The title of this work should be self-explanatory--A Chronicle of the Plains: A History of the Adams Family in Texas and Arizona. For convenience, it is divided into two volumes.

Volume I, An Adams Family Genealogy, contains the record of who-begat-whom. Volume II, Some Adams Family Narratives, provides a more relaxed reading of folk memories, comments, anecdotes, and stories about this peculiar Scots-Irish breed.

The foundation for this project was a listing of names and dates prepared on typewriter paper in 1975 by two cousins, Ethel Beatrice Jones King (daughter of Nancy Angelina Adams Jones), living at that time in Arlington, Texas; and Clyde Ernest Adams (son of Henry Filander Daniel Adams), resident of Dallas, Texas. Their combined efforts resulted in an abbreviated "Tobey Genealogy" and the first step toward an "Adams Genealogy." Typist for the documents was Clyde's wife, Muriel Martha Dyer Adams. They gleaned their information from personal memories, oral reports by various family members, tombstones, and a few official records. Copies of their source materials have been lost or tossed.

The central motivation for this project came from one of the sons of Virgil Carroll Adams, residing in the Fort Worth and Houston areas, who began in the 1980s to ask various family members to submit written accounts of their childhood experiences, and memories of their parents and grandparents.

A major turn in the research occurred in 2003 with the discovery, by this researcher, of a large branch of the Adams family in Arizona. (From my perspective, they could be called "the lost generation," because hardly anyone among the Texas Adamses seemed to pass down any knowledge of the existence of any kindred in Arizona! And vice versa, the Arizona families seemed to know nothing of the Texas group!) This information began to be uncovered when Vernon Adams of Hurst, Texas, (son of Wilburn Bailer Adams) mentioned a "cousin Jim" in Burkett, Texas. Jim Adams, Wilburn Bailer's cousin, was the son of one of Wilburn's and Toby Adams' uncles, Francis Wilburn Adams. Jim was the brother David Anderson Adams, an Arizona pioneer. Much additional data were supplied by one of Jim's grandsons in Coleman, Texas, and by other cousins in Arizona.

Subsequently, since people in the United States began in the 1990s to compile extensive genealogies of their families, additional information has become available in support, and in confirmation, of this project. These have included professional and semiprofessional genealogies about the Tobey family; about the St. Clairs and Kings; about the Adamses, the Whites, the Fennells, and Joneses; and about various family groups-many of them published in web pages on the ubiquitous internet.

Internet genealogies are not always accurate, as many of them are mere copies of someone else's work. And most have no source documentation. Thus, as much information for this project as possible has been found in, or confirmed by, various books, magazines and newspaper articles. Other information has come with the help of individual paid and volunteer researchers in various city, county, and public library offices throughout Texas. And much information has come from official government files, such as the U.S. Census; state and county vital statistics; the Social Security Death Index; U.S. military archives; and local tax and property rolls.

However, most of the credit for the completion of this project belongs to all those family members who have each helped find old photographs, letters, business ledgers, journals, Bible records, birth records, not to mention untapped personal memories.

As you can see, it is in fact a family project. Because, as Mother Teresa once said, "Each of us is a lead pencil." You write your own story by the life you live. (The reason you are a "lead pencil" and not an "ink pen" is that you often get a chance to erase mistakes and start over!)

This project took several thousands of hours to compile, complete, and launch. Still, it is only partial, and in its very nature will never be completed. In addition, there doubtless will be errors of fact and/or spelling, which readers perhaps can help correct. Nevertheless, it is my fervent hope and prayer that living family members will be-not only surprised and entertained-but also: 1) inspired by this effort to go forward to fulfill the nobility of their name, 2) motivated to preserve this record for their posterity, and 3) encouraged to keep adding to this record in the months and years ahead.

Because, after all, it is also their children's project.

--One of the cousins,

Don P. Adams

Dallas, Texas,2007

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