The Searcy Family in Early America - A unique focus on our earliest ancestors!
Thank you for visiting our site. We hope you will take the opportunity to stay in touch with our research efforts and contribute where you can to the body of knowledge of our early Searcy ancestors.
We recognize different family members use various spellings; some we can sort out - some we can't. All Searcy, Searcey, Scearce, Searcie, Scearey, Sircy, Cercy, Cercie and other spelling variants are equally welcome. More material will be uploaded this year to provide background on the approach to research, documenting and portraying our family history and genealogy.
You will find Searcy families now in most states of the union and in many foreign countries; in America we began in the early colonial days in Virginia, then on to North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, Missouri, Colorado, Illinois, California - all by 1850!
Our web site is continuously being updated and has gained quite a popular following. The emphasis of our site is on original research and publishing those records in an easy to use form. Come back and see us anytime.
In the meantime you can contact me at our e-mail address: ts@searcyfea.com If you are not familiar with the Searcy genealogy and family history and your first contact with us is online; we would be pleased to hear from you and happy to help where we can! Please let us know what questions you have and we will be more than happy to assist in your family quest.
New Updates:
*** Holiday Sale - Searcy Family of Early Kentucky and Southern Indiana (1775-1830) See Publication Folder for special sale extended through January 2019
*** New Section Created - Searcy Family of Early England Newly researched study of Searcy roots in 17th and 18th centuries in England. See Research Projects Folder for England. All three parts are now published!
Recent Articles
Article/Additions published October 27, 2014
New research on Aaron Searcy of Tishomingo, MS (Deep South Folder)
Articles published September 28-30, 2014
The Searcy Family in Early America in North Carolina – William Searcy Senior's son Aquila Searcy b.ca.1749) (North Carolina Folder)
The Death of Bartlett Searcy (b.ca.1756), the Indian Fighter (Kentucky Folder)
The other John Searcy: John Searcy (b.ca.1753) aka John Searcy, who died in Defense of the TN Settlements (Kentucky Folder)
Research Goals and Practices
I’d like to share with you my research travels on the Searcy family:
I began research in the early 1980’s, focusing first on Mississippi and Alabama, then finding myself studying the Searcy family group in all of the traditional deep South states. I researched all censuses from about 1810 (not many survived in those areas before then) to 1900. I visited several state archives, the National Archives and many county court vaults for about 12 years collecting every fact I could find on our family – then like most genealogists, got burnt out.
I renewed my research in 1995 after reading several biographies on Daniel Boone and a book titled “The Frontiersman” by Allan W Eckert. Mr. Eckert writes historical fiction, choosing real historical characters and pairing the white man and the Indian of a time/geographic period and telling their story. Not only is he a terrific writer, but his footnotes and source material gave me inspiration that there was much material yet to be scoured for the Early Searcy Family. The Frontiersman is the story of Simon Kenton and Tecumseh. Kenton was the second most popular backwoodsman – next to Boone.
Knowing that the Searcy’s were early settlers in Kentucky, I decided to take my appreciation of history and good research skills and take a fresh approach to Searcy genealogy research. My primary sources were the Dallas Research Library (one of the top 20 genealogy collections in the US) and a local Family History Center (to tap into hundreds of thousands of microfilm rolls of government and private records). I also made several week-long visits to the state archives in Kentucky.
My research approach:
Establish a time period and geographic boundary for any given study
Read and understand the history, military actions and government evolution of a given area
Survey a wide selection of materials before, during and after the time period of interest to establish all the likely counties where Searcy’s may have lived in
Take each county, one at a time, to review all record types, going through all practical records one page at a time. I use indexes as a guide, not an authority for where to find info. I then expanded beyond county records to all other forms of records – public and private
Document each record with a concise but thorough abstract, cite the source and the location of the source. This allows ANYONE to duplicate my findings to satisfy themselves for accuracy
Compile the abstracts into a study, then ultimately a book form
Long Term:
Survey early American history and divide future studies into time/geographic areas that make sense
Look to become publically visible to others via a website, and finally...
