One of my hobbies is genealogy.  I love that crap.  Spending entire weekends searching records until I can't see anymore.  With any luck, I can find one tiny bit of information that will fill in a missing spot.

The part of the family I am currently researching is the Nichol(l)(s).  They are an interesting bunch.  My g-g-g grandparents had 11 kids.  One of them grew up to be C.R. (Charles Ready) Nichol a master debator & Church of Christ preacher.  Someone even wrote a book about the guy.  I managed to find a copy of the thing & shelled out $30 for it.  Its a giant load of crap.

Apparently the people that followed good 'ol C.R. thought he was literally sent from above.  He was as close as they were going to get to God himself.  Poor suckers.  I never met the man.  He died 12 years before I was born, but if he's like the rest of that side of the family, he was a certifiable looney.

This book basically says that he can do no wrong.  What he said WAS the gospel.  Whatever.  It paints his parents to be just as saintly.  His mother, maybe, but his father, no way.  From everything that I can find, my g-g-g grandfather was a merchant.  When the heat got to be too much in one place (i.e. he cheated too many people), the family moved to a different area.  Sad really.  Especailly considering he came from a fairly prominent Tennessee family & married into an even more prominent one (the Ready family).

What's even better is J.W.'s (g-g-g grandfather) Civil War service.  There were pieces written about him in a book & another in a magazine.  They painted him as being a great hero of the time, although he never got the recognition.  He was never awarded anything.  When you read everything, nothing adds up.  The dates are screwy.  Several times when there was a major battle, he was out sick.  He was wounded twice.  I just don't buy it.  A lot of people would jump on something like this in their family history.  I won't.  If I can't prove what he did, then in my mind, he did nothing.

From various accounts, no one would speak out against him.  Most certainly not his children.  To me, that means he was a fairly cold, unfeeling man who had to have control over everything.  I'm pretty sure that when he married, it was for social & monetary reasons.  He died of a massive stroke.  They were dead broke.  Two of his daughters were living with him at the time.  I wonder where all the money from his "successful" business went?  What happened to the business?  Why did he marry my g-g-g grandmother?  Why did most of the children feel the need to move so far away from him?

I have many, many more questions than I think I will ever have answers for.  Since I wasn't there, never knew them & there is no one left who even has second hand stories, I probably never will know.