By Way Of: Tracing the Johnson, Cooper, Cummings, Matthews and Dixon Families is a compilation of family trees, brief biographical sketches along with some pictures and artifacts. Many stories have been handed down through the generations so that the future generations can see themselves on many of the pages about their ancestors.

Lynn M. Dixon is an author, educator and poet who lives in Evanston, Illinois. She has published several works through Trafford Publishing, yet this is her first fact-based endeavor. Here, she traces remnants of her family's history and tracks their movements as they seek better life conditions.