My wife's great-grandmother, Mary Ann Brown, was born in Texas around 1851 and was first married in Tulare Co., California in 1869. Family stories say she came to California in a wagon train as a child and was orphaned in an indian raid. We are trying to track back any likely Brown families to Texas.

There appears to have been a large group (50 wagons) that left Lamar County, TX in April 1853 and had quite a lot of trouble with the indians on their way to Los Angeles. We are looking for the origins of one family (William H Brown and wife Eliza) with children Margaret A (who married James McKinzie), Permelia Ellen (who married Jesse Stark), Electa, and Mary H (A?). Some of them settled in Tulare and some near Fort Tejon. We are also interested in evaluating a family headed by William and Eliza (Stowell) Brown since they had a Mary A Brown in 1860 that looks like she might have been adopted.

Does anyone know anything about either of these Brown families - or have any Mary A Browns in their genealogies born in Texas around 1851-ish who subsequently went west?

Thanks!
Don & Carley Worth
Oxnard, CA