Thankful Thursday

Coon Hunting in Texas

The Coon matrilineal families are being discovered and their stories are being told. Great grandparents Edward Zachariah Thomas Coon and wife Jane Ann were the parents of seven children. Clifton Columbus Coon my grandfather lived in another state from my family as I was growing up; and family stories or information was nonexistent.

Using the “tidbit” of information about the Coon family from my mother, I have researched the Coon familial lineage for fifteen years and done extensive research on them. Last year I decided to go back start over and research the family unit. Previously, when I began researching all those many years ago, I researched the direct line. Researching the family unit has been an enlightening and fun project. In researching the family unit I am getting to know each Coon family. 

There is an astronomical supply of resources online available for genealogists and family historians. Also, available is DNA testing another tool that is now affordable for those who are willing to spend the time and energy to use it along with their genealogical research to prove family connections. Those all are of tremendous help for the genealogy community; however, one thing that comes to mind that is available online are the Texas Death Certificates for 1903-1982. This is reason for a “Thankful Thursday.”

While researching my grandfather Clifton Coon’s children and siblings I have found death certificates for those who lived and died in Texas. Berkley Martin Coon is Clifton’s eldest brother and the sibling that I recently began researching. There was a goldmine of records for Berkley on Ancestry including a Texas Death Certificate. The information on Berkley’s Death Certificate along with the information from documents that I already have, verified his mother’s maiden name. Also, listed on the Social Security Application was his mother’s given name and maiden name. Available for Berkley online were city directories, marriage record, censuses World War 1 Draft Registration Card, Social Security Application and Claims Index, and Findagrave Memorial. There was a Texas Death Certificate for Berkley’s eleven-year-old son who drowned in a pond in 1921. Vital information for adding to Berkley’s children’s stories. Analyzing all the records and looking at the births and places of birth of Berkley’s children, I determined Berkley Coon left Mississippi soon after his father Edward ZT died.

Those Texas Death Certificates have given pieces of information about each individual that has allowed me to put together parentage, births, places of birth, deaths, places of death and names of family members (informants); and giving information for furthering research on the family unit.