The Pub & Goldbug Review

OkieLegacy

The OkieLegacy Beginnings

-- by Linda McGill Wagner --

Several have asked us about the, “OkieLegacy” website and how it got started.

The “New ParisTimes” (Paris family newsletter) started it all. It was created around 1987 for a Paris cousin family reunion to be shared with distance and not so distant cousins at family gatherings.

Like this author's grandmother – Linda saved those “New Paris Times” editions in a notebook. It was not until the Fall/Winter/of 1995 that Linda's family genealogy was later incorporated into an electronic medium via a webpage (http://paristimes.com ) at GeoCities/Yahoo! Since then we have moved our websites to Readyhosting.com & Globat.com hosting services.

This now gave the NW Okie (a.k.a. Oakie & Linda McGill Wagner) the ability to reach a much greater audience than relatives within a days traveling distance of her home in NW Oklahoma. At this point the audience significantly expanded from the McGILL and PARIS family to now include WARWICK , GWIN/GUINN, HURT, CONOVER, WAGNER, and non-relatives who were looking to uncover the roots of their own family tree.

This led to the investment of four domain names that it incorporates today, paristimes.com, wwwpubco.com, okielegacy.net & okielegacy.org.

In the Spring of 1999 through encouragement of friends, “Oakie's Heart to Heart” column was syndicated in a local, small-town newspaper in Freedom, Oklahoma . It took a look at the world and the people in it by learning from the past. Not only was it dually published at OkieLegacy.org and “The Freedom Call,” but it also launched its own free weekly ezine/newsletter that was sent via email every Friday evening to OkieLegacy subscribers. It covered old newspaper clippings from NW Oklahoma; old school/college albums; history of the Castle on the Hill in NW Oklahoma; WWII POW camps that were located throughout Oklahoma; and incorporated subscribers input and family legacies.

With the knowledge of webpage design, a spin-off that incorporated researching the heroes of NW Okie's past prompted the creation of other web pages for notable Oklahoman's (“A Father's Legacy” written by Ernest Martin) and Okie Legacies of the past. Such as the “Old Opera House Murder,” 9 November 1910 and the “Old Avard Road Unsolved Mystery” of Mildred Ann (Newlin) Reynolds' Death, Tuesday, 13 March 1956, 1:40 p.m., in and near the small communities of Alva & Avard, in Woods County, Oklahoma.

The Present Day...

The OkieLegacy.org was established with another substantial investment in its own server with access to expand the untapped potential of individuals' fascination with learning and researching their own family legacies. A simple collection of friends e-mails from over the world receiving periodic updates on the listserv grew into a new more organized Okie's Legacy ezine/newsletter. The slogan was created stating and encouraging, “The power of Learning, Living & Evolving in Harmony with the Universe.”

In addition, the new motto for Paris Times that started it all almost two decades ago now became, “Learn the Past, Live the Present, and Look Toward the Future!”

Currently the audience becomes intertwined with the four websites: okielegacy.org – okielegacy.net – paristimes.com – wwwpubco.com. The entire website currently tries to give everything to all. AND… With each year of growth the e-zine mailing list and family continues growing -- taking on a new life of its own as it encourages, preserves Oklahoma 's past and NW Okie's family legacies.

The OkieLegacy eZine/Tabloid made it's debut April 4, 1999, as a FREE weekly newsletter (archives: http://okielegacy.org/journal/ ). The first Issue introduced “OHTH” to the world as an inspirational journal for this NW Okie as she discovered her inner-self. You can subscribe to “Receive Email Updates” to “The OkieLegacy Interactive Ezine” at http://okielegacy.org/journal/ezine/ or Email Linda McGill Wagner - paristimes@earthlink.net.

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