HOMERVILLE — Two regional genealogy libraries are set to merge, creating what may be the most comprehensive genealogy facility in the Southeast.
In the coming months, Elmer’s Genealogy Library of Madison, Fla., will merge with the Huxford Genealogy Library in Homerville. The Madison library’s materials will be moving to the Homerville site. The Huxford library will be moving to a larger Clinch County facility offered by the city of Homerville, said E.L. “Boe” Williams, the Huxford’s chairman.
The new facility will be called the Folks Huxford-Elmer Spear Library.
This combination of materials and members should make the new library a formidable facility for research into family histories not just from South Georgia but for genealogical references throughout the United States.
“It may be the largest independent genealogical library in the region of the Southeastern United States,” Williams said.
The Huxford Genealogical Society has 800 memberships representing 1,200 to 1,300 people; married couples are counted as one membership, Williams said. The Huxford library has thousands of materials with Judge Folks Huxford’s original card files on 5,000 families still serving as the collection’s centerpiece. The files have continued to grow, methodically collecting family files from numerous parts of the U.S. The collection, for example, includes more than 1,000 volumes of the Pennsylvania Archives. The Huxford’s contents are insured for $1 million.
The Elmer Library consists of more than 25,000 books. Elmer C. Spear’s collection covers a wider range of states and families.
Williams described the Huxford as being like a rifle, methodically aiming to complete certain states and regions, while the Elmer has worked more like a shotgun collecting research materials from everywhere as long as they have come within the collector’s reach.
As for histories, Williams has been involved with the Huxford since its inception in the early 1970s.
Judge Folks Huxford collected research materials throughout his life. He ran a magazine for years, but lost it in a business deal in his later years. From this heartbreak, Huxford conceived the concept of a society committed to preserving and building upon his life’s work.
“Judge Huxford had the foresight to realize he wouldn’t live forever,” Williams said. “With the society, his work would continue after he died.”
A similar thought is behind the Elmer’s merger. Spear wants to ensure his life’s work will not be scattered to the winds, Williams said. By merging Elmer’s Genealogy Library with the Huxford, his work will remain in one location combined with the Homerville collection, all continuing to grow as time passes.
Williams said it is hard to estimate the potential of this merger. He cited an example from the Huxford where a man wished to find his roots.
The man’s last name was Lee. Williams noted just how many Lees have lived in the region through the years and centuries. Still, with only the man’s great-grandfather’s name, the Huxford’s materials were able to trace his Lee family roots to the 1600s. The Huxford did this in one afternoon.
Naming several states to be represented in the merged collection, Williams said some area folks may wonder what Illinois, for example, may have to do with a South Georgia family.
“We act like these people didn’t move,” Williams said of current generations’ ancestors. “But often they moved to other parts of the country. Some stayed but some came back.” Many people are surprised to learn just where their ancestors had roamed.
What is also surprising is how two well-developed genealogical libraries had formed independently within such a close distance.
“This proximity of two independent genealogical libraries is rare,” he says.
Soon to be combined: rarer still.
Local News
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Folks Huxford created a legacy for his lifelong genealogy work by creating a society and library. In the coming months, Elmer's Genealogy Library, Madison, Fla., will merge with the Huxford in Homerville.
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When Elmer met Folks: Two genealogical libraries to merge
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