John M. Cyrus (b. 1803, d. bef. 1860) was born in Tennessee. He was married to Nancy Elizabeth Williams, who was born 1809 in Tennessee. According to 1850 Tennessee census their children were: William Valentine Cyrus, born 1832 in Illinois; Rebecca Cyrus (1834- 1920), who was born in Tennessee and married William J. Jackson; John Cyrus (1835-1901), born in Tennessee and married Margaret Jackson; Christopher Cyrus (b. 1838); Elizabeth Cyrus (1840-1929), who was born in Nashville, Tn. and married Oliver Butcher; Sarah Jane (1844-1889), born in Tennessee and married Joseph Calvin Moulder. John M. Cyrus was commissioned the first Justice of the Peace in Hickory Co., Missouri on Aug. 3, 1845. Descendants live in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and elsewhere.

A Family History. A few weeks after Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in 1927, Charles Cyrus and Vivian Childers were married in a little Baptist church in Belton, Texas. Descended from early Texas settlers, most of their family lines migrated from colonial Virginia through the Civil War-era plantation states of the South and finally to the log cabins of San Antonio prior to Texas statehood. These early American roots will eventually connect to Louis Capt, who made his way to the Texas frontier from Geneva, Switzerland in the 1830's. The family represents a uniquely Texan version of the American story -- full of risk-taking, fortitude and sacrifice. Primary surnames include: Ball, Capt, Childers, Cyrus, and Scales.

The country musician behind the chart-topping hit "Achy Breaky Heart" describes his life, from his Kentucky childhood listening to gospel and bluegrass music to his original pursuit of a career in baseball to his breakthrough in the music business.

This book is a real story about an ordinary family from Albia, Iowa, who in 1862 crossed the Oregon Trail and settled in the lower Powder River Valley in what today is Baker City, Oregon. Within two years, family members were part of a thriving dry-goods and mercantile business in the gold-mining town of Mormon Basin, selling rubber boots, shovels, and liquor to both American and Chinese miners. By the late 1860s, the easy gold had been panned and sluiced out so the miners moved on to chase bigger dreams in newer places. So too did some of the family members; they sold their business interests and with a saddlebag full of gold rode north to Umatilla County, Oregon, where in 1871 they started a ranch and cattle business. Portions of James Shumway’s Couse Creek Ranch near Milton-Freewater are still owned by descendants; it is an Oregon State Centennial Ranch. This book uses old photographs, letters, documents, business journals, personal diaries, and contemporary research to recount 150 years of Barton–Shumway family history in eastern Oregon. It is a story told through the lives of some of the real people who survived it.