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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Clark County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1890.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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George M. Beck is the publisher of the Arkadelphia Herald, a progressive newspaper which is now in its fourth year. Though only in his thirty-fifth year, Mr. Beck commands the good opinions of those around him, and since personal respect is the key to success in every department of life, journalistic no less than legal or official, he has that assurance of success beyond peradventure. His birth occurred in Warren County, Ga., on the 9th of October, 1855, he being a son of Robert R. and Lucy A. Beck, natives respectively of North Carolina and Georgia. He received his first and only school training at the Academy at Warrenton, near the place of his birth, and in the early part of 1870 he began an apprenticeship at the printing trade on the Warrenton Clipper, a weekly newspaper then edited and published by Maj. Charles E. McGregor, but he served there only a few months, owing to the removal of his parents from Warren to Richmond County, sixteen miles south of Augusta, where the father, who was a well to-do cotton planter, engaged in farming. Misfortune and financial disaster over took him about 1872-73, and from these reverses he never recovered. In 1873 George M. removed from Richmond County to Adairsville, in Bartow County, thence to Calhoun, in Gordon County, in 1874 or 1875, where he again assumed the labors of a printer's apprentice. His first newspaper experience as editor and publisher was had at Ellijay, in Gilmer County, Ga., but in this he soon came to grief. He assumed control of the Courier, a weekly newspaper which had previously, owing to political surroundings, been conducted on a non-partisan or independent plan, and in his eagerness to do party service, and moved by a natural aversion to political neutrality, Mr. Beck nailed the Democratic colors to the mast-head in his first issue. The result was that on the morning following the second edition of the paper under his management, he found the office doors locked and barred against him, by authority of the stock company owning the Courier plant, a majority of whom were Republicans. Mr. Beck then took to the ''case'' again as a journeyman printer, working in Rome, Ga., Selma and Montgomery, Ala., and Vicksburg, Miss. In 1879, in connection with J. Crutch Smith as partner, he bought the Post newspaper, and founded in its stead the Journal, at Arkansas City, Ark. After publishing this weekly for less than two years, the plant was purchased by J. W. Dickinson, Sr. Mr. Beck then spent short periods in Memphis, Helena and Little Rock, and in January, 1881, he came to Arkadelphia and engaged with Clark & j Sanders as a journeyman in the office of their publication, the Southern Standard. In the following December he purchased the interest of J. R. Sanders, and was thereafter associated with Adam Clark as editor and publisher of that paper, until about April, 1888. In April, 1889, he and John B. Browne purchased the plant and business of the Arkadelphia News, which was soon changed to the Arkadelphia Herald, in the publication of which he is now engaged alone. He is one of the ablest young editors of the State, and is fearless in espousing the cause of justice and right and the principles of the Democrat party, of which he has been a member since he attained his majority. February 19, 1885, he was married to Miss Jennie Browne, the youngest daughter of Mrs. Josephine H. Browne, of Arkadelphia, and by her is the father of two interesting children—a girl and boy.

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This family biography is one of 99 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Clark County, Arkansas published in 1890.  For the complete description, click here: Clark County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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