Jerry and Linda Butler

I was born on November 1, 1965. As I said before, my parents separated while my mother was pregnant with me, and then they divorced shortly after my birth. I never knew that Bill was my father until 1984, and then I met him in spring of 1985. I was raised by my mother and my step-father. I have two daughters, Hailey Jordan Boyle and April Michelle (Boyle) Bryant, who are the great-great-great-granddaughters of Nancy (Butler) Keating. Hailey was born on March 11, 1986, and April was born on April 23, 1987.

My first husband was Steven Cooper. We married on October 15, 1993, and divorced by April 1997. We had no children together. My second husband was Timothy Kirkpatrick. We married on March 1, 2001, and divorced in April 2005, and we also had no children together. I am currently living alone --- and loving it!

Hailey married Nathaniel Lee Minks on April 11, 2003, in Dexter, MO. She gave birth to my precious granddaughter, Laney Joleigh Minks, on December 22, 2003. Laney only weighed 4 lb., 6 oz. and was 15 1/2 inches long. Laney is the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Nancy Andelite (Butler) Keating. April is expecting her first child on this coming July 11th. We don't know yet whether it is a boy or girl. I'm hoping for a boy, because Billy was the last boy born into our branch of the family, and that was back in 1969.

I am the office manager at Wallace & Owens CountryMart (a supermarket) in Dexter, MO. My main hobby is genealogy, but I also enjoy sewing, crocheting, embroidering, etc. I keep Laney almost every weekend. We go to church at Friendship Baptist in Dexter. I lead a very quiet lifestyle, so there's really not much more to tell. My family history is very important to me, I guess partly because I didn't know my father until I was already an adult. I try to go around to all the cemeteries at least once every year or two and put flowers on as many family graves as I can. I just have such a strong desire to know as much as I can about my ancestors --- I'll probably be doing this until the day I die. No one else in my immediate family is the least bit interested in our family history, so I'm pretty much on my own with it. (Elsie is interested some, but no one else.) I think that Viola and Ada are the ones I'm most fascinated with. I think that it's such a tragedy that they both died so young. I am eager to learn anything and everything I can about them, as well as everyone else.

• research of Lisa Boyle.