For the last year or so I have taken up an interest in studying my family's roots.  I have searched through the LDS Church as well as cyberspace and have found that my Cockrell family has roots in Arkansas and Virginia as well as California.  

  Through my research I have met many very nice and helpful people on the Internet all driven by a common goal, finding a common Cockrell link.  I have also met some great relatives in my local area in which I never before met.  From them I have received priceless family photos and memories  that have added greatly to my research. Click here for my basic Cockrell family tree.

  James Nathaniel Cockrell was born March 18, 1834 in Virginia. He married Mary Elizabeth Wardlaw September 3, 1867 in Clinton Co. Illinois. James and Mary moved to a small town named Brightwater in Benton County, Arkansas where Mary had inherited 160 acres of land on Sugar Creek. James and Mary raised 4 children on their farm, Mary, Jeanette, James E. and John.

  John had died as a child, Mary and Jeanette were married and moved out of state so when James N. and Mary died, James E. and his wife Myrtle took over the 160 acres and farmed them with their ten children.  They were John, Donald, Herman, Robert,Pauline, Virgil, Georgia, Elizabeth, Marcus and my grandfather, George.

  When the dust bowl hit the southern states, Virgil, George and Marcus worked their way toward California to find work and stayed to raise their families. With their hard work our family became the great family we are.