The Family of
John Warner and Marancy Alexander
This family history website is devoted to sharing information about the family of John Warner (1816-1858) and Marancy Alexander (1824-1901). The site is maintained by Dave Smeds, a great-great-grandson of the couple. The site is divided into the following subpages, which can be reached by clicking on the pertinent line.
Life
of John Warner and Marancy Alexander
Ancestry
of John Warner and Marancy Alexander
A Simplified List of
Descendants
Their Five Children
What
you will and will not find here:
This website includes biographies of John, Marancy, and their five children, along with summarized descriptions of the clans each of the five children founded. It is not intended to be a comprehensive record of “raw statistics” genealogical data such as birthdates, birthplaces, deathdates, wedding dates, burials, and so forth. While that material has been gathered, much of it has been relegated to an off-line archive, to be shared only by those researchers within the family who have the patience to wade through all the dry facts. What’s here on the web is the “good stuff” -- i.e. the stories of who these people were and where they came from, presented as text in the form of full paragraphs, supplemented with photographs if available. This approach is intended to bring the subjects into focus as real people rather than just names on a list. I hope you will come to view the results as refreshing and more interesting than what you would see on a run-of-the-mill family history website.
There is one nod here to standard charting. The “A Simplified List of Descendants” page shows a basic outline of the first three generations of John and Marancy’s descendants. This may or may not be a complete list, but if not, it comes close. Otherwise you will find summarized descriptions of each group of descendants on the pages devoted to the members of the first generation -- Araminta, John, Frederick, Clifford, and Charles. In one instance, however, you will find much more. This website is a sub-section of a larger genealogical site. One of the other sections concerns itself with the family of Nathaniel Martin (1816-1905) and Hannah Strader (1829-1919) of Green County, WI. That section features full biographies of all of Nathaniel and Hannah’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Inasmuch as John Warner (the younger) married Eleanor Amelia “Nellie” Martin, a daughter of Nathaniel and Hannah, his descendants receive this extended treatment. A link appears in John’s biography that connects to the Martin/Strader section, where you will be able to read at length about John and Nellie’s eight children and fourteen grandchildren.
Your first reaction just now might have been, “Why aren’t the four other Warner lines covered so fully?” After all, John and Marancy are a set of my great great grandparents, and according to general principles of fairness, the entire family they founded is just as deserving of a full-scale effort as is the one founded by Nathaniel and Hannah. My apologies. The fact is, I was exhausted by the amount of work that went into Nathaniel and Hannah’s section, and before that, a section devoted to my 49er Gold Rush great great grandparents John Sevier Branson and Martha Jane Ousley. I reached a point in about 2010 where I told myself I just could not tackle anything so ambitious again, and I left much of the Warner section in a less-replete form. I have however made exceptions on two occasions. In November, 2013, I uploaded a long and comprehensive biography of John Warner Ladd, firstborn son of Araminta Warner, in great part because so much excellent information about him had come to light. And then in July, 2026, I finally uploaded a complete version of the biography of Charles A. Warner and for the first time included full biographies of his five daughters. I may or may not do the rest at some point. Here is my offer: If any member of the Warner clan is willing to volunteer to expand a specific portion of the site, please get in touch and together maybe we’ll be able to make it happen. In the meantime, if you find it satisfactory just to share the usual raw-stats genealogy of the clan via a GEDCOM file or what-not, that I can manage right away. To make requests, send me an email at the address below. (I haven’t created a link. You’ll have to enter the address manually into your email client. Furthermore I’ve distorted the address so as to thwart spammers’ webcrawling address harvesters. Sorry, but I used to get a lot of unsolicited email and I’m still cautious. I think you’ll find it legible.)
Regarding photos: My grandfather Albert Frederick Warner maintained a very nice collection of photographs of his Warner relatives, which I inherited. I’ve used quite a few of these images to spruce up the webpages, supplemented by other photos that a granddaughter of my great aunt Emma Warner Hastings loaned to me for scanning during calendar year 2007. You are free to download these jpgs from the site. However, be aware that they are relatively low-resolution, small file-size versions of scans made from original photographs. I am happy to provide versions at high resolution suitable for top-quality print-outs, and sometimes I can supply additional images of the person or persons you are interested in, above and beyond the ones I have posted. I would love to have been able to simply upload all photos in their highest quality form, but that would make the webpage slow to load and would take up too much server space. And speaking of photos, I’d love to receive some, if you have them. One key need is to obtain an image of Clifford Warner. My grandfather loaned the one he had to one of Clifford’s descendants in 1979 so that it could be copied, and it was not returned as promised.
If You Want to Copy What I’ve Written to Other Places -- ASK ME FIRST!!! While anyone is free to make use of the raw statistical data, such as the date of a birth or location of a wedding, the same liberty does not extend to copying the sentences and paragraphs of the biographies. That material was carefully assembled. It took a lot of work on my part. Writing. Rewriting. Editing. Proofreading. It’s “creative” writing and it is copyrighted by me, and the only place I want the stuff to be is right here, on this website. That’s not to say you can’t download the biographies and tuck them away on your computers to have for your own reference, it just means you shouldn’t try to distribute it to anyone else via a public platform. This is particularly the case with Ancestry.com. Do NOT put it on Ancestry.com. I have my own Ancestry.com account. If I wanted the material there, I would put it there myself. What’s the problem, you may wonder. It’s not that I’m trying to be a control freak. It’s that if people find the biographies there, it is inevitable they will be reading versions that someone uploaded a number of years in the past. The material will be lacking in any revisions or improvements I’ve made in the meantime. I want people to experience the biographies in their best, most up-to-date form. The solution is quite simple. Don’t post the text itself. Instead, post links to this website, so people can read the text here. I plan to maintain this archive here for many years to come. If someone clicks on the link, they’ll get what they need. Please do things that way, rather than spreading versions of my work that may soon be obsolete.
This site is and always has been offered free of charge. But if you find it useful, there is one way you could show your appreciation that does involve a little money. I’m not just a genealogist. I’m also an author of fiction. As in, at a professional level, for more than forty-five years. However, despite those credentials, the money doesn’t just flow in by itself. I always need new customers to purchase copies of my stuff. Please consider tracking down my books and purchasing something, whether it’s one book or half a dozen. Just search for the Dave Smeds author page on Amazon, or better yet, if you prefer to read ebooks instead of print editions, visit my author page on the site of my latest publisher, Book View Café. I really prefer that option because after all, Amazon is a monopoly and I think it’s great when small stores (even ebook-only ones like BVC) get a piece of the action instead. Here’s the link: BVC. Please do not be put off by the fact that much of what I write is in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. If that sort of material is not your thing, there is a solution: Make a purchase anyway. You could give the item to another person, or even just throw it away. While I naturally would love to lure in more readers, not just customers, a sale is a sale is a sale. It’ll still count as a customer transaction even if no one reads that copy, and said transaction not only represents income, but will boost my sales ranking which in turn causes more “foot traffic” to come my way. If you pursue this strategy to help out a poor family historian slash fiction writer, I do have one additional favor to ask. Please don’t buy used editions. Amazon loves to tout them and will try to point you toward them, and they make the price point attractive. But here’s the thing -- not one penny of whatever you pay them for that second-hand merchandise will get to me. The money goes entirely to Amazon and whatever used-book vendor is supplying them with the artifact. In particular, don’t purchase the old paperback editions of my first two novels, The Sorcery Within and The Schemes of Dragons. They exist in new editions. Please buy those instead. Not only does it help my pocketbook, but the text of those new editions is revised and improved. I would much rather you get to enjoy my work at its current standard, and not have to put up with fumbles I made as a beginner. Thank you!
Note: One large page of this site, the one that deals with the way-back ancestry of John and Marancy, is still inactive. There is a lot to say about Marancy’s heritage and it is taking some time to pull it all together.