Still working--Smalls and Alters

Just to let you know I am still working on this research. I'm stuck on the birth information for William Small, my great grandfather who served in the Civil War, but I have located his burial information at Cedar Grove Cemetery which is now part of the Chambersburg (PA) Cemetery Company.

There is an interesting collection of letters written between William Small and Mary Alter while William was "away at war" during the Civil War.  Darwin G. Barkdoll of Chambersburg, Franklin County, PA has possession of these letters and they have been summarized in a 2014 monthly publication of the Franklin County Historical Society.

Family Name Doran

William and Mary had a son "William Doran".  I did not know the source of this name and thought perhaps it was a clue to William's past.  However, as I was looking over the drawing by Mary's younger brother that I posted to the website, I realized that his name was "Simon Doran Alter", so that tells me that Doran was almost certainly a name from the Alter side of the family. 

The Alter family can be traced back to pre-Revolutionary War days.  Documentation of William Small's family begins around 1850.