A Family of the West, Purpose:

As I have been working on family history for the last bunch of years, I discovered that it’s not as simple as it seems. On first glance it seems simple, trace your ancestor back as far as you can and viola…. you’ve got it. Then comes the discovery of other families that are intertwined, places or destinations where they lived or went to…. and then history gets in the way.

As a baseline I am using my Grandparents, ‘Doc’ Lacey and Fanny LaLone Lacey, who were married in White Oaks, Lincoln Co. New Mexico in 1898. Their predecessors were part of the fabric of American History. Doc and Fanny were living in the final stages of the American frontier and their children brought the family into the modern era. The primary guidelines or limits of this story are the two or three preceding generations (and their backgrounds), and their children’s generation. Within these boundaries there are many people and several fascinating locales. I hope you enjoy them.

Doc’s family hit these shores in the late 1600s in Virginia. The Lacey family eventually (the early 1800s) became associated with the McDonald and Taylor families from the Carolinas and back into Virginia. These families consolidated in Illinois and moved to Texas together. They constitute the springboard of this effort.

Fanny’s father was a French Canadian who came to New Mexico in the early 1860s. Fanny’s mother was born in Manzano, New Mexico and was part of a typical New Mexican family part Native American and tracing its roots back to Spain. They moved to Lincoln County, New Mexico during the Civil War. The section on Lincoln County is quite extensive and has its own Site. The name Lincoln County Cousins is based on the fact that most everybody there in the first 50 years or so, was somehow related.

Speaking of cousins, this is really about cousins and not just the central families. If you are somehow related to either to the Texas core families or the families in early Lincoln County (1855-1910ish), we would like to include you in these projects.

In this presentation I have organized things so readers interested in a specific section don’t have to search interminably. Using Folders and numbered documents I have tried to make it easy to navigate.

This work is a combination of several things; family stories and photos, and little research and a bit of speculation. I have tried to be accurate, but the purpose of this collection is get it recorded for others to think and wonder about. A special thanks to my Auntie ‘Cille who was the keeper of the legend (motivator) and my sister, Jean Eastwood Burns, who is the trail boss (whip).

This is not intended to be a hardcore genealogy that will trace every single person through every event in their lives back forever. Mostly, this is to trace the people in our memories and our recent families and try to make them fit into a broader picture; also, to create a sense of history and a sense of how we all fit into it.

As I've been working on this project, I've discovered that this family and other associated families have really been a part of the stream of American history. The family was involved in many of the things we learn about in school and see in the movies. It's been fascinating to me that at one time I could watch a movie and be sort of detached from it, but now that I've personalized some of the events and scenes and can say, "well, my family did that", it has made movie watching a lot more interesting. To see on TV, a pioneer riding a wagon down a trail and be able to say, "Gee, that's what my family did", makes the program a little more personal and a lot more fascinating. Therefore, my purpose is to create a desire to know more, hopefully, the next generations will come along, look at this document, and say, "that's really interesting...wonder what else I can find out?"

It's difficult, even at this point. The central family which I chose are gone, and many of their children and their LaLone counterparts, (who I call in my mind "the Cousins", since they were my mother's cousins), at least a lot of the older ones, are gone. Apparently, the older ones were the ones that the stories were passed on to, and they seem to be the more interested in this family history. The younger ones were born as things were winding down in the New Mexico experience and the family began to head to other places like California. It would have been advantageous to have begun this project 40 years ago when there were more people around who had firsthand information, but we didn't. I can say that working this now sort of makes it more fun and much more challenging. It also gives more room for speculation and broadens our horizons as we look for other sources and draw some conclusions.

Anyhow, that is what this project is all about. My idea is to make an interesting document...to let us know that we are a part of the American story and also to create interest for those who come after us. I hope this document will give future generations something, at least traces, of how this all fits together. To me it isn't just the story of the family, but the history that passed along with the family and the times they lived in. I've included some things that are general history, some local, some national that don't necessarily mention the family, but I wanted to document the sense of participating in the march of time and events.

Please feel free to add or correct anything you want, if you let me know I’ll add it to the master document. My e-mail is: (Rich@AFW or whatever)

Also if you are part of a related family, it’s all right with me to use whatever part of this you find to your liking. Make it a part of your family history or send me your stuff and I’ll see if we can include it.

Rich Eastwood, editor.