1. born about
   1657

   Probable · not proven

   Matiáš (Matouš) Batla & Kateřina

   Brent’s probable 8th great-grandparents · research virtual dead end

   Matiáš Batla of Jablůnka, born about 1657, and his wife Kateřina, born about 1653, are very probably Jiří’s parents, from records taken together. Their son Jiří was born on 8 March 1694 and baptized at Pržno the next day; his godparents, Martin Vaněk and his wife Anna of Růžďka, also stood for his sisters Anna (1692) and Justina (1700). As “son of the late Matiáš Batla,” Jiří married Marina, a widow, at Pržno on 10 May 1716, at 22 and apparently for the first time. Tomáš’s father was a widower when he married Zuzana in 1721, very likely had children with a young second wife until 1747, and named sons Jan and Martin, as Matiáš had. Matiáš was buried on 20 February 1702, aged 45, and Kateřina on 16 June 1709, aged 56.

   No single record says Tomáš’s father was Matiáš’s son, and other men named Jiří Batla lived in Jablůnka at the same time, among them Jiří, son of Martin Batla, who married Anna Němečková of Rokytnice at Vsetín in 1710 and had children in 1711 and 1713. Before 1684 the family is almost absent from the records: a Václav Bartla of Jablůnka stood godfather at Vsetín in 1650, Mikuláš Batla married there in 1680, Ludmila Batlová was buried in 1681, and the land-tax register of 1656–1670 lists no Batla householder. Every record online that could name Matiáš’s parents has now been searched, so the line stops here for now.

   Pržno parish registers 1684–1755; Vsetín parish register 1644–1693; land-tax register of the Vsetín estate, 1656–1670

2. married
   23 Feb 1721

   Jiří Batla & Zuzana

   Brent’s 7th great-grandparents · the earliest proven ancestors

   Jiří (Jura) Batla of Jablůnka, a widower, married Zuzana, the widow of Martin Švab of Růžďka, at Pržno on 23 February 1721. Zuzana had a daughter with Martin Švab in 1714, but her own parents are not known: their marriage, about 1713, is in none of the registers online. Their son Tomáš was born on 5 December 1723 and baptized at Pržno the next day; Jiří (1726), Anna (1732) and Pavel (1734) followed. Jiří witnessed Jablůnka weddings through the 1730s. Zuzana was very likely the Susanna, wife of Georgius Batla of Jablůnka, buried on 12 May 1742, though her recorded age of 60 looks too high. That July the widower Jiří Batla married Kateřina, daughter of Matěj Baďura of Jablůnka, which may be why Baďuras were godparents to Tomáš’s sons. With Kateřina he very likely had three more children, the last baptized in March 1747. Jiří was alive at Tomáš’s wedding in 1747 and is very likely the Georgius Batla of Jablůnka buried on 31 May 1748, recorded as 68; his widow Kateřina remarried that November, with a Tomáš Batla as a witness.

   Pržno parish registers: marriages 1721, 1742 and 1747, baptisms 1723–1732, burials 1742 and 1748

3. married
   17 Jan 1747

   Tomáš Batla & Marina Kovalová

   6th great-grandparents

   Tomáš, born on 5 December 1723 and a farmer, married Marina, daughter of the late Tomáš Koval, at the church in Pržno; both were from Jablůnka. Marina was born on 22 March 1726, the daughter of Tomáš Kovalda, as his name is written everywhere else, and his wife Kateřina; her father was alive in November 1744 but dead by the wedding. Their children were Jiří (1749), Anna (1752), Zuzana (1753), Jan (1759), Tomáš (1762) and Marina (1766).

   Pržno parish registers, baptisms 1723 and 1726, marriages 1744–1755 and baptisms 1749–1766

4. baptized
   13 Aug 1762

   Tomáš Batla & Marina Baďurová

   5th great-grandparents

   No. 58→No. 85

   His godparents were Jiří Baďura and his wife Zuzana, and Baďuras run all through his life. In January 1791 he married Marina, born Baďurová, the widow of another Jiří Batla, with a Jiří Baďura as witness. She was very probably the daughter of his own godparents: a Marina, daughter of Jiří Baďura and Zuzana of Jablůnka, was baptized at Pržno on 1 April 1759, and her brother Martin, who farmed No. 6 after their father, witnessed her first wedding in 1784. They had six children, first at house No. 58 and from 1799 at No. 85: Rosina, Anna, Katharina, Jan, Theresia and Susanna. Jan’s godparents were Baďuras too. On 27 October 1819, by a contract dated at Vsetín, Tomáš handed the farm to Jan, who was to support his parents for life. Tomáš signed the contract “Tomeš Batla, Otec odstupitel”: father, transferor. The contract also provided for Jan’s sisters: Anna, Theresia and Susanna were to get 80 gulden each, and Katharina and Marina, his mother’s daughter by her first husband, had already been settled. Rosina is not named and had probably died. Tomáš died at No. 85 on 17 August 1831 and was buried two days later by the Reformed pastor. The register gives his age as 72, three years more than his baptism makes him, a common slip for the old: no other Tomáš Batla was baptized in the parish between 1757 and 1763.

   Pržno parish registers, baptism 1762 (and all baptisms 1757–1763), Baďura baptisms 1750–1759, marriages 1784 and 1791, baptisms 1789–1806, burial 1831; Vsetín estate deed book, 1819; Jablůnka baptism register, 1842

5. baptized
   25 May 1799

   Jan Batla & Marie Adámková

   4th great-grandparents

   No. 85

   Jan took over No. 85 from his father in October 1819, at 20, and married Marie Adámková, a smallholder’s daughter from nearby Bystřička. Their children were born between 1826 and 1842, and at least two died as infants. Jan died before 1858, and Marie probably in 1858 or 1859.

   Pržno and Jablůnka parish registers; Vsetín estate deed book, 1819

6. born
   6 Aug 1835

   Jan Batla & Anna Hlubíková

   3rd great-grandparents · the family that emigrated

   No. 85

   Jan married Anna, a shoemaker’s daughter from Vsetín, on 24 August 1858. She was twenty and under age, so her father gave his consent in front of the witnesses. A month later Jan was registered as owner of the farm, with Anna as co-owner under their marriage contract. Their sons were Jan (1859), Josef (1861, died as a baby), Josef (1862), Karel (1865) and Pavel (1869). On 10 March 1870 the farm was sold to Martin and Anna Dančák for 1,180 gulden. Four weeks later, on 7 April, the family sailed from Bremen on the Galveston, and they reached Texas on 2 June. Pavel, just over a year old, died on the way. By 1880 they were farming in Fayette County, where a daughter, Franziska, had been born in 1871.

   Vsetín Reformed marriage register, 1858; Jablůnka birth register, 1859–1869; Jablůnka land book, 1858–1870; Galveston Immigration Database; 1880 US census

7. born
   5 Jul 1859

   Jan Batla

   Brent’s great-great-grandfather

   No. 85

   Born at No. 85 and baptized two days later. He was ten when the family crossed to Texas, the eldest of four brothers. On 6 January 1886, under a Fayette County license issued at La Grange, he married Johanna (Jane) Hrušková, born at Jablůnka No. 66 in 1866, whose family had followed to Texas in 1871. A justice of the peace, Max Meitzen, married them; the family remembered the wedding at Ellinger. In 1887, farming near Taylor in Williamson County, he declared his intention to become an American citizen, giving his birthplace as “Wsetin,” the German name of Vsetín. He was naturalized in Falls County in 1892, and in 1900 his widowed mother, Annie, was living with the family there. They raised eight children, who were christened in the Czech Brethren church: two at Ocker in 1908, and Joseph Alois at Cameron in 1910. The 1930 census found John and Jane retired in Cameron, Milam County. Jane died there in 1931, and John on 19 March 1942. His death certificate names his parents as John and Anna Batla, both born in Europe: Jan and Anna of No. 85. Both John and Jane are buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Cameron. His son, the informant, gave his birth as 4 July 1860, the date on his gravestone too, but the register written two days after his birth says 5 July 1859, and so does the 1900 census; his lodge gave his age at death as 82.

   Jablůnka birth register, 1859, entry 8; Galveston passenger list, 1870; US censuses, 1880 to 1930; marriage record, 1886; declaration of intention, 1887, and naturalization papers, 1892; Joseph Alois’s certificate of baptism, 1910; death certificate and lodge death notice, 1942; gravestones; Hruška family report

8. born
   2 Feb 1898

   Joseph Alois Batla

   Brent’s great-grandfather

   Born near Barclay in Falls County, Texas. He was baptized at Cameron in 1910, at twelve, and his certificate of baptism names his parents: “Mr. Jan Batla and his wife Johanna born Hruška.” He married Opal Quinn of Thorndale, daughter of C. C. Quinn and Tinnie Sutton, on 18 March 1923, under a Bell County license; she died in Houston in 1937 at 36. Their children were Mary Jo and Charles. He died at Hermann Hospital in Houston on 4 April 1958 and is buried at Brookside. His death certificate names his father too, as John Batla.

   Certificate of baptism, 1910; marriage record, 1923; death certificate, 1958; grave marker; Opal’s 1937 death certificate and her parents’ of 1948; family tree

9. born
   23 Aug 1927

   Charles Batla

   Brent’s grandfather

   He married Oleva “Bo” Barnes, Memaw Bo, and here the two roads meet. He died in 1989.

10. Glynn Batla

    Brent’s father

The note in the margin

“v America”

Josef Batla was baptized on 24 November 1862. Later, someone added two words beside his entry: v America, “in America.” The same note appears beside his younger brothers Karel and Pavel.

That small annotation is how the Moravian records say goodbye to this family. After Pavel, born in January 1869, no more births are recorded at No. 85, and by the spring of 1870 the family was on its way to America.

Most of what is known about the Czech generations comes from research Brent commissioned in 2008 from Dr. Miroslav Koudelka of Olomouc, who found and photographed these entries. In 2026 Brent began checking them against the archive’s online scans and pushing the search back to 1684.

1. Memaw Bo to her mother, Edith May Walker

   Bo’s Indiana birth certificate names her parents as Wiley Powell Barnes and Edith May Walker. It gives both parents’ birthplaces as Oakland City.

2. Edith to her mother, Mary Rebecca Ross

   Mary Rebecca Walker’s 1936 Indiana death certificate names her husband, Patrick Walker. The informant was her daughter, listed as Mrs. Edith Barnes of Oakland City. The 1910 census and Leaves agree.

   

3. Mary Rebecca to Joseph Ross and Martha F. Edwards

   The same certificate names her parents as Joseph Ross and Martha Edwards. The 1870 and 1880 censuses and her parents’ marriage record of 7 February 1858 fit.

4. Martha to her father, Edward Edwards

   Edward’s will, signed in Warrick County, Indiana, on 25 April 1869, names “my daughter Martha F. Ross.” He died that June and is buried in Baker Cemetery near Boonville.

   

5. Edward to his father, Robert Edwards

   The Bible record in Nancy’s pension file lists “Edward Edwards born the 8th of May 1793,” and the 1850 and 1860 censuses give Edward’s birth in North Carolina about that year. (Ancestry indexes the 1850 household under “Coward”; on the page it is Edwards.) In 1820 he was living next to Robert in Wilson County. In 1850 his household included a Hannah Edwards, 48, who fits Robert and Nancy’s daughter Hanah, born in 1802. And the death certificate of Martha’s brother Albert G. Edwards names their father as Edward Edwards of Carolina.

   Albert outlived all his brothers and sisters. His obituary remembers him saying, “I am the last leaf of the tree, left clinging alone.”

   

6. Robert to his father, Edward Edwards

   Edward Edwards’s will of 15 August 1790, in the Chatham County probate files, leaves five shillings to “my well beloved son Robert Edwards” and names Robert and Hugh Edwards as his executors. Edward sold Robert 120 acres in 1786, the 1790 census lists Robert, Hugh and Edward Edwards together, and Robert named two of his sons Edward and Hugh.

   

7. Robert’s service

   Nancy’s sworn declaration of 14 February 1839 in Wilson County and a deposition from Hezekiah Laster, who served with Robert, are in pension file W77. The Sons of the American Revolution have accepted his service on two lines: in 1947, on an application through his daughter Mary, Mrs. John Fakes, and again for Brent, on this line through Edward.

1. Memaw Bo to her father, Wiley Powell Barnes

   Memaw Bo’s Indiana birth certificate, names her parents as Wiley Powell Barnes and Edith May Walker.

2. Wiley to his mother, Lula Powell Barnes

   Wiley was born at Spottsville, Kentucky, on 28 October 1900, before Kentucky issued birth certificates. His Texas death certificate of 1960 names his father as Emmitt Barnes and his mother as Lula E. Powell. Lula’s own sworn application to the Court of Claims in 1907 lists her children living in 1906 as Gilley Wilson Barnes, 18, George Washington Barnes, 13, and “Wiley Powell Barnes,” 6, born October 28. The 1910 census lists Wiley, 9, as the son of Emmet and Lula Barnes at Winslow, Indiana, and his 1923 marriage record in Pike County, Indiana, names his parents as Emmett Barnes and Lula Powell.

   

3. Lula to her mother, Mary Emily Coleman

   Lula’s sworn Cherokee application of 1907 names her mother as Emily Powell, born Emily Coleman at Cynthiana, Kentucky, who died on 24 September 1877. The Muhlenberg County death register lists Mary E. Powell, died that day, daughter of “J & M E Coleman.” Lula’s 1951 death certificate names her mother as Emma Coleman and her father as Wyle Powell, and the 1880 census lists “Lulia,” 9, as W. B. Powell’s daughter.

   

4. Mary Emily to her mother, Elizabeth G. Walker Coleman

   The 1850 census of Harrison County, Kentucky, lists the infant Emily in the household of James M. and Elizabeth G. Coleman. On 14 August 1851 James and Elizabeth swore before the Harrison County judge that their children were Berenice, Robert, James and “Mary E Coleman who was born the 11th of April 1850,” and the 1851 Cherokee roll lists Elizabeth with those four children, the last “Mary E. Coleman, 1.” In May 1852 Elizabeth received the Cherokee payment for herself and the four children, and in 1896 her other children swore that she was their mother.

   

5. Elizabeth to her father, John Walker Jr., and her mother, Emily

   This is the link the family story rested on, and it is now proved many times over, by records made by different hands over seventy years:

   His will, 1830. “It is my wish that my children Timothy, Elizabeth and Jane have a Liberal English Education.” Recorded in McMinn County, Tennessee, in December 1834.

   The county court, 1837. William Lowry appointed guardian to “Timothy M. Walker, Elizabeth Grace Walker, Minerva Jane and John O. Walker, minor orphans of John Walker Jur.”

   The federal government, 1838 and 1841. Paid $511.25 to Lowry for each minor heir, “John, Timothy, Elizabeth and Jane.” In April 1841 James M. Coleman wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that he had married “Elizabeth J. Walker, daughter of John Walker Jr. deceased, late a Cherokee.”

   The marriage and the estate, 1840–1845. McMinn County issued a licence on 29 October 1840 for James M. Coleman to marry “Miss Elizabeth G. Walker,” and her father’s executor paid “James M Coleman & wife” in 1841 and 1845.

   Her own oath, 1851. At Cynthiana on 14 August 1851 she and her husband swore before the presiding judge of the Harrison County Court that she was “the daughter of Major Jack Walker dec’d and the grand daughter of Major John Walker Senr.” The federal agent filed their affidavit with his 1851 roll, and in 1852 the government paid her $464.75 “in her own right and as the guardian of her four Children.”

   The roll of 1884. Elizabeth G. Smith, 56, of Nolensville, listed as the daughter of “Emily & Jack Walker,” with Emily Walker, widow of Jack Walker, aged 74, on the line above.

   Her children and grandchildren, 1906–1907. In their Eastern Cherokee applications her son James A. Coleman, her daughters Berenice Wade, Lorella Smith and Nora Fortner, and four grandchildren swore that Elizabeth Grace Walker was the daughter of John (Jack) Walker and Emily Walker. Two grandchildren of her brother Timothy, filing separately, swore to the same grandparents and named Elizabeth as Timothy’s sister. Nora, writing “from family records in my possession,” gave John Walker’s death in 1834 and her mother’s two marriages.

   Her own oath, 1896. At Fort Gibson she swore that she was “a daughter of John Walker Jr. who was a Cherokee.” Her children swore to the same, and Mary J. Ross, widow of the Cherokee principal chief William P. Ross, swore that she was “the daughter of Emily S. Walker whose maiden name was Meigs.” Her Dawes card of 1900 names her father as John Walker, Cherokee, and her mother as Emily Walker, not a citizen.

   

6. John Walker Jr. to his father, Major John Walker

   On 20 September 1821 “John Walker Senr of the County of McMinn” gave three enslaved children, Moses, Dinah and Malinda, “for the great affection I bear toward my loving and dutiful son John Walker Junr,” by a deed of gift he signed with his mark. On 7 April 1842 a Cherokee named Eight Killer swore that Major John Walker had told him “that he had given his Ferry which he owned on the Tennessee River to his Son John Walker Jr.” The treaty of 1819 lists reservations for both John Walker Senior and John Walker Junior. In 1851 Jack’s daughter Elizabeth swore that she was “the daughter of Major Jack Walker dec’d and the grand daughter of Major John Walker Senr,” and the federal agent who enrolled her called the family “descendants of Major John Walker,” who “have been frequently spoken of by Cherokees in conversation with me.”

   

7. John Walker Jr. to his mother, Elizabeth (Betsy) Lowrey

   On 15 February 1839 the three federal commissioners at the Cherokee agency wrote to Washington about a claim of “Elizabeth Walker, widow of the late Maj. John Walker, Senr.,” for feeding chiefs and poorer Cherokees at her house beside the agency. Now “reduced in her old age to penury,” they wrote, “her greatest misfortune has been the loss of her only son Majr. John Walker Junr. a man of industry & enterprize, & on whom she relied as her stay & prop in old age, who fell a victim to his efforts in inducing his brethren to cede their Territory East of the Mississippi.” That is Jack Walker, killed in 1834 for supporting removal.

   The Cherokee agent had written in 1826 that the Major’s wife Elizabeth had “only one Child (a son) by Major Walker,” and in 1827 that Col. George Lowrey had “but three Sisters Mrs Walker, Sally Lowry & the widow Fallen.” In 1851 Jack’s daughter Elizabeth Coleman swore that the Major’s wife “was a Cherokee woman who was the mother of Major Jack Walker,” and in 1906 four of the family’s applications, from two branches, named Jack’s parents as Major John Walker and Betsy Walker or Lowrey.

   In a suit Jack’s executor brought against Betsy, Lewis Ross swore in her presence in November 1838 that Jack had taken up her note and “signed his mothers name to it and his own as security.” After Betsy’s death in 1839 her son-in-law and administrator, Gideon Morgan, sued Jack’s executor in the chancery court at Madisonville. In his sworn bill of 1842 he called Jack “son of your orator’s intestate,” Betsy Walker, and “she and her son being native Cherokees, tho’ he was an educated man.” In 1843 a Calhoun merchant, A. R. Turk, testified in the same suit that between 1830 and 1834 “Elizabeth Walker the mother of John Walker Jr.” had parted from John Walker Senior.

   

8. Beyond the Major: Katy and Nancy Ward

   Published Cherokee genealogies, beginning with Emmet Starr’s History of the Cherokee Indians in 1921, make Major John Walker the son of a white trader named John Walker and of Catherine, called Katy, the daughter of Nanye’hi, the Beloved Woman Nancy Ward. Starr gives no source, and every later account repeats him. No record made in the Major’s lifetime names his parents. Governor Blount in 1792 and the War Department in 1813–14 called him a “half breed” and “Half Blood,” which fits a white father and a Cherokee mother.

   The best evidence comes from Katy’s grandson John Walker “Jack” Hilderbrand (1818–1910). In his sworn Eastern Cherokee application of 1906 he named his grandmother as “Katie Harlan” and his great-grandmother as “Granny Ward,” listing only Katy’s Harlan children. In recollections taken down in 1908 he said that Nancy Ward “was the grandmother of old Walker,” meaning the Major, and that Jack Walker “was my first cousin.” Records of the time tie the families together: Nancy Ward, Caty Harlan, Jenny McIntosh and the Major’s wife Elizabeth are named together on the Cherokee women’s talk of 1817; Caty Harlan’s reservation of 1818 was entered at Pumpkin Town, where Elizabeth Walker registered hers; and by 1826 Jack Walker had bought Nancy Ward’s Mouse Creek reservation.

   That makes the Major Nancy Ward’s grandson and Jack her great-grandson, not her grandson as the state marker says. Because the link rests on a grandson’s memory and the published genealogies rather than a record that names the Major’s mother, Katy and Nancy Ward are shown on the family tree as possible ancestors, with dashed lines.

   

• Parish registers of Pržno (from 1684), Vsetín and Jablůnka (Catholic, Reformed and Lutheran), Zemský archiv v Opavě, including the oldest Pržno register, 1684–1744 (VS-VII-1, read for Batla entries in 2026), the Pržno death books for Jablůnka, 1784–1834 and after (VS-VII-7 and VS-VII-9), the Catholic births for Jablůnka, 1757–1763 (VS-VII-2), 1845 and 1866 (VS-VII-9), and the Lutheran births, 1845 (ČV-VIII-3) and 1871 (ČV-VIII-9). The Pržno books can be viewed free at digi.archives.cz.
• Protestant history of Pržno: Protestant monuments, Pržno.
• Dr. Miroslav Koudelka, research reports for Brent Batla, January and August 2008, with photographs of the original entries.
• Land and deed books of the Vsetín estate (fond 61, Velkostatek Vsetín), Zemský archiv v Opavě, including the 1819 contract handing Jablůnka No. 85 from Tomáš Batla to his son Jan (deed book vol. II, inv. 133, deed 189) and the Jablůnka land book’s page for No. 85, 1858–1873 (inv. 170, p. 275).
• Edith Barnes, Leaves, family memoir; and Brent Batla, Leaves 2.0: Barnes / Walker Genealogy (2025).
• Pension application of Robert Edwards, widow Nancy Edwards, W77, Southern Campaigns transcription.
• Will of Edward Edwards of Chatham County, North Carolina, 15 August 1790 (Chatham County probate estate case files, 1782–1799), the Chatham deeds of 1786–1788 and the 1790 census of Chatham County, on FamilySearch.
• Members and votes of the Fayetteville Convention (1789) and the Battle of Lindley’s Mill (1781).
• Indiana death certificates of Joseph Ross (1900), Emmet Barnes (1915) and Mary Rebecca Walker (1936); Oleva A. Barnes’s Indiana birth certificate, from Brent; Gideon Walker and Pelina Polly’s marriage bond (Spencer County, Kentucky, 1828), the 1830 census of Spencer County, the 1840 and 1850 censuses of Daviess County, Kentucky, the 1846, 1852 and 1857 deeds of Gideon Walker and his heirs (Daviess County), Lemuel H. Walker’s 1880 census entry (Warrick County, Indiana), marriage record (Gibson County, 1920) and will (Gibson County, 1922), Peter P. Walker’s Kentucky death certificate (Ohio County, 1921), and Joseph Walker’s will (Spencer County, 1833), the 1874 deed dividing his land (Spencer County), his marriage bond with Agnes Clark (Nelson County, 1808), his household in the 1810, 1830 and 1850 censuses and his son Presley Walker’s 1880 census entry, on FamilySearch; the Barnes household in the 1870, 1880 and 1900 censuses and Emmet Barnes and Lula E. Powell’s marriage record (Henderson County, Kentucky, 1887), on FamilySearch; James M. Barnes and Sarah Jane Wilson’s marriage (Henderson County, 1849), William Wilson and Elizabeth D. Williams’s marriage (1831), the Wilson, Williams and Barnes households in the 1840, 1850 and 1860 censuses, Henderson County deeds of 1839, 1842, 1860 and 1877, Alfred Williams’s will (1866), W. W. Barnes’s Kentucky death certificate (1933) and the Henderson County court order of 22 January 1849 naming James M. Barnes’s guardian, on FamilySearch; Ella Barnes’s Indiana death certificate (1938), on Ancestry; the Find a Grave memorials of W. W. Barnes (Hazelwood Cemetery, Hebbardsville), Carlus Barnes (Layson-Steele Cemetery, Niagara) and James William Barnes of Tarkio, Missouri; Evan Ross and Caty Ashby’s Kentucky marriage bond (1809) and Evan Ross’s land patent (Spencer County, Indiana, 1835), from images on Ancestry member trees; from Sandra Lytch’s Ancestry tree 9058309: Catharine Ross’s gravestone (Coos River Pioneer Cemetery, Oregon) and obituary (Hartford Herald, 16 August 1882), the printed Ohio County, Kentucky, marriage records 1799–1840, the 1846 and 1847 Iowa state censuses, the Ross households in the 1810–1850 censuses, Louisa Jane Hodson’s Oregon death certificate (1916) and Elijah W. Ross’s family letter (about 1939); Albert G. Edwards’s Indiana death certificate (1915), Edward Edwards and Nancy Clemmons’s Wilson County marriage record (1815), Edward Edwards’s household in the 1840, 1850 and 1860 censuses (the 1850 entry indexed as “Coward”), Robert Edwards’s Tennessee land grant no. 7451 (1826) and a 1947 Sons of the American Revolution application through his daughter Mary, on Ancestry; Charles G. Batla in the Georgia Death Index and the Social Security Applications and Claims Index, on Ancestry; Cyrus M. Miller’s enlistment in the Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls (Illinois State Archives) and his pension card (National Archives, on FamilySearch); the Riverside Daily Press (16 February 1921) and Riverside Enterprise (14 February 1921), on the California Digital Newspaper Collection; the 1850 census of Preble County, Ohio, the 1860 census of Edgar County, Illinois, and the 1880 census of Terre Haute (the Millers); John Newton’s household in the 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880 censuses of Fayette Township, Vigo County, Indiana (on FamilySearch); “Children a Link with Civil War,” Pasadena Independent, 17 February 1960, page 13; “Cyrus Miller Dies on California Trip,” a Terre Haute paper, February 1921; Cyrus M. Miller and Josephine Newton’s marriage record (Vigo County, 1874); the National Park Service’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors database; a photograph of the Terre Haute police force, 1872 (copies from an Ancestry tree); Josephine Miller’s California death certificate (Los Angeles County, 1944); the 1880 census of Thornton Township, Cook County (the Eenigenburgs); the 1860 census of Windsor Township, Lawrence County, Ohio (the Murnahans); will of Edward Edwards, Warrick County, Indiana (1869); obituary of Albert G. Edwards (1915).
• Brent Batla’s family tree (MacFamilyTree, 2013), for the American generations and the family tree above; and Dennis G. Boatright’s family group sheet for John/Johann Batla (2007).
• The 1870 crossing: Galveston Immigration Database (Texas Seaport Museum), family 6080; Leo Baca, Czech Immigration Passenger Lists, vol. 1 (1983); and a list of ships from Europe to Galveston.
• US censuses of 1880 (Fayette County, Texas), 1900 (Falls County), and 1910, 1920 and 1930 (Milam County), as imaged on FamilySearch; John Batla’s declaration of intention (Williamson County, 1887) and naturalization papers (District Court of Falls County, case 2850, 1892), and the county’s Index to Naturalization Records (FamilySearch films 008699798 and 007793176); the Fayette County marriage record of John Batla and Johanna Hruska (1886, page 88, on FamilySearch); Texas birth index entries for Frances (1887) and Lydia (1893) Batla, and Social Security (NUMIDENT) entries for Mary Jo and Charles Glynn Batla (on FamilySearch); the Bell County marriage record of J. A. Batla and Opal Quinn (1923, on FamilySearch); Texas death certificates of Opal Quinn Batla (1937) and of her parents, Tennie N. Quinn and Charles C. Quinn (Harris County, 1948, nos. 39336 and 43464, on FamilySearch); the 1880 census of Robert L. Quinn’s household (Precinct 5, Milam County, on FamilySearch); Wesley Sutton’s marriages to Malinda Miles (Fayette County, 1848) and Eliza N. F. Newman (Cherokee County, 1865) and his household in the 1850 and 1880 censuses (on FamilySearch); grave markers of Joseph Alois and Opal Quinn Batla; Joseph Alois Batla’s certificate of baptism, Cameron, Texas (1910), and a typed report on the descendants of the Hruška family, compiled in the 1990s (family papers).
• Texas death certificates of Johanna Batla (Milam County, 1931, no. 4226), John Batla (Milam County, 1942, no. 13811, indexed as “Batlee”), Joe A. Batla (Harris County, 1958, no. 21868, on FamilySearch) and Frances Sustek Chupik (Bexar County, 1970); John Batla’s death notice in Věstník, 8 April 1942, p. 3 (Portal to Texas History); gravestones of John and Johanna Batla, Oak Hill Cemetery, Cameron (Find a Grave memorials 136699252 and 115143240).
• Brent’s mother’s side: family records, including Roy Van Vuren’s honorable discharge (1919) and the Army order and certificates awarding him two Purple Hearts (2009); Gayle Van Buren’s family tree (Ancestry, 2013) and the census, vital and Dutch civil records it cites; the De Werken en Sleeuwijk population register of 1862–1870 (Streekarchief Langstraat Heusden Altena); The Lansing Journal, 29 June 2024, on the Eenigenburgs; John Murnahan’s biographical sketch of about 1882, as transcribed by The Lawrence Register; Greenbrier County’s register of deaths for 1858 (West Virginia Vital Research Records); the 1860 census of Symmes Township, Lawrence County, Ohio (Mary A. DePriest’s household); the Illinois Statewide Marriage Index and the Cook County marriage and Lutheran church indexes (Andy Anderson and Eliza Halverson, Chicago, 1874; Julia Emerson and Pat Murray, Cook County, 1924); Lutheran baptisms of Hilda (1877) and Julia (1880) Anderson (index); the 1880 and 1900 censuses of Chicago and the 1920 and 1930 censuses of Harvey (Andrew Anderson’s household and the Richards household); the Heddal parish register, Telemark (baptisms of Inger Halvorsdatter, 1847, and Aslaug Halvorsdatter, Elizabeth Anderson, 1849), and the 1865 Norwegian census of Heddal, on Digitalarkivet; Illinois death certificates of Elizabeth Anderson (Cook County, 1917, state file 47233), Andy Anderson (Cook County, 1932, no. 23085), Julia Murray (Kankakee County, 1945), Joseph Morgan De Priest (Edgar County, 1929, state file 27420) and Dirk Van Vuren (Cook County, 1935, state file 46310), on FamilySearch; Dirk van Vuuren’s birth record (De Werken en Sleeuwijk, 1860, no. 43, as transcribed by Open Archives) and the De Werken en Sleeuwijk population register for 1881–1900 (folio 219); typed family notes on the Miller and DePriest families; DePriest family group sheets compiled by George and Pat Murphy (2001); register reports on the Emerson and Kittilson families (2003).
• AncestryDNA ethnicity estimates and DNA communities for Brent Batla, Gayle Van Buren and Oleva Randall, October 2026 update. Brent’s haplogroups were read from his AncestryDNA raw data: the Y chromosome with 23andMe’s open-source yhaplo and the ISOGG 2016 tree, the mitochondrial DNA from the chip’s haplogroup markers. R1a among Czech men: Rosser et al. (2000), Battaglia et al. (2008) and Underhill et al. (2009), as compiled in Wikipedia’s List of R1a frequency by population.
• Tomáš (Tom) Batla of Texas: Find a Grave memorial 46700714, and the Nesbitt Memorial Library cemetery survey of Colorado County.