As I’ve written here before, I’ve been working on the book for our church’s Centennial. It was July 8, but due to the pandemic and construction adjacent to the church, we pushed the celebration back a year. It was last November that our pastor asked if I would do it, I said I would, and got going on it. It took me a while to get into it, but by January I was rolling.

As I researched the history and wrote the book, one item nagged at me. We had twelve acknowledged charter members, but a statement about our first church service said there were 63 charter members. Who were the other 51? I didn’t have the names because, if they kept records during those first 3 1/2 years, they are lost. The fourth pastor, Rev Joe Mickel Tyson, began keeping records on Jan 1, 1925. One good thing he did was reach back into the past and write the names of those he knew of that were members before he came. I imagine he queried the then-current members to ask who had been members and left before he got there.

Somewhere in those names were the missing 51 charter members. I was sure of it. There were 170 names who were members of the church before Rev. Tyson came. Subtracting the 12 who were known left 158 names from whom to extract the 51 who were the unknown charter members. I knew it would be an impossible task, so I decided not to do it.

Then, I finished writing the book, and I thought again about the 51 unknown charter members, and the 158 names gathered by Rev. Tyson, and decided I needed to see if there was any way to research those people and make an educated decision as to which of the 158 were the 51. Is this making sense?

So, it was sometime in July, I think, that I decided to do the research. Today I finished it. Two months, maybe a little more, pouring over the names, looking in on-line genealogical and related databases, to see what I could learn about them. I was about three weeks into the process and was, I thought, about 3/4 done, when I realized I needed some type of objective criteria to use for making the 158 decisions I needed to make. I took a few days off to ponder what criteria I could use and developing those criteria. Once established, I had to start over with the research.

I wasn’t able to do this fulltime, as other endeavors needed my attention. But rare was the day since I started in July that I didn’t do some work on it to some extent. When this week began, I felt that I was down to needing to choose about 14 more members from about 40 names. I decided it was time to knuckle down and get it done. As of Thursday night, I had all but two people fully researched. I had them and another 8 people to choose between for the last two final charter members.

Friday morning I went back to it. The two remaining names were Mr. & Mrs. L.F. Barry (yeah, Rev. Tyson mainly used initials for the men and no names for their wives, only “Mrs.”). I didn’t find the Barrys in our county in the 1920 census, one of my criteria. Nor did I find them elsewhere. I searched a little deeper, and found a marriage record for L.F. Barry and Jessie Weaver in our county in 1915. Bingo! They were here. He was 66 and she was 36 and had never been married. But were they still here in 1921? Did they really have any connection to our church?

I had looked for this couple before at the finagrave.com website and not found them. I looked again. And there, in the main cemetery in Bentonville, was Lafayette Barry. He died in 1936 and was the right age for someone who was 66 in the 1915 marriage license. And, someone had pulled the story of his death and funeral from an archived newspaper and attached it to his grave record. In that story, our church featured prominently. I had my final couple. Based on the criteria I established, the list of charter members was complete.

Is it right? My criteria isn’t perfect. Of the seven criteria, five are not as rigorous as I would like. I could easily include someone who wasn’t a charter member and exclude someone who was. But it’s the best I can do. It may be the best anyone can do. As one of the Centennial committee members said to me, “No one is going to question who you designate as those missing members.” I suppose that’s correct.

So the major research project is over. I now have a small section of the Centennial book to rewrite to insert these names. And I have to gather all my research notes and put them in a reasonable format to store in the church office. I don’t want someone writing the sesquicentennial book, in 2071, to bemoan that guy who wrote the Centennial book and did a slipshod job of researching.

Now, I can return to my normal, busy programming.