Project Success Stories - Phillips DNA Project

Shaking the Tree

Details: Category: Phillips DNA Success Stories; Created: Thursday, 12 March 2009 01:19; Last Updated: Tuesday, 27 May 2014 21:27; Written by Rex Phillips (Phillips Family Group 3)

My father died at age 45, his father at age 51 and his grandfather at age 60. My grandfather's mother died in her early 30's and when his father remarried and moved from Hardeman County, Texas to Oklahoma in 1903, my grandfather and two of his five siblings stayed in Texas with their father's brother in Quanah, Hardeman County. My great grandfather died in Arkansas in the early 1920's. I have yet to find his grave but in the 1920 census he was in Pike County, Arkansas.

About six years ago, when I got the "itch" to find out something about my ancestors and those of my wife, I had little to work with on my paternal line. The only thing I had was an article from the Foard County, Texas Historical Society about my grandfather Arthur Phillips. The article had been written several years after my grandfather's death and the information consisted primarily of "family tradition". Unfortunately, that tradition proved to be about 90 percent incorrect. It said that my grandfather, Arthur Phillips was born at Nashville, Tennessee in December 1866 to Charles W. and Betty Phillips and that the family had moved to Texas in the early 1900's.

The Four Sons of Bennet Phillips

Details: Category: Phillips DNA Success Stories; Created: Thursday, 12 March 2009 01:38; Last Updated: Tuesday, 27 May 2014 21:29; Written by Valerie Phillips Gildehaus (Phillips Family Group 7)

I grew up in a very small town (1,100) in Southern Illinois where being a Phillips was like being royalty. My father and his brother were lawyers; their father had owned the bank, which he had inherited from his father "Judge" Phillips. When I was young (in the 50's), my Great-Aunt Anne lived in the dilapidated Phillips mansion on the edge of town. Most people probably found it very spooky, but it was just a normal part of our lives. Aunt Anne's husband had lost all his money in the Great Depression, and the house had been left to her in its entirety with all its contents. They had not thrown anything out since the house was built in 1893, so it was packed to the rafters. A few items that stand out were a boxed pair of derringers and newspapers announcing Lincoln's death. When I was about 12, the house and all its contents were sold to pay for my aunt's move to a nursing home. The new owners had a bonfire in the back yard with the pictures and letters and sold all the antiques to dealers who came from all over.