John Brooks of Holland married a lady from France and settled in Pennsylvania 
in the early 1800s, having a son named John.  Young John was born in 1837 and 
as a teen bound out to learn the tailor trade.  He is found in the 1860 census 
of Giles Tennessee where he married that same year to a Roxanna Permilia Smith, 
daughter of Caroline Bond and Thomas Smith.  Roxanna also named a son John 
before they moved to Lamar County Texas, as seen on the 1880 census, but her 
husband died there of tuberculosis and she returned to her home town to 
remarry, to a Dr Crittendon Smith.  Her son John married Annie Clark Ballard, 
daughter of Dora Craig and James Cal Ballard and moved to Montgomery Alabama, 
along with his work with the railroad.  Annie had only one child:  James Edgar 
Brooks in 1895.  James married Susie Mae Cooper, a daughter of Sarah Elizabeth 
Carter and Levi Benjamin Cooper.  Sarah's parents were Mary Josephine Hereferd 
of Virginia and Thomas Randolph Carter of South Carolina.  Mary had long shiny 
black hair and coal black eyes and both her parents were born in Virginia.  
Levi's parents were Sarah F Lee and Charner P Cooper of Chambers County 
Alabama - both their families came from South Carolina and settled in former 
Creek Nation.  Thomas Carter's father came from South Carolina, John Wise 
Carter with a wife only known as "Mary".

James Edgar Brooks and Susie named a son James Jr.  Their son married Mary Ella 
Thornton, daughter of Bessie Mae Hood and Milton Elijah Thornton.  Milton's 
parents had come from Georgia to Elmore County Alabama, George Thornton and an 
indian wife, Mary Angeline Partridge.  Bessie's parents were Ella Olivia Baxley 
and L. W. Hood of Slapout Alabama - Ella's parents were Louisa Miranda Holt and 
James Hardie Baxley of the Civil War all buried in Holtville, Elmore County, AL.

Mary Ella's son Charles married Kathy and both of her parents were mixed 
Cherokee.