The Gresham Coffield Project, One Year Later

Open Letter to All Fellow Coffield-Cofield Researchers:

Friends, family, and all others, In December of 2007, I set about the task of putting together a team of dedicated individuals to aid me in my lifelong quest for my roots. Since that time, I have been blessed with the friendship and bountiful harvest of data - some never before seen by any Cofield researcher - of this team that came together around this quest over these last months, a team now known as the Coffield-Cofield Genealogy Group, COFGEN for short.

Since the first snow of the year last, this group of researchers, historians and, well, relentless seekers of truth, has uncovered so much Cofield history that it will literally boggle the mind of those in this field of endeavor. Confused lines, fabricated persons and events, that dastardly OneWorldTree and its corrupt records brought about by the careless “merging” of those “leaves,” – all of this has served for so many years to disenchant and mislead the honest Coffield-Cofield researcher who only wants the truth, but might not be able to travel to NCSA or LoVA, or any of the other universities and libraries which hold such a vast wealth of information about our people.

Our group, COFGEN, is about to present to the community of our fellow family surname researchers the results of in excess of 20,000 miles of research trips, dozens of repositories and archives visited, thousands of dollars in travel and research expense, as well as over ten thousand photographs of original photo-documentation of Coffield-Cofield archives, as well as thousands of hours of painstaking tree-building and archival work.   Because they would never do it themselves, I am going to tell you the names of the group; some you will recognize, some you may not, but I assure you, without EVERY SINGLE ONE of them, we would not have pulled off what we have: the most complete Gresham Cofield – the GEORGIA one – history ever compiled from actual records, the most complete Gresham Coffield – the NC/KENTUCKY one – history on Earth, and those are just two of our forty or so lines we’ve either pursued separately, or found the connecting generations for during our research.  The COFGEN Group researchers who worked on this project, in alphabetical order, were:  John David Cofield, William “Bill” Gilbreath, Elouise Hughes, Phillip Hughes, Anne Rast, Joan “Joanie” Scott, and Zane Cofield.

I want to thank my colleagues, here in public, for the stellar research done thus far and let you all know that we look forward to much more rewarding research in the future!

The goal of the COFGEN folks, beyond wanting to find our own roots, is to help others. We believe that this is what we are here on this Earth to do and that the sharing of our work, without cost, on free genealogy sites and message boards is of paramount importance.

Our work will never be for sale. It is free to all who need it, without reservation and without cost, so long as our original work retains our header [which will be seen soon on this message board] giving fair credit where credit is due to our research team. You will see it here, on GenWeb and other sites, pretty much anywhere we can post it, and KNOW that no family of ours will ever have to pay one cent for what he or she seeks, so long as it is within our power to offer it. 

We believe that all persons have a right to a true record of the days of their people and, to that end we will continue our work with our customary relentless passion for truth.

With that said, here are some of the lines we will be presenting soon:

Gresham Cofield of Twiggs County Georgia, including his father and never-before seen historical documents

Gresham Cofield of North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky

Thomas Hunter Coffield and his descendants

Benbury/Bembrey Cofield and his descendants, including his time with Jethro Coffield   Nelson Cofield and his Descendants

Edgecombe County North Carolina Coffields

History of the Early Coffields of Virginia

Coffields of Bertie, Cumberland, and Harnett Counties North Carolina

Coffields of Chowan County North Carolina

Descendants of Willis Cofield of Troup County Georgia

Descendants of Thomas Nathan Cofield of Georgia and Alabama

The David Coffield Bible Project

Coffield & Bellamy Family Papers Collection Photodocumentation

Descendants of Edward Coffield of Virginia

John Coffield of Washington County Georgia

Thomas Coffield the Loyalist

William Coffield of Chuckatuck Parish Virginia

Much more.

The way this will work is that each few weeks, we will get a file ready for dissemination to those who need that particular file, and as the months progress, we will upload these files to free sites so that all may visit them and we’ll describe the sites where they can be found, as the files become available.

All you have to do is watch the message boards for which files we’re releasing next.   Finally, the first file we will be releasing is that of: The Descendants of Nelson Coffield, and those who would like to have THIS file only, can write to us at: COFGEN2008@aol.com and we’ll get you fixed up. Look for this type of announcement: “COFGEN Releasing File NELSON COFIELD and DESCENDANTS,” or something to that effect.  Know that when you see a release by COFGEN that this is a fully sourced, fully documented tree with photographs, documents, history, the works, and we are happy to correspond with ANYONE who needs assistance with their own research. If we don’t know the answer, we can certainly point you in the right direction from our work, our experience, and our travels.

I want to thank you all for your own diligent work in the study of our family surname and ask that if you have any old documents, family bibles, or anything else that would contribute to the Greater Good of Cofield-Coffield family surname research, that you use that email above and contact us.   Thank you all and we look forward to hearing from those of you who would like to see Nelson’s line.   Kind regards, Zane Cofield, Member COFGEN

P.S. Pay close attention to the COFGEN message posts, as we are in the midst of a dynamic DNA Project on the Coffield and Cofield surname, headed up by our resident Cofield-Coffield DNA Project Coordinator, John David Cofield. 

The DNA Study is ongoing and the latest results can be viewed at FamilytreeDNA.com, where you can also learn about this fascinating resource that is helping to kick down so many brick walls in family genealogy.

Already, this study is showing evidence of a connection between Thomas Nathan Cofield and Willis Cofield, as well as Nelson Cofield, and the more DNA samples we can have tested, the better we can know the true history of our family.   Write directly to John David at jdcofield@att.net with any questions you have and ask how you can contribute to the project. Direct all other Coffield-Cofield genealogy queries and submissions to COFGEN2008@aol.com