In 1972, Clarence and his older brother decided to take a vacation that would ultimately change his life. They flew from Los Angeles, CA to Puryear, Henry Co., TN to visit immediate family members. While in Puryear, they visited with Jesse McDaniel, an elderly relative who had loose Bible pages of the Rion [Ryan] family. Clarence took photographs of the bible pages. This was the beginning of his interest in genealogy.
Clarence was educated in Science, Physics, self-taught in electronics, 4 years of college, etc. so he knew how to use a library to find answers. He would spend his free time at the library reading the US Census on microfilm. The librarian told him about a much larger genealogy library in the Latter Day Saints Temple at Santa Monica, that welcomed visitors. The next Saturday he went there and the wonderful world of free genealogy was opened to him. That was about 45 years ago.
Clarence soon realized that researching genealogy was a time consuming procedure, which would take many hours and years of work for one person. He organized a group of like minded people to extract censuses for Paschal information. After years of everyone gathering data, Clarence created a “Paschal Directory” and distributed it to the group. Today you can find his name associated with Paschal-Paschall genealogy everywhere on the internet.
Currently, Clarence is enjoying life with his family in Arizona. He may be retired from his secular job, but he has certainly not retired from genealogy. He has his hands in the creation of this website, having his digital data uploaded for all to benefit from. His desire is once his data is uploaded then the next generation will continue to gather data on the Paschal/Paschall family while he searches for information on Jana Inglis, the mother of William Paschall.
Clarence’s paper files, about 15 lineal feet, is being housed where his genealogy career began, in the Henry County Archive and Genealogy Library, 215 Grove Blvd Suite A, Paris, TN 38242, Phone: (731) 642-3638. Genealogy Room: Mon thru Sat, 9 am-5 pm.
As of November 2018, Clarence has passed the Paschal-Paschall Genealogy torch to me, Linda Stewart. He will continue to do Paschall research, but I will be maintaining his databases, adding information to the notes and scrapbooks, as well as writing articles for the “Recent Post” and facebook. If you have pictures and/or documents, as well as family stories you would like to have in the database, please email them to the site at admin@paschal-paschall.com. We are pleased to have another Paschall cousin, Rich Wilson, lending his technical expertise to the site.
Happy Hunting!
Clarence McDaniel and Linda Stewart
