Ancestor Trouble Gallery

The Johnston family. Back row, left to right: my great-great grandparents Allen Alexander Johnston and Rebecca Ann (Smith) Johnston, followed by Sarah Clamansy Johnston, John Allen Johnston, Maude Lee Johnston, and m great-grandfather Zone Harrison Johnston Front Row, left to right: James Earl Johnston, Gertie Louise Johnston, Jennie Pearl Johnston, Mary Alice Johnston. During my mom's girlhood, long after Allen's death, they all liked to dip snuff, the women included.

Martha (Granny), at left, with her parents Alma Versa (Kinchen) and Zone Harrison Johnston, my mom Sandy, as a baby, and one of the family dogs, around 1941.

My grandfather Robert with Christine (Barta) Bruce, his fifth known wife, and the woman he married after Granny, at Sivil's Drive-In, in Dallas, July 1944.

My grandfather Robert with my mom, Sandy, and their dog Bobo, in front of Granny's house in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, around 1941.

My traveling-salesman great-great grandfather Sylvester Kinchen, with his granddaughters Martha (Granny) and Louise, and a hungry horse, around 1912.

My grandfather Robert with Christine in Oak Cliff Shopping News, a free circular, in front of his Bruce Motor Service truck, in Dallas.

My grandfather Robert with my mom, Sandy, in front of Granny's house in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, around 1942.

My great-grandmother and Robert's mother, Rindia Caroline (Williams) Black (formerly Bruce), probably Grand Prairie, Texas, date unknown.

Maude Newton, my great-great aunt, in her King Midget kit car, Drew, Mississippi, 1977, at age 92. Photo by John DIckerson appeared on the first page of The Delta Democrat Times on May 29, 1977, along with a profile by John Dickerson.

My great-great grandmother, Minnie Ann (House) Newton (Grand Newt), probably in Drew Mississippi, maybe in the 1960s.

My great-great grandmother Martha Caroline (Burge) Kinchen, center, with her granddaughters, Martha (Granny), at left, and Louise Johnston, at right, probably Dallas, around 1913.