Page 13 - Foy

DEDICATION

This work would probably not have been possible if it had not been for the discovery
of an unknown and distant cousin, ELOUISE BEARD SMITH. Were it not for her
I would have given up this task in frustration long ago.

I discovered ELOUISE many years ago in the basement of the Mormon Genealogical
Library in Salt Lake City Utah. I had gone to Salt Lake City to visit my daughter and
new twin grand children. Having a passing interest in genealogy it was impossible
not to visit that library while in Salt Lake because it is probably the most complete
library of its kind in the world.

However, visiting the library is overwhelming for a beginner. The resources there
are staggering and, I suppose, one could spend weeks wandering around it without
learning all the possible nuances of family research.

But, after only an hour or so in the library, there in the deep recesses of the electronic
never-never land of computers I pushed a key and out poured volumes of printed data

about the exact group of FOYs for whom I had been searching. It was like the fairy
God mother in Cinderella had waived a wand and there it all was. This genealogy
stuff is easy, I thought. And, it is if someone else has spent years doing the research
as ELOUISE had done in this case.

Having found the data I was looking for, I just had to know who was responsible for
accumulating all that information. The computer identified ELOUISE, who, I was
surprised to learn, lived less than a hundred miles from where I lived. When we got
back to Texas, I had to look her up and have been forever grateful I did for she is one
of those people you feel you have known for years; kind and generous, warm and
friendly, intelligent and organized, and thrown into the bargain, she owns a string of
Dairy Queens in Southern Texas which translated into a free hot fudge sundae.

ELOUISE’s research on the FOYs is the fundamental basis for much of the material
you will find on these pages. She shares the same great great grand father with me.
Her great grand father was a brother to JOHN ELON FOY, my great grand father. We

are cousins. (The exact degree of cousins you can figure by reading the chapter titled
Just Who Are My Relatives.)

Preface 2