Alfred Jack Walker first married Sarah Speir 3 April 1884. After her death in 1891 he married Ada Ruth Terry 1 May 1893.
There are five ancestry lines of interest to A. J. Walker descendants for which we have created seperate charts. First there is the Walker line for his father William. Then there is the Speir line of his first wife Sarah, and the Terry line of his second wife Ada Ruth. Followed by the Lane line of A. J. Walker's mother Sarah and the Gamble line of A. J. Walker's grandmother Jane Evaline Gamble. These five genealogical lines are included here simply because these are the lines that are most known to us and in which most of the research has focused on to date.
There are other lines of equal importance but about which we know less. The Pate line for Mariah Pate, A. J. Walker's grandmother and the first wife of Alfred G. Lane. The Humphreys line for Judith Humphreys, A. J. Walker's great-grandmother and wife of Simon Lane. The Aycock line for Winifred Aycock, A. J. Walker's great-great-grandmother and wife of Jesse Lane. These lines are incorporated within the charts here.
Our hope is that you will find these charts interesting and useful and in turn share your information to extend and honor our common family history as well as record the events of the living. Out of concern for privacy issues we try to omit event dates such as births, and marriages, and associated localities for living persons and list names only. For the same reasons recent generations are not included. Consequently there are many great-grandchildren of recent generations not included here. Complete geneology data on CDs and charts as well as addresses for living family members are usually available at the annual Walker Family Reunion.
If an individual's name is followed by (IMAGE) you may click there to view a photograph. Should you have photographs that you think are appropriate to include here on these pages please contact us.
We offer this genealogical data as a tool to your own research and do not represent it as the last word. Indeed much of it was obtained from family members and other researchers and is not supported by acceptable source documentation. Should you have questions regarding sources I am happy to furnish what I have.
A Word About Names - Mr. Walker, as my father always addressed his father-in-law, was named Alfred Andrew Jackson Walker. He rarely used the Andrew, which was his paternal grandfather's name. His mother, uncles, and aunts called him Little Jackie for a time. Many of his friends called him Jack or Cousin Jackie. His five children called him Papa and to his grandchildren he was Grandpa. For official documents he always used the signature A. J. Walker. My father liked to tell this story about his father-in-law. Mr. Walker was in Dallas for some business and he walked across a street corner against a green light. A little boy observed this scofflaw behaviour and cried out "look Mom there goes a jay walker" to which Mr. Walker replied "young man how did you know my name! I have never seen you before!". My Father, Ernest Pierce, always told this as a factual story and I could never quite decide if it was true or even if he believed it to be true.
Mr. Walker and his wife Ada Ruth named their third child Alfred Jackson Walker Jr. and he soon answered to the name Fred. All the nieces and nephews called him Uncle Alfred and to his friends he was usually Alfred. Alfred and Velma's first child was named Alfred Jackson Walker III and he was usually addressed as Jack. These naming conventions of course were intentional to avoid confusion.
It is not unusual to find favorite family given names that are used generation after generation and the Walker and Lane families are no exception. Simon Lane born 1771, father of Alfred G. Lane and greatgrandfather of A.J. Walker, has at least six descendants named Simon that were born in the 1800s.
There is another name that appears twice in our Walker family that can cause some confusion and that name is Ada Ruth Walker - mother and daughter. They are both buried in the Terry Cemetery, near each other and the mother's tombstone reads "Ada R. Walker born 1872" while the daughter's tombstone reads "Ada Ruth Walker born 1901". The first Ada Ruth Walker (mother) bore the maiden name of Ada Ruth Terry until she married A. J. Walker in 1893. Maiden names, however, are rarely noted, even on tombstones.
To further confuse this issue the daughter Ada Ruth Walker married Samuel Walker in 1919 which resulted in her married name also being Walker. Samuel Walker has no known connection to the A. J. Walker line for at least as far back as the late 1700s.
And finally, we should mention the two Sarah Walkers who are buried at Harmony Ridge. These two are mother and daughter-in-law and both are Walker spouses. Sarah Ann Mariah (Lane) Walker born 1835 is the mother of A.J. Walker and she became Sarah Walker when she married William in Walker County, Alabama in 1860. Sarah Jane (Speir) Walker became a Walker when she married A.J. Walker in 1884.
E-Mail Eldon Pierce at: Eldon@ajwalker.org
Last Updated: November 3, 2006
© 2006 - Eldon Walker Pierce, All Rights Reserved