 4th cousin. I know this of course by being in possession of the Espy-Espey Genealogy Book 😊. I was a little confused about whether you go by Major (e.g. as indicated by your email address) or by Allen (since you have that capitalized on your blog). I recently “met” my 2nd cousin Jane Espy Gamble from Headland (still haven’t met in person) and she referred to you as Allen so I’m going with that.
Context: Our common ancestor is of course Robert Marion Espy. From there I go down through Robert Marion Jr., Joseph Cleodus (my common ancestor with Jane), Thomas Harold Espy Sr., Thomas Harold Espy Jr., then me. I am Thomas Harold Espy III. I’m a 1963 birthday so ~8 years ahead of you, and I have two sons, one of whom is…you guessed it….Thomas Harold Espy IV (age 33). I grew up in Montgomery, have lived in Huntsville for 39 years now, have spent my career here in tech.
Why am I contacting you? Over the last 1-2 years I have been visiting my mom in Montgomery monthly, getting a head start on cleaning out closets full of family history and more as she is in a slow decline. This has led to a resurgence in my interest in family history, something that both of my parents engaged in up until my dad’s death in the mid 1990’s. Until a couple of months ago, this renewed attention was mostly on my mom’s side in Augusta, GA. But the last batch of 100+ photos was from my dad’s side. More up his mom’s Stephens line than his dad’s Espy line, but still some good stuff for the Espys.
One batch of recently-exhumed photos was from a field trip he and I took in 1994 (a guess). He had drummed up a couple of cousins down near the Barbour County / Henry County line, who we went to meet. They had agreed to take us on a wild walk in the woods to an “Espy Cemetery” on some forest land well off a small county road. I was in my early 30’s at the time, enjoying the company, along for the ride, didn’t pay enough attention, and now here, 30 years later, staring at these photos of the headstones of our 3G-grandparents Robert Marion Espy and Elizabeth Goodman Watt, and wondering whether I can find this place again! In my cluelessness, I don’t even know who those cousins were or where they lived or how to find them again (if they are still alive).
I accepted the challenge and through a few tentative leads decided I *might* have drawn a bead on the spot, which seems to be a well-kept secret. (E.g. a lady named Brenda Lokey has posted photos of the place to Find-a-Grave in the last few years but DIDN’T give it a GPS location…head in hands). Repeating the excursion of a generation earlier 😊, I took my own son on a 2-day family history tour of L.A. over the recent Independence Day weekend. We hit something like 6 cemeteries and a passel of old family homes, churches, schools, workplaces, etc. along the way, but the centerpiece was the afternoon set aside to find this cemetery. We failed, despite tromping around on dirt logging and hunting roads for a couple of hours and swatting off bugs and briars, lol. (Sidebar: I did accidentally stumble on a different 3G-granddad’s gravestone at the nearby Mt. Pleasant Cemetery…helping offset my irritation at our Espy Cemetery fail!)
So I’ve gone back to the drawing board, seeking more and more widely for any clues. I’m digging into original land patents, township & range system, historic property ownership maps, modern maps, historic cemetery records, lots of hints but nothing solid…and then I stumbled on your 2012 blog post. It didn’t get me any closer to locating it, but it was fascinating and it made me realize that you, as an Espy family networker and influencer 😊, might be aware of any development in this area in the last 12 years. Maybe you know somebody who knows somebody, who has a clue how to find this spot?
So that’s my immediate point of interest, but I expect I’ll have a blast wandering through your Espy posts at some juncture and asking questions on many other topics.
If you don’t have a clue, no worries, please don’t burn a moment on it. But regardless, glad to “meet” you and if you lack a POC in my branch of the Espy diaspora, and need anything at all, just yell.
A couple of 1990’s excursion photos attached…just on the long shot that you know who these cousins are! I’m the young guy in the gray coat, my dad is the one sitting.
Hal
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