Who was Edward Neddie Browning Ward? Here are the clues so you may solve the mystery.

The history of seven generations of an American pioneer family from Frederick and Montgomery County Maryland through Kentucky and Arkansas to the Pacific Northwest, this genealogy tracks 3000 descendants of Edward “Neddie” Browning Ward, as it pursues the mystery of his birth. His son, Jesse was a flat boatman on the Mississippi for 30 years, before going on to Arkansas and to Oregon in 1853. Neddie’s grandson, Dillis Burgess Ward and his wife, Sarah Isabella Byles were among the first ten families to settle Seattle, he first to Salem, she on the Longmire-Byles wagon train, the first over the Cascades directly into Puget Sound. His sisters and daughters married other pioneer families including the Mercers, Meanys and Dickeys. Dillis’ son, Charles Clarence Ward was a member of the first graduating class from the University of Washington in 1889, a member of the State Legislature and a land developer. Descendants are doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, professors and architects, but among ancestors were also discovered illegitimacies, incest, absconding parents and a murder victim. Both Ward and Browning families held slaves in Maryland, but were not identified with slave holding in Kentucky where they sided with the Methodist Church north. Treasures in the book include poignant letters written after the death of a spouse, plans for crossing the Oregon trail, and charming love letters.

Carolyn Fix Blount, a 5th generation Washingtonian, earned her doctorate at Seattle University, following earlier degrees at the University of Washington. A leader in Family and Consumer Science, holding state, national and international roles in the International Federation for Home Economics, she taught 40 years in State high schools, community colleges and at Seattle Pacific University, Western Washington University, Specialist Training College in Winneba, Ghana, the University of Manchester, and Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in St. Lucia. Widowed in 2012 after 55 years of marriage, the Blounts have three adult children and seven grandchildren. Family history research has been a 30-years passion that motivated the research for this first book.