Page 23 - Foy

A TREE GROWS IN TEXAS

Trees have inspired artist and poets for hundreds of years. Perhaps one of the best
known poems about trees is by JOYCE KILMER, who wrote:

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
Poems are made by fools like me.
But only God can make a tree.

In addition to poets trees have also inspired those who do family research. They have

chosen a tree as the symbol of something else only GOD can give us; a family. There are
many similarities between a tree and a family. A family tree defines and illustrates
family relationships from one generation to generation.

A tree, of course, begins as a seed. From that seed germinate the roots and the simple
shoot that begins the trunk. As time passes ever spreading limbs evolve from the trunk;
limbs from which smaller branches grow from which even smaller branches grow and
so on. Trees, for as long as they live, grow and expand each day. A family tree does the
same thing. Like nature’s tree the family tree is ever changing.

THE PETER FOY FAMILY TREE

On the preceding page is a portrait of a FOY family tree. A copy of this FOY family
tree is in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. under Lib Cong # 1200642, call
#CS71.F795. This portrait was prepared by a professional researcher, Miss CARRIIE
LANE BARNETT, of Washington, D.C., around 1912 and was published by The Norris
Peters Company that same year under copyright.

Miss BARNETT was commissioned by WILLIAM H. FOY, JR., from Eufaula,
Alabama, to create this tree which depicts the descendants of WILLIAM’s ancestor,
PETER FOY. PETER FOY’s name and historical references have been found by
researchers in early Maryland records dating back to the 1700s. One theory connects
him as a brother to THOMAS FOY, through whom, it appears, the Cisco Clan of FOYs
derived. It is therefore probable that PETER FOY and all those descendants on that
beautifully done family tree portrait are related to the Cisco Clan.

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