A brief  history of the ancestors and descendants of Josephine Reagan & C.C. Glasgow

compiled by Margaret J. (Peggy) Shaw

Introduction

Some people think that tracing ones family tree is as simple as going into a genealogy library and requesting a copy of a family history, and with a few strokes on a computer keyboard, the information tracing the family back to Adam and Eve will be rapidly brought up and printed for little or no cost.

But in reality, it just does not work that way. I began working or our genealogy nearly thirty years ago, and have worked on it periodically since that time. During this period, I have seen the resources arid records available increase enormously, both in what is available in printed form as well as what is on microfilm and computer. But, as is the case with the Glasgow and Reagan families, no matter what technological advances occur, much information just is not available because thorough records were just not kept by Church, state, or individual. This is particularly true of the Southern colonies and states from which The Glasgows and Reagans came because these were rural, agrarian, and more sparsely populated than the more densely populated and commerce oriented North. As the population moved Westward into the mid and Southern areas of the interior, the population became even more isolated and records more sparse. This poverty of documentation continued as the population moved Westward. For example, when I wrote to the Oklahoma State Dept. of Vital Records for the death certificate of Christopher Columbus Glasgow, I found that there was no record of his death even though he died in 1925. At this time. Oklahoma had only been a state of eighteen years and record keeping was a bit sporadic even at that relatively late date in history.

Further, a primary cause of the lack of available records is that they have been lost or destroyed by fire, and personal records have been lost simply because people did not care enough about family and family history to save them.

The information I am putting into this brief history is as accurate as I am able to make it at this time. Very often there is conflicting information regarding dates, names, and places, and the person compiling the genealogy must make a judgment as to which is most likely to be correct. There are certain to be mistakes in this booklet, and I welcome any corrections or additional information that anyone has to offer.

In addition to family history research being limited by scarcity of information it is also very expensive undertaking and therefore limited by the economic resources of the researcher. Records such as birth, death, and marriage certificates now cost about ten dollars depending or the state if it is ordered by mail and it the employee at the government agency retrieving the document must search for it him or herself. This amount is paid whether the record is found or not. This was the case regarding the death certificate of Christopher Columbus Glasgow.

I am more fortunate than amateur genealogists living in less populated areas because the Puget Sound area has excellent research facilities. The Tacoma Public Library has a modest genealogy department, and the Family History Branch Library in the Mormon Church is only about two miles from my home. It has a limited permanent collection of books and microfilm, and microfilm is available on interlibrary loan from the main library in Salt Lake City for three dollars a roll.

The Seattle Library has a very large genealogical section, and there is a regional office of the National Archives in that city as well.

However, even with these resources available, There is still a great deal of expense in genealogical research. Every time drive to Seattle and back, my little truck uses at least five dollars worth of gas, and the Seattle Library is downtown where street parking is not a viable option, so I have to pay between five and twelve dollars to park for eight to ten hours, depending on the day of the week and how far I am able to walk.

These research facilities, excellent as they are, still do not provide all of the information that might exist somewhere. The Mormon Church does not have all state, county, or local resources microfilmed yet, and mere are some family histories that this library has not acquired or has riot copied. Also, there are some documents that are only available for use at the main library and cannot be obtained on inter library loan, So, it is necessary to write to individual resources and places in an effort to obtain information. Most county employees are not allowed to do general genealogical research, and an amateur researcher such as myself has to hire a professional researcher or professional genealogist at a very high hourly rate to assist It is possible to spend hundred or even thousands of dollars and still not get the information you are looking Ion.

The other option is to go to the place where you need to do research and do it yourself. Needless to say, if your research needs to be done a long way from your home, you need to have plenty of time as well as money. In 1981 I took a month long genealogy vacation that I had bean planning for years. I was able to do a lot of research, but the starter on my new Chevette which was still on warranty went out three times This really curtailed my work in Mississippi and Tennessee, and I never got to Virginia and the Carolinas as planned. I have never purchased another General Motors Product.

Since finding out about the Glasgow Reagan reunion, I have activated my research and have put quite a bit of time and money into this , but have not really been able to do much more than confirm other information or expand on it. However, I have tentatively placed the Reagan’s back one more generation thanks to information received from Betty Hamby Cooper who has very lately privately published a family history titled Tennessee Roots, Vol. II , The Descendants of Charles Reagan. While the relationship between Mrs. Cooper’s Reagans and ours has not been established, they were both from early Virginia and are probably related. She has a great deal of information about other Southern Reagans as well as her own.

When 1 started working on this history almost thirty years ago, it was my plan to make a complete history of every member of the family from the most distant ancestor to the youngest member of the newest generation. I even collected family sheets on as many nuclear families as I could. However, I was young, idealistic, and not very realistic in my plans. First, the new generations come into being faster than they can be accounted for, and to include everyone in a history would be impossible. Second, with the enormous changes in society’s overall acceptance of non-standard relationships and living arrangements with children being conceived and even born into these relationships, I have decided that it is kindest and appropriately discrete to limit this history to Josephine, Christopher Columbus sand their children. For the most part, vital records are accurate and conclusive enough now that if an individual, even generations into the future, wants to trace his or her ancestry back to Josie and Lum, they should be able to do so with adequate research and access to the information I have accumulated over the years.

Family sheets are included at the back of this booklet for you to record your own individual family.

I wish that I could give this history as a gift to all of the members of my extended family, but since I am using some of the money 1 have set aside for the trip to the reunion to research and print this history, it will be necessary to charge a small amount per copy.  I will keep this amount as low as possible.

1.  The Glasgow Ancestors

When I was a small child, my paternal grandmother, Effie Glasgow Shaw Moore, and my great aunt, Prudie Glasgow Goode, told me that the City of Glasgow Scotland was named for their family. While this great pride in family background is wonderful, it is not very accurate. In reality, their family was probably named because they lived in that city or had come to this city from somewhere else in Scotland. This, of course, would have been many centuries ago.

Christopher Columbus Glasgow was the son of William H. and Nancy Jane Glasgow. Federal Census reports show that the family was living in Marion County Alabama in 1840 and 1850. He was probably born in South Carolina about 1815. One census report says that he was born in Kentucky, but as with all old records, census reports are riddled with errors and a family historian must try to be logical and decide which information is most likely to be correct. Since several censuses say South Carolina, and only one says Kentucky, it is probable that the former is correct. It is possible that his family moved to Kentucky when he was very young, and the person giving information to the census taker was mistaken about which was his birthplace. Also, most people’s education was extremely limited in those days, and many people simply did not understand state boundaries and geography. William H. was illiterate as were many if not most of his neighbors.

Robert S. Glasgow Jr., an attorney in Adamsville Alabama, who researched the South Carolina Glasgows for years and who was president of the now defunct Glasgow Family Association, said he thought sure that William H. was part of his family who lived in Newberry South Carolina in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. If it could be learned who William H’s parents were, our branch of the family could probably be tied into this tree.

The first known member of this family is James Glasgow who came from Northern Ireland in the late colonial period in the decades just prior to the American Revolution as did most of the Scots-Irish. He died in Newberry South Carolina (then Craven County) in 1775.

James’s wife’s first name was Mary, but her last name is unknown. These people are very possibly the great or great-great -grandparents of William H. Glasgow.

Vera Epperson of Ruleville Mississippi, a granddaughter of William H’s son Eli, tried for a number of years to find what she called our “missing link”, but was not successful. I do not believe that either Robert Glasgow or Mrs. Epperson is still living.

William H. Glasgow’s wife was Nancy Jane. She was born December 19,1818 in Missouri. This was six years before Missouri became a state, so her family must have been pioneers in that area. Her maiden name is unknown. If this information can be obtained, it is possible that Missouri Territorial records will reveal some information about her family. Nancy died July 4,1374 in Tishomingo County Mississippi after this county had been divided into three counties.

My great aunt Prudie Goode told me in 1966 that her grandmother Glasgow’s maiden name was Wright, but I later learned that this was the maiden name of her great-grandmother on the Reagan side.

In 1977, my great aunt Georgie Glasgow Edwards told me that both her Glasgow and Reagan grandfathers moved to Navarro County Texas because some of their children had moved to that county. She said that both of these men died in Texas, but I have been unable to find any kind of death or burial records for them.

WilliamH.and Nancy Jane Glasgow had ten known children.  It is possible that they had others that died young. The oldest seven were born in Marion County Alabama. M. Noah was born about 1838, and married Mary E. Ward August 4, 1859.  Eli was born about 1839 and married Jenny Mitchell.   He died about 1880.  William Ballis was born October 3, 1840 and married Sarah (last name unknown). After Sarah’s death he married Loutina Hale Robinson. He died November 8,1924 in Faxon, Oklahoma.

Melinda was born about 1843, John Andrew about 1845, and Robert Sanders, also known as Sam was born about 1848. He married Loula Jane (last name unknown), and after her death married Sarah Underwood. His great-granddaughter, Catherine Trusty, worked on the family history for some time but was unable to add any new information to what I had already gathered. A recent effort to contact her was to no avail. Sam died in 1932 in Kerns, Navarro County, Texas.

James Fleming Glasgow, also known as Sims, was born January 1850, and his wife’s name was Florence.

The three youngest children were born in Tishomingo County Mississippi after the family moved to that state. Mary E. was born about 1852. Christopher Columbus, nicknamed Lum, was born May 24,1854, and married Josephine Reagan February 6,1872. Eliza Jane was born about 1855.

As far as I am able to determine, Eli and Noah remained in Mississippi.  An often told story is that during the American Civil War, Noah joined the Confederate Army, but William joined the Union Army, supposedly because it offered a better pay incentive. Sam was also in the Confederate Army, and he drew a pension for this service in Texas in his old age.  Sims moved to Texas some years after the Civil War as did Sam and Lum.

I have no information about what happened to Melinda, John Andrew, Mary E., or Eliza J.  One census report says that John Andrew was crippled.  My great aunt and uncle, Tom and Emma Glasgow told me that one of  Uncle Tom’s aunts was a schoolteacher and that one had been captured by Indians, but they could not recall whether this was on the Glasgow or Reagan side of the family.

William H., the father of this family, is said to have been a tall man with sandy red hair. He was a farmer and blacksmith.

Uncle Tom and Aunt Emma also told me some of the stones they heard from their parents and aunts and uncles about Northeastern Mississippi in the Civil War days. It was a hard time for all, and food and basic necessities were scarce. Salt was unavailable, so the family washed the salt out of the dirt in their smoke house for cooking and table use.

Further, they said that Uncle Tom’s grandmother would put a candle in the window when it was safe for William to come home for a visit Apparently his joining the Union Army made him rather unpopular with other members of the family even though the sentiments in this part of Mississippi were divided much as in the border states like Tennessee rather than being strongly for the Confederacy as was the rest of the state.

Aunt Prudie Goode told me that both Josie and Lum’s mothers acted as “doctors” and gave medical aid to wounded during the War of the Rebellion. Old Tishomingo County, where the Glasgows and Reagans lived saw a lot of front line battle. The Battle of Corinth was very bloody and devastating, and of course, the Battle of Shiloh was fought only a few miles away across the Tennessee border.

The hardships faced by Mississippians and other Southerners, both black and white, after the end of the war were in some ways as great or greater than those suffered during the war. The Glasgows and Reagans were not slave owners, so their economic loss may not have been as great as it was for others. However, the family was rather typical in that many of its members felt that the war torn deep South held no future for them, so they moved Westward looking for cheap virgin lands. During the Reconstruction period, Texas was considered to be the “promised land” by many such as these.

II.  The Reagan Ancestors

The Reagans most certainly came from Ireland where the name was O’Reagan or O’Ragan.

This name is one which is easily misspelled. During the days when the illiteracy rate was high and when even those who could read and write had very limited educations, words were often spelled solely by how they sounded. When someone told a census taker, a county clerk, or a minister his or her name was Reagan, this person receiving the information would spell and record it phonetically. Thus, Reagan, Ragan, Regan, Rigan, Ragen, Riggen, etc. are usually just variations of the same name. I have even seen it spelled Wriggin.

So, a family researcher must be careful not to put to much stock in exact spelling. To do so would cause a lot of clues to be missed or even concrete information to be overlooked.

Betty Hamby Cooper, as mention earlier, thinks that all of the early Virginia Reagans are most likely connected. She feels that these people probably immigrated in the seventeenth century to Maryland. She makes it clear in her book that she does not know these things for sure, but I think that her speculations are on solid ground.

By the late part of the fifth century, Christianity was firmly established in Ireland as the religion of the native Gaelic Celt population. Due to this island nation’s relative isolation from Rome and the rest of Europe, its Church developed certain unique characteristics. When the Anglo-Norman suppression of the native population began in the early centuries after the Norman Conquest of the British Isles, religious persecution became part of this suppression. However, between this time and the reformation, the Normans in Ireland intermarried with the native Celts and gradually became identified with the native population, adopting among other cultural characteristics the native religion. One source says that the Normans became more Irish than the Irish themselves.

Suppression of Ireland by England continued and became intense during the Protestant reformation into the rein of Cromwell. When the Roman Catholic James II was driven from England, economic conditions worsened for the Irish and religious persecution intensified under the Protestant William and Mary.

About this same time Lord Baltimore, who was a Roman Catholic, established the colony of Maryland which guaranteed religious freedom to all Christians and which welcomed immigrants of all persuasions. This in pan served as the impetuous for a modest wave of immigration from Ireland.

While the Protestant persecution of Catholics in Ireland was more wide spread, the Protestants who were a small minority, were also oppressed by the Catholics These people were the native residents of Ireland, not the English absentee landlords. Many of these people immigrated too.

Before going on to our Reagans in particular, it should also be said as part of this background on early Irish immigration that economics were probably as much if not more a motivation for immigrating than was religion or other considerations. However, the early immigrants were much better off materially than their cousins who would immigrate nearly two hundred years later during the potato famine. For the former, survival was not dependent on immigrating as it was for the later.

It can only be guessed which group of the early immigrants our Reagans were part of.  If they were Catholic, this religious persuasion was probably abandoned by the time the family moved to Virginia.

During the seventeenth century about one hundred thousand people came to the Chesapeake area from Ireland. During this same century, many low land Scots emigrated to the Northern counties of Ireland. Their numbers, coincidentally, were about the same as the native Irish who went to the American Colonies. A century later, they in turn would immigrate to the New World in very large numbers.

Josephine Reagan’s paternal grandparents were probably Thomas Jefferson and Jane Reagan. The information about this generation has just recently come to me from Betty Hamby Cooper and still needs more documentation to confirm this relationship for certain. I have not been able to find a will for Thomas Jefferson, but will continue to search for verifying data. Mrs. Cooper’s information is based on information from relatives and data from Lincoln and Franklin County Tennessee Federal Census reports.

Thomas Jefferson Reagan was born about 1784 in Virginia and Jane was also born in that state about 1793. All of their presumed nine children were born in Virginia. Her maiden name is unknown for certain, but it may be Whitworth.

Their oldest assumed child was John, born about 1812.  His wife’s name was Jane.  William C. was born about 1815, and he married Candace Davis. Walton A. was born about 1817. James was born about 1820, and his wife’s name was Nancy. Nancy Huntley Reagan was born January 1,1823, and she married George Turner MeCutchen.

I have very recently been in touch with Tessy McCutchen McMillan of Bentonville, AR., who is a descendant of Nancy and George. She is most likely my fourth cousin twice removed. I noted in the information she sent me about her family that she was born just about the time I started working on genealogy. It really pleases me to know that there are new generations coming up that are interested in family and family history.

Catherine Huntley Reagan died in Cooke County Texas in 1872.  In her letter to me Tessy said that when George, who was a doctor, died, Nancy took his medical equipment and aided soldiers in the Civil War. This was in Missouri.

After Nancy Huntley, Thomas Jefferson and Jane had Micajah P. who was born about 1827, Edward H., born about 1829, Paul W., born about 1833, and Calloway J. born about 1836.

This family moved to Franklin County Tennessee probably sometime after the birth of Calloway. It is not known if this was the first place they lived in Tennessee. Thomas Jefferson and all of his sons were farmers.

A great deal more research is needed regarding this generation. It is possible that data to verify the relationship between these people may not exist. I will continue to look as I have for the past thirty years.

Josephine’s father was William C. Reagan, and was born about 1815 in Virginia. On most census reports and Bible records he was listed as W.C., which he apparently was called most of the time. On Josphine^’s death certificate he is listed as J.B. Reagan. This is totally incorrect.  This was probably the name of one of his nephews.

The first census report on which he is listed is the 1840 Lincoln County Tennessee Census. Lincoln County is next to Franklin County on the West. The census for that year listed only the heads of households by name and the number of people in that household by approximate age.

W.C. married Josephine’s mother Candace sometime before 1838 almost certainly in Tennessee. The census reports for Tishomingo County Mississippi all give her name as Candace which I am sure is correct Josephine’s death certificate says that her name was Florence, but since the people supplying the information probably never knew her, I am sure they were only guessing or remembering incorrectly. When I began working on this genealogy in early 1966, none of Josephine’s four living children knew the first names if their grandparents.

The 1850 Tishomingo census says that Candace was born in Georgia, but the 1860 and 1870 census reports say she was born in Virginia. It is my belief that Virginia is probably correct She was born about 1821.

Candace’s maiden name was Davis, and her mother’s maiden name was Wright. Many descendants say that this family is Cherokee. This will be discussed later in another section of this history.

Some of the Davises and Wrights probably lived in Lincoln County Tennessee. There are numerous people of these names listed in old records for this county, bat I am unable to establish a relationship with Candace.

Beside W.C., the 1840 census says there was one male age 10-15, one male 40-50, two females under five, two females 15-20, one female 30-40, and one female 60-70 in his household. Since W.C.’s probable parents were living in Franklin County at this time, it is very probable that some of these other people beside W.C., Candace, and their two daughters under 5 were members of Candace’s family. Some could have been hired hands. This census also says that there was one person in the household engaged in agriculture, and two were engaged in trades.

According to Aunt Georgie Glasgow Edwards, Candace had a brother named John Davis, but the first names of her parent and other siblings is not known. It should be noted that there are Davises named Mary, Martha, Cotesta, Amanda, and Josephine Virginia on the Lincoln County records, and W.C. and Candace gave these names to their daughters. Naming children for family members was even more common then than it is now, so these people on the marriage records were probably her sisters or other close relatives.

I have no further clues to the identity of Candace’s parents. They were probably married between 1790 and 1820 in Virginia. Wright and Davis are both common names, so are difficult to narrow down.

W.C. and his family moved to Tishomingo County Mississippi between 1846 and 1849. This county had been established in 1836 when the Chickasaw Indians ceded the area to the state.

Many other people from Lincoln County emigrated to this new county. There were a number of Davises who lived in the same area as W.C. and Candace. Again, Davis is such a common name, that it cannot be known for sure, but it is very possible that at least some of these people were relatives. There were many Glasgow’s in the area as well. These two families remained close even after many of them moved to Texas and Oklahoma.

Candice died between 1870 and 1880 probably in Prentice County Mississippi. W.C. died February 6, 1891 in Navarro County Texas.

Their four oldest children were born in Tennessee and the rest were born in Tishomingo County. Mary A. was born about 1836. Martha J. was born about 1840, George J. was born in 1843 and probably died in Tillman County Oklahoma. Elizabeth F. was born about about 1846 and married James Stormet.

The children born in Mississippi were Cotesta, born about 1849, Amanda, born about 1851, Josephine, born June 6, 1854, Candace, born about I 857(probably died young), James W., born about I 859,and Francis, also born about 1859. It is not known if these people were twins. Thomas Jefferson was born about 1861, Caldonia, was born about

1863, and Candace C., was born about 1865. Amanda married A. J. Jones, and of course, Josephine married C.C.Glasgow.

Mormon Church marriage records paint an interesting but sad story regarding Amanda. She and her son Thomas age eight are listed in the household of W.C. on the 1880 census which says she was a widow. However, the Church records say that this same A.J. Jones was married to five other women, one before and four after Amanda. There is no record of him being divorced from any of these wives, and the Mormon polygamy practice did not extend to Mississippi. So a possible conclusion that can be drawn from this was that he was a womanizer and bigamist. Divorces were very hard to obtain at this time, so he probably just did not bother with this legal step before going onto a new relationship.

There is another Jones child listed as a son with with one of the Glasgow on this census as Charles age six. W.C. was a widower in his middle years at this time. His daughter Elizabeth and her husband also lived in the household. It is possible that the Reagan family just did not have room for one more child and that this child was adopted by a Glasgow. Since these two families were very close, this is a very plausible theory. Does anyone remember the family telling this story? Am I in some way misinterpreting the Mormon Church records?

I know little of the fate of Candice’s other brothers and sisters. 1 would dearly love to be in contact with some of their descendants.

Josie (Josephine) and Lum (Christopher Columbus) were born in the same house in old Tishomingo County Mississippi. Lum was one week older than Josie. The Glasgows had sold their house to the Reagans. One of the births was a little bit earlier than expected, so their being born in the same place was unplanned. Lum’s birth date was May 29, 1854, and Josie’s was June 6, 1854.

It is a little unclear whether Josies full given name is Josephine Virginia or Allie Josephine. Both are probably correct. She is listed as Josephine V. on one census report, but may have changed her name to Allie Josephine later because she like that name better.

The family moved around a great deal. Uncle Tom Glasgow said that this was more the idea of his mother than his father. He and Aunt Emma said that she was always looking for greener pastures.

Lum was a farmer, but Uncle Tom said he was also very good at blacksmithing and was a skilled meat cutter.

The information I have about dates and places comes from pages from an old family Bible that Uncle Tom gave me when I first started researching the family history, census reports, vital records, and information from descendants. Much of this data conflicts, so I again have tried to give the information that I feel is most likely to be correct in the following narrative.

Jose and Lum were married in Prentice County Mississippi, which was formed from part of old Tishomingo County and a small part of Tippah County. This event took place February 6, 1872 at the home of W.C.Reagan. The Justice of the Peace, Squire Bill Paden, officiated.

Their oldest daughter, Willie, was born in Prentice County December 5, either 1873 or 1875. 1 have heard a lot of people speculate why she was given a masculine sounding name such as Willie. It is my belief that the parents were probably expecting a boy who they had planned to name William for both of their fathers, but when the child was a girl, Willie was an attempt to make a feminine name out of William. Willie married Dan Glasgow.

Melinda Emma, the second daughter was born December 18, 1877 in Prentice County. She married a doctor whose name was either Ince of Nance. Aunt Aver’s oldest daughter, Ola Harris, said that the doctor died early on and that Emma married again and had children by the second husband. However, in the old Bible records that Uncle Tom gave me, Emma Nance’s death date is given as February 14, 1916. If this is correct, her name was Nance when she died which would indicate that she had not married someone else. She is supposed to have had two children, but no one knows what happened to them.

After Emma was born, the family moved to Smith County Texas where third daughter Aver was born September 18, 1880. She married Andrew J. Meador June 19, 1900 in Dublin Texas. They had eight children. The family lived in the San Antonio area for many years. Aunt Aver and her daughters were very helpful and encouraging from the very start in my efforts to do the family genealogy.

Some time after Aver was born, Josie became ill and the family moved back to Mississippi for several years. They then moved back to Texas, this time to Navarro County. Katie was born there in January 1883. She married Dote Wilbank. They had children, but no more is known about that family. Josie was living with Katie at the time of her death. Aunt Aver had told me that the Wilbanks were living near Blum Texas at this time, but Josie died and is buried at Slayton Texas in Lubbock County.

Arie, the fifth daughter was born in Navarro County June 2, 1885. She was married and may have had children, but nothing is known of her descendants. The old Bible records that uncle Tom gave me says that she died June 9, 1909, so she was only twenty four at her death. Jo Goode Savage told me that Aunt Prudie had Aries wedding dress in a truck, but Jo does not know what happened to it.

The sixth daughter, Georgie, was born in Navarro County March 4,1888. She married T. E. Edwards. They had five children. The family lived in Texas, but moved to the Puget Sound area of Washington during WWI 1. They moved back to the Houston area at the end of the war. I heard both my grandmother and my Aunt Prudie talk a lot about Aunt Georgie, but I did not get to meet her until 1977 when I was traveling through Houston. She seemed like such a wonderful fun loving person that I really regretted that I had not known her sooner. She was able to give me quite a few clues about the family. I think she may have been named after Josie’s brother George.

Prudie Allie, the seventh child was also born in Navarro County August 31, 1890. She married Ben Heber Goode in Henrietta Texas September 1911. They had five children. This family moved to Kim, Colorado where all of their children grew up. Uncle Ben died in 1949 and Aunt Prudie in 1966. Both are buried at Kim.

Effie Louise, the youngest daughter of Josie and Lum was born January 18, 1893 in Navarro County. When I was a small child, she told me that her family moved from Navarro County, which is in East Texas, first to central and then to West Texas because of her asthma. She married James Columbus Shaw in 1908 in Munday Texas. They had five children, but two died young. Jim died in 1923. Before his death, he and Effie had homesteaded on some land near Kim Colorado.

After Jim’s death, Effie married Robert Arthur Moore, who I always knew as my “Grampa.” They had three children. All were born in Las Animas County Colorado and grew up in Kim, Colorado.

Kim is located in the Southeastern corner of  Colorado which was part of the dust bowl of the 1930’s. Nearly everyone in the country, or the world for that matter, that grew up during this period had a rough road to hoe. This was particularly true of the middle part of the nation from Texas to the Dakota’s due to the drought. However, this time of hardship seemed to motivate many of these people rather than discourage them. The eleven children of Effie and Prudie who grew up in Kim are very good examples of this. All graduated from Kim High School, and of these eleven, eight received college degrees. All have had successful careers in agriculture, education, law enforcement, business; the military, the airline industry, and science.

The ninth child and first son of Josie and Lum was Sherman, born January 8, 1897 in Johnson County Texas where the family had moved from Navarro County. Sherman married Archie, and they had two children. Sherman died March 25, 1932 in Comanche County Oklahoma when he was only thirty-five years old. I remember my grandmother speaking of him so fondly. She said that she thought he died young because he had been gassed while serving in the Army in Europe during the First World War.

Thomas Jefferson Glasgow, the youngest child of Jose and Lum was born November 19,1900 when his parents were both forty-six years old. He was also born in Johnson County Texas. Tom married Emma Dunnigan August 7,1920 in Carnsville Oklahoma.  He died November 16,1977 while visiting in Oklahoma. He is buried in Tacoma Washington. They had four sons and one daughter. After.Emma’s death, Tom married Alma Glasgow, the widow of Tom’s nephew who was Willie and Dan Glasgow’s son.

Tom was a meat cutter and grocer. He and Emma operated the Glasgow Food Store in Tacoma, Washington between the mid 1950’s and the time they retired in the mid 1960’s.

Tom, Emma, and all of their children eventually emigrated from Oklahoma to Washington State, beginning with Kenneth who was stationed at Fort Lewis near Tacoma during WWII. Two of the sons were meat market managers for Safeway, two were in the furniture business, and their daughter operated a beauty saloon until her recent retirement.

The family of Josie and Lum left Johnson County when Tom and Sherman were very young and moved to West Texas. They lived in Old Glory and Munday, which is in Knox County. After Prudie and Effie were married, the family moved to Faxon, Oklahoma in Comanche County. Lum died and is buried there.

When I learned that our family was going to have a reunion, I tried to find descendants of Emma, Arie, and Katie, but had no success. I searched the Navarro County marriage records and Federal Soundex Census reports looking for clues to where Emma and Arie might have lived last without success. There are no Wilbanks now living in Slayton Texas. I called people in Lubbock by the name of Wilbanks, but none were related. It is my plan to give copies of this history to genealogical societies in the areas where the family has lived to try to find missing cousins as well as to obtain more family history data.

One of the first family stories I remember hearing when I was a child was that Christopher Columbus was the only one of the Glasgow brothers born in this country, and that all of his older brothers were born in Scotland. This is, of course totally untrue. His brothers were all born in Marion County Alabama which us a very long way from Scotland.

I have no idea where or when this myth began, but the Glasgows most likely left Scotland in the early seventeenth century and moved to Northern Ireland before immigrating to the American Colonies in the early to mid eighteenth century. The fact that Glasgow is the name of a city in Scotland may have triggered this idea in someone’s overactive imagination.

Another family story is that the Reagan-Glasgow family is somehow related to Thomas Jefferson through either the Reagans, Davises or Wrights. There is no evidence what so ever to support this. It is true that three generations had people named Thomas Jefferson, but this really does nothing to substantiate the myth. Thomas Jefferson was one of our founding fathers, author of the Declaration of Independence, our third president, and a native Virginia. Naming male children after great patriots was very common in the early days of the nation especially in the Southern colonies. The only thing indicated by the given name of our probable ancestor, Thomas Jefferson Reagan, is that his parents were probably patriots rather than loyalists during the American Revolution.

A third family myth, and certainly the most controversial one, is that Candice Davis Reagan was a Cherokee Indian. This legend really cannot be proven one way or the other, because the arguments both pro and con are totally inconclusive.

First as to physical appearance, to the best of my knowledge, there are no existing pictures of Candace, but pictures of Josie show that she had black hair and high cheeks bones. Other members of the family such as my father, Van E. Shaw, are dark complexioned as well. This could indicate some Native American genes, but could also be because the family has a lot of Celtic ancestry. Some family members have seen the small hips and thick waists that some of us have as indicative of Native American ancestry, but I believe that these traits come from the Glasgow side.

Candace is listed on all of the census reports as white, but a census expert at a genealogy seminar I attended in 1968 said that it was very common for Indian women to be listed as white if they were married to Caucasian men. This was not true of  Indian men who were married to white women. Many Indian women who were living in the white world lied to avoid the prejudice of the time, and in the case of the people from one of Five Civilized Tribes such as the Cherokees, they lied to avoid removal to the Indian lands in the West. For some, the primary reason for marrying their white spouses was to avoid removal.  It should be remembered that the Cherokees adopted European ways very early and intermarried shortly after the colonization of the North American Continent began.

This early intermarriage was a result of several factors. First, the Cherokees had a lot in common from a cultural standpoint with the settlers in the Southeast, many, if not most, of whom were of Celtic origin. All were basically agrarian people who hunted to provide what could not be supplied by farming alone. Both lived in log structures and had clan systems as a major means of providing societal structure.

A second factor regarding early intermarriage was that the number of white men was far greater than that of white women, so the white men looked to the Indians for wives.

As to information from family members, what I have been told either first hand or second hand regarding this issue is divided. My grandmother told me that we were part Cherokee, but she told one of my aunts that this was not true. Aunt Prudie on the other hand said that It was not true and that some members of the family only claimed to be Native American in order to claim land being allotted to the individual members of tribes in Indian Territory. Josie is supposed to have told one of Aunt Aver’s daughters the family was not Native American and that everyone in the county, including her family, was making this claim in the hope of obtaining free land. Further, Uncle Tom told me that It was true, but he told one of my aunt’s that it was not true. And just to confuse the issue even more, just a few weeks ago, Uncle Tom’s son Jack said that he had always considered himself Indian.

Uncle Tom’s wife, Aunt Emma, said that the people in the area where they lived all considered the family to be part Cherokee, and Maude Shaw Reagan who was a great aunt on the Shaw side of my family as well as being married to Josie’s nephew, Chester Arthur Reagan, told me that “everyone in the surrounding area (of Munday Texas) knows the Reagans are Indian”.

Josephine was never on the Cherokee rolls. There are a number of Davises on the rolls, but there is no way to determine If these people are relatives. The first name of only one of brother is known. This was John Davis. There were two John Davises who filed for tribal status during the 1907 allotment period. One of these claims was accepted, and the other was rejected.

There is one family of Reagans on the rolls. These people are Lydia Reagin and her sons Arthur G. and Austin. Their ancestry was from Lydia, the mother, who was a Reagan only by marriage. This Arthur G. Reagan, should not be confused with Chester Arthur Reagan, the son of Josie’s older brother George Reagan.

There are several Davises on the Cherokee Census of 1835 which was taken in preparation for removal of the Cherokee Nation to what is now Oklahoma. There was a Dr. Daniel Davis, but it is not known if he was related to any of our Davises.

Again this is a very controversial part of our family’s oral tradition, but 1 did not realize how much so until I started putting this booklet together. There are some that are so anxious to be able to have the honor of knowing that they are descended from the First Americans that they would have me become biased in favor of that outcome in my research. At the other extreme there are those who think that to have Native American Ancestry is a disgrace.

I for one would be extremely proud to have the blood of the noble Cherokee or any other Native American people in my veins, but I simply do not know for sure whether I do or not. I feel that I have discussed this legend objectively without giving weight to any specific conclusions. This is really because there are no conclusions because specific concrete data is lacking. Its just part of family lore and will probably never be anything but.

To those who feel that having non-Anglo-Saxon-Norman ancestry is somehow not all right, I would remind theni of some of the people who are Native American with large or very small blood quantums who have been great accomplishers. Among the many Cherokees are Sequoya (also known as George Guess), Will Roger, Johnny Cash, Kay Starr, and John Ross. And, among other native groups, the person to whom the free world owes its very survival is, of course, Winston Churchill, who is one thirty second Iroquois through his American mother Jenny Jerome. He was proud of this fact and discussed it freely and openly.

To conclude this subject I will say that the possibility of our family having Cherokee Ancestry is the one people ask me about the most, and to leave this very important part of family lore from this history would be inexcusable.

A final family myth is that former President Ronald Reagan is a close relative. This one needs to be dismissed. In his autobiography, President Reagan, says that his great grandfather, Michael Reagan, immigrated from County Tipperary to America in the middle of the nineteenth century during the potato famine. Our Reagans were here at least three quarters of a century before this time and were probably here as long as two centuries before the famine immigration. If we are related to this great man, which we probably are, it is as a very distant cousin. Uncle Tom was sure that he was a long lost nephew or close cousin because of the close resemblance with our family, but, this is most likely because of the prominence of Celtic genes in so many of our people.

If anyone has any other legends are lore regarding the family, I would love to hear about it.

William Ballis Glasgow’s death certificate is probably in the Oklahoma State Dept. of Vital Records. If someone who lives in Oklahoma could go there in person to check this out, it would be very helpful. Also, there may be information in Faxon where William and Lum died.

I live in a high cost of living area, and my genealogy budget is very limited as is my time because of my job and maintaining my house by myself. So, any help in doing research would be greatly appreciated. I will not be able to travel to the places where our ancestors lived until I retire.  If any of you live near or are going to any of these places where our forebears lived, a little time on genealogy research would really help make this a whole family project If any of you are going to Washington D.C., a trip to the Daughters to the America Revolution Library would probably yield some way good information.

Someday after I learn to get along with the word processor and retire, I would like to write a more complete history.

 Margaret J. (Peggy) Shaw
5901 North 37th (206) 759-6687
Tacoma, WA 98407
e-mail: Shapeg@aol.com