Contents
Whose family are you here for?
Showing both families — every line on the page. Pick a side to hide the other
family's ancestors; Earl, Kristin and their three children stay on either way.
Person · Moses T. Brooks
The record
- HHomethe fan · what changed · open questions
- MMigrationbirths and deaths on a map, by decade
- TTimeline659 entries · 5 eras
- PPeople351 cards, by generationMoses T. Brooks
- LLines13 surname pages
The evidence
- DDocuments1034 thumbnails, filterable
- SSourcesS1–S1235, with where each is cited
The findings
- How the wall came downProeger line
- The glass patentsProeger line
- How the Caffey half was closedCaffey line
- What the DNA saysits own page
- Four routesMigration
- The asymmetryLines
- Open questions20 questions
- Add to this recorda form, read by Earl
How to read this record
Every claim is tagged
Most family trees flatten everything into the same confident typeface. This one does not.
The three research tags below are the whole point of the exercise: they say what a document
proves, what the weight of evidence suggests, and what nobody has found yet. A fourth marks
what the family stated directly, where no document has been retrieved at all — it is kept
separate on purpose and is never quietly promoted to confirmed. A fifth, added on
13 September 2026, marks biological evidence: a DNA result is not a document, and it is not
testimony either. Two further labels mark where this page withholds information
rather than lacking it.
ConfirmedAttested by a document that was actually retrieved and read — a census sheet, a
government index, a grave marker, a family-written obituary.
ProbableStrongly supported but not nailed down: a user-contributed tree, a masked index field,
or a chain of consistent circumstances. Believable, not proven.
Not foundSearched for and not located. This is a statement about the search, not about the
person — the record may well exist somewhere unsearched.
Family testimonySupplied by the family and recorded on their word — no document has been retrieved for
it. Note the diamond rather than the dot: this is provenance, not proof, and it stands
apart from the three record tags above S24.
DNA evidenceBiological evidence consistent with a claim. It corroborates origins; it does
not by itself establish a person or a link. Note the bar rather than a dot or a diamond:
no DNA result on this page is ever counted as confirmed, because no document
was read for it S46.
Living — withheldThe person is living. By the privacy rule for this page, name and relationship are
shown, and at most a year the family has already published. Full dates of birth, ages,
places of residence and record identifiers are held back.
Research in progressA branch that is actively being worked on. The node exists in the structure so the
shape of the family is honest; the detail is simply not in yet.
- Married
- Nancy Tait
- Sources
- 2
Research status
Research status: PROBABLE as the father of
Lucy Brooks, per the
History of Dallas County (1892), a paid-for family account
S85. Added 4 October 2026
Evidence: The 14 July 1813 Wilson County, Tennessee marriage of Moses Brooks and Nancy Tait, and the 20 September 1850 Davidson County census, which places Jas. Wright, 25, physician, in the household of Moses T. Brooks, 56, and Nancy, 51 — the couple the History of Dallas County names as Lucy's parents. Weak or missing: No record names Lucy herself in that household under her own name; an 18-year-old “Rosanna” Wright in the same household is probably Lucy under another name, by age fit alone. Not yet confirmed. Know more? Confirm or correct this →
Life in the order the records give it
Census1850
On 20 September 1850, in Civil District No. 4 of Davidson County, Tennessee, he headed the household
Moses T. Brooks, 56, and Nancy, 51 — that his son-in-law
James W. Wright (as “Jas. Wright”, 25, physician) was living in, with “Rosanna” Wright, 18, probably Lucy under another name, and infant Martha Wright, 2 months
S1096Family parents, marriages, children, siblings
Marriage1813
Married
Nancy Tait on
14 July 1813, Wilson County, TennesseeIn the record
Generation 7 — Earl's earliest known
- S85History of Dallas County, Texas (1892), pp. 687–688 — the biography of James W. Wright, M.D. Two printed pages, read from the images 16 September 2026. Gives his birth near Nashville, Tennessee, 4 February 1825, son of Thomas and Martha A. (Tate) Wright; service in the Mexican War; medical study at Louisville and a degree at Nashville; his marriage 28 October 1848 to Lucy C. Brooks, of Davidson County, Tennessee, daughter of Moses T. and Nancy (Tate) Brooks; the family's emigration to Texas in 1850; and, on p. 688, his children — among them "Mary J., wife of David E. Coffman, of Taylor county." A subscription county history is a paid-for family account, not a vital record, and is weighed that way here. Its value is that it reaches the same couple from the opposite direction to the 1934 death certificate [S81]: the certificate names Mary Jane's parents, the history names Dr. Wright's daughter. Neither was derived from the other. The G6 generation it supplies — Thomas & Martha A. (Tate) Wright, Moses T. & Nancy (Tate) Brooks — rests on this book alone and stays Probable.
- S10961850 United States Federal Census — Civil District No. 4, Davidson County, Tennessee, page 296, dwelling 482, family 482. Ancestry record 6049004. Image examined in the Stage 2 reading, 1 October 2026. Confirmed 20 September 1850: Moses T. Brooks, 56, farmer, born Virginia; Nancy Brooks, 51, born North Carolina; Octavia V., 16, Jas. M., 12, and Jos. F. Brooks, 8; Jas. Wright, 25, physician, born Tennessee; Rosanna Wright, 18; Martha Wright, 2 months. The index carries the head’s surname down onto the three Wrights (“Jas Brooks”, “Rosanna Brooks”); the image reads Wright. The census states no relationships. A James Wright, 52, farmer, born North Carolina, heads the next dwelling but one.