Facts about our family history:

• 2 Moore ancestors were among the first settlers in coastal Georgia in the 1730's. One was Marion Moore, the other was Francis Moore. One eventually went back to England.
• One Moore (grandfather of Young Moore) fought at the Battle of Valley Forge in the 1870's.
• The Atlanta branch of the Moore family was begun by Young Moore (great-great-great-grandfather to Larry). He narrowly escaped death in the 1787 Creek Indian massacre in Greensboro (then spelled Greensborough), Georgia.
• In 1807 in Greensboro, Young Moore married a woman of French descent named Rebecca Autry. Her last name comes from a town of the same name in France. Her father and uncles fought in the Revolutionary War. As a young couple, Young and Rebecca Moore followed the land grants to what is now Gwinnett County, Georgia. Young Moore took the first Gwinnett County Census in 1820. Many of their descendants are in the Atlanta area to this day.
• Young Moore was one of the first county commissioners in Gwinnett County.
• The Autry brothers fought under Elijah Clark, a Revolutionary war hero in Georgia. They followed him in forming the Trans-Oconee Republic, thereby seceding from Georgia and the United States. The Republic was formed on Creek territory in 1794. It disbanded a year later when George Washington threatened to send troops to fight them. The decision to disband was made in a fort in what is now Putnam County.
• Many descendents of the Autry's are still in the Oconee Valley and other parts of Georgia. One of the Autry brothers (Rebecca Autry's uncle) went to Texas to fight for the independence of Texas.
• The entertainer Gene Autry is a descendent of that branch of the Autry family.
• Charles Moore (Larry's grandfather) lived his whole life in Gwinnett County. He died in his 30's, when Larry's dad, Wesley Moore, was 6 months old.
• Wesley Moore was born in 1913 in Gwinnett County. He lived on a farm with his five brothers and sisters, Autry, Corrine, Red (Hubert), Alma, Thera, and Wesley was the youngest. Wesley's father's death left the family without earning power, so Autry became the breadwinner. Wesley was second in his class in Snellville High School (c. 1929). He went to Madison (Ga.) A&M, then graduated from Atlanta Bible College. He went to work for John B. Daniel as a sales manager, then head buyer.
• He met Lillian Wright and they were married in 1934 or 1935.
• Their only child Larry was born in 1942.
• In 1954, shortly after the Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court decision, the Moore family church, Kirkwood Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta, voted on integration of the church. Wesley was chairman of the Board of Deacons at that time. During a service, the congragation voted on whether to integrate. Out of a congregation of over a thousand, only a handful of people stood up in favor of integration, including Wesley, then 31, and Larry, then 12.