Researching surnames Avent, Cross, Churchill, Goodwin, Helms, Kelly, Oakley, Ragland, Talley (Tally), Tarleton (Tarlton), Thomas, Whitfield (Whitefield), Yarborough (Yarbrough, Yarboro, Yarbro). These names are primarily in North Carolina with lineage also in Virginia and Tennessee.

If anyone wants any of the memorials or photos I have contributed, please let me know and I will transfer if appropriate. Photos may be used by family members of the deceased without permission. I sometimes contribute memorials outside of my family as a service to help others while researching my family heritage. I believe everyone deserves to be remembered.

I first saw this poem on F. Norris's Find-a-Grave profile and it touched me:

DEAR ANCESTOR

Your tombstone stands among the rest; neglected and alone. The name and dates are chiseled out on polished, marble stone. It reaches out to all who care; it is to late to mourn. You did not know that I exist; you died and I was born.

Yet each of us are cells of you in flesh, in blood, in bone. Our blood contracts and beats a pulse not entirely on our own. Dear Ancestor, the place you filled one hundred years ago. Spreads out among the ones you left who would have loved you so.

I wonder as you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew that someday I would find this spot, and come to visit you. - AUTHOR UNKNOWN