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The Butler family has had two books written about them, and from the information given by Ilene Mullendore Butler in a book she compiled about her husband's grandfather, Anderson Lafayette Butler, and from the book, "A Little History of the Butlers" written by Robert Lee Butler, the son of Thomas Young Butler, we find many descriptions of the life and times of this ancestral branch of our family. Anderson and Thomas were brothers of our Luvina Catherine Butler, the grandmother of Alice Lee McDonald Gardner.
The Butlers are of Norman origin and were one of the most noted families to accompany William the Conqueror to England in 1066. Thebold Fitzwalter came to Ireland with Henry II in the office of chief butler and so Butler became a surname. Piers Butler of Ireland was Earl of Ormonde in 1528. According to the words of Robert Lee Butler in his findings, "In the reign of Edward the Third, Tipperary was turned into the County Palatine of Ormand under the Butlers, who were possessed with such royal privileges that they ruled almost like kings. Branches of the family were afterward among the nobility in the counties of Waterford, Wexford, Wicklow, Carlow, Kilkenny, Dublin, Meath, Langford, Fermanagh, and Galway, and it is said of them that, 'They kept a tradition of loyalty to the English Crown and to English customs.'" The Butler family begins to split and our branch picks up with Stephen Cole Butler who lived in Pulaski, Giles County and Sharon, Weakley County, Tennessee.

It is not known for certain who Stephen Cole's parents were; however, many genealogies have acknowledged Joel and Catharine as the most likely. The best evidence is found in the 1850 Lincoln County, Tennessee Census that a Joel Butler was living in the house next to S.C. Butler. Later in the 1860 Hopkins County, Kentucky Census, Underwood Section, a Joel Butler and S.C. Butler are living close together again. Also in the same 1850 and 1860 census, Joel and Catharine were both reported to having been born in South Carolina, and in the 1880 Weakley County Census, Stephen Cole Butler lists his parents place of birth as South Carolina. Stephen Cole and Elizabeth's children were given names that could give us clues to other ancestors. The middle name of Cole was given to their youngest daughter, Martha, and also to Luvina Butler and Richard James McDonald's oldest son, William. Stephen Cole's wife, Elizabeth Young Lackey's middle is used several times in the family, including for their youngest son, Thomas Young, and for Luvina and Richard's daughter, Ida. The name of Cole and Young could be surnames for grandmothers.