An Introduction

Hello!  My name is Carl B. McBrayer. Over the years I have unofficially become known as the authority on the McBrayer family. Although I maintain probably one of the largest repositories/collections of information, documents, pictures, and information on the family, and I might know quite a lot about the family as a whole, I am by no means an authority on the entire family. There are others of the individual lines/branches who have a much greater knowledge of those individual lines than I.

I began my research into the genealogy, history, and lineage of the McBrayer family in the mid 1970s, having inherited the task from my cousin, the late Carl Henry "Skipper" McBrayer, who had begun his research and compilation of the history in 1926. When Skipper died in 1974 his widow and children decided that I should carry on with his endeavors and sent me all his notes and records. Although Skipper knew in his mind all the connections, the records did not adequately reflect all the genealogical connections. It required almost two years of pouring through those notes and records to put them in order and make all the family connections. In the following years many, many more hours have been devoted to research and compiling. Hours upon more hours were spent in historical libraries, court houses, traveling around the country, taking and collecting pictures of every tombstone found and every family member encountered, writing letters and conducting telephone interviews in order to build our family connections and history even further. Now, with the advent of the internet, most of the research and collections are conducted from there. Email also helps keep the information coming. I think Pat is glad. She doesn't have to now endure the never-ending treks through old cemeteries or the days spent in old court houses when we were supposed to be on vacation.

Today the amassed history contains over 59,000 names and many, many genealogical connections and pictures dating back to the earliest ancestors in the mid 1700s. I now maintain one of the largest - if not the largest - collection of McBrayer records in existence - and the mass grows almost daily. In addition to the computer files my 'office' holds four 4-drawer files cabinets and several filing tubs of records and photos. (I will be posting some pictures soon of my "command central".)

These records are the history of our family and should be shared with the family. Thus -- the purpose of this website. I want to share with you these records and our history. Genealogy is all about sharing. What good is it to amass such a treasure trove of information and not share it? I hope you enjoy what you will find on these pages, although they represent only a small portion of the total records. Please feel free to use this information for your personal use and your genealogy records. I do, however, restrict the usage to personal use only and will not allow any commercialization or reprinting on any other website - including Ancestry.com - of any information or pictures contained herein and anyone caught so doing will result in this site being shut down to all users and/or copyright infringement charges being sought. So... Please don't abuse your privileges. Let's share with our family.

Carl and Pat McBrayer