I knew it was a mistake to get back on the computer after I *said* I was going to bed. But, I had to check the email and feed readers “one last time.” Well, now it’s going to cause me to be up long enough to do this blog post, but I couldn’t wait because what I found was too exciting!
Last week I learned of a new resources, a new website of NC Maps. I only had an opportunity to briefly consult it, planning to investigate it more in-depth this week. Well, a researcher today shared the link with the Edgecombe County mailing list and pointed out in her post that the maps allow you to see the locations of properties. She specifically shared the link to at 1905 map.
So, off I go to look at this map and was elated to see my two surnames of interest EXACTLY just like I figured they were — the Wimberly property right next to the McNair property, and those two properties just south of the Battle property!
I’ve been posting with some frequency lately on my McNair, Wimberly, Battle connections and this is just too perfect. My 3rd great-grandfather, Rufus Tannahill McNair was likely the slave of Dr. Augustus Harvey McNair. Rufus married Mariah Wimberly, whose mother was the slave of Kemp Plummer Battle and whose father was probably the slave of Robert Diggs Wimberly.
I knew from census records that the white McNair, Wimberley and Battle families lived in proximity, but to have this visual is wonderful! Admittedly, I’ve not delved into land records very much for my research – this type of discovery definitely picques my interest. Thanks so much to the North Carolina State Archives, the Outer Banks History Center, and the University of NC @ Chapel Hill for this wonderful resource! This is truly made my day.
Tonight, my mother called me to inform me about the death of our cousin, Clifton E. Johnson Sr. Cousin Clif was my grandmother’s half-first cousin. Clifton represents my McNair family branch of Martin County, NC (which was one of the reasons I adopted that county for the NCGenWeb project). The closest ancestor that I share with Clifton is my 2nd great-grandfather Andrew D. McNair. Andrew was his grandfather. Clifton, born December 9, 1941, died yesterday, June 25, 2009 while on a trip to Asheville, NC. He was the son of Charlie Mack Johnson & Wille Ann (McNair) Johnson. Clifton was an accomplished lawyer and held several “firsts” in North Carolina’s judicial system. He was the 1st black lawyer to be appointed assistant prosecutor in NC / 1st black judge to sit on the NC Court of Appeals / & the 1st black judge to attain the position of senior associate judge on the NC Court of Appeals
Clif was once featured in Ebony magazine, and thanks to Google’s digitization efforts, I was able to quickly find the issue he was in after my mother told me that he was in it and the approximate time frame. He was included in an article in the March 1971 issue on black judges in the South. I am next going to try and figure out how to order a back issue so we can have it in physical print.
When I was in the 6th grade, we lived about 1 mile from Clif and his family, and his daughter and I were in the same classroom. I did not know him before that year, and only saw him once since that year (1986-1987). However, in June of 2007 I did have an opportunity to speak with him briefly about the family history as I was working on it then. He was a very nice man and my thoughts are with his family.
When I called Cousin Clif, I’d called specifically to inquire if he was aware of a person whom at the time suspected was part of our family tree, Dred Wimberly. I’d hypothesized that Dred was the brother of our shared ancestor, Mariah Wimberly McNair. Dred too was in law, having served on the NC General Assembly and the NC Senate. Dred was a former slave of Kemp Plummer Battle (see my recent post) and I only had circumstantial evidence to connect him to my tree, though strong evidence. When I’d found a picture of Dred and showed it to my mother, her reaction was “He looks just like Cousin Clif! Just like him!”
Well, now that I have a few pictures of Clif, I have to say that I agree and I believe this solidifies my theory that Dred was part of our family. Dred would be Clif’s 2nd great-uncle, but I find the resemblance striking. Here is Dred juxtaposed with two different pictures of Clifton.
On another interesting note, Clif swore in my stepmother’s uncle, Henry E. Frye, when Henry became Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court. Tonight my thoughts are with Clif’s family. May you rest in peace Cousin Clif with our ancestors.
This week I had a short trip to Portland, Oregon for a conference associated with my current degree program. I’ve posted on my main family blog about the trip in general, but I am posting here about a mission I went on at the public library.
The library was only a few blocks from my hotel and I am glad that I had a chance to visit. The library system here is the largest to the west of the Mississippi and dates back to the 1850s. This building was erected in 1913 and has undergone a recent renovation. Upon entering the building, I was almost immediately struck by the gorgeous grand staircase! It was designed by artist Larry Kirkland and is called “Garden Stairs.” The black and white etchings have a mix of designs and words. I did not take any pictures, but I did buy this postcard of them.
When I arrived, I was not sure what I was going to do there, but quickly developed an action plan; I would look at old issues of an African-American newspaper (if they had any). I have a great interest in newspapers, particularly African-American ones, so was delighted to find out that there was indeed some published in Portland. This guide on the History of African-Americans in Portland provides a handy list on page 8. The paper I chose to look at was the Advocate and I focused on the 1924-1929 time frame.
Here is the front page of the October 11, 1924 edition.
Similar to my own Nashville Public Library, this library offers microfilm machines connected to computers so that microfilm images can be scanned. Unlike the NPL however, their library sells 256 MB USB drives for $5 since the computers are not hooked up with internet access. Not bad though! I was able to scan about 10 issues and save to the USB drive before I had to download them to my own computer.
I had fun perusing the issues. I was not looking for anything in particular, but I will transcribe articles of local interest from the issues I did scan and make them available online, most likely by posting them to the appropriate surname listserves at Ancestry or by contacing people who have Ancestry Trees that mention the individuals named in the paper.
I found it intersting to see ads that I’ve seen in other African-American newspapers, such as this one from the East India Growing Company for their product to promote hair growth.
I have some work to do to transcribe the issues I scanned, but it is my hope that this information helps someone out there one day! Even if they don’t, I’ve gained glimpse into life in Portland in the 20s that has been quite insightful.
Also, since I contribute regularly to the blog of the Tri-State Genealogical Society of Evansville, Indiana, the TSGS Cruiser, I also wanted to see if I could find any Evansville-related news items in the Oregon papers. Fortunately, the University of Oregon offers an extensive Oregon Newspapers Index of close to 1 million records spanning 1852-present. A quick search revealed a few Evansville-related items and I chose to transcribe one for submission to the TSGS Blog. That should be going up next week sometime.
So, those few hours were my genealogy fix. I just could not pass up the chance to work in some genealogy while in town
I am an avid user of Find-A-Grave. It makes it so easy to share internment information in a way that is very widely accessible. Whenever possible, I try to add to the site by photographing tombstones here in Nashville and adding records for people in my family trees and research projects based on death certificate or obituary information. I have been a member of Find-A-Grave since I really started getting into genealogy in February 2006. To date, I have added 902 memorials. I have also added 734 photos. Wow. That’s a lot of pictures! And, I easily have another few hundred sitting on the computer in queue.
However, I do have a couple of requests for enhancements for FindAGrave that would make research slightly easier. I have emailed them with my suggestions, but let me share them here in case some of this functionality is available and I am just missing it.
1) On each cemetery page, there is an option to search for a surname. Recently, the site added a distinct field for maiden name. However, on each cemetery page search, when you put in a name, it only searches that name as surname, not maiden name. Search would be more comprehensive if this were not the case and the default search included surname.
2) Tonight while adding a burial record to a cemetery in North Carolina, I happened to look at the list again and for two names I’d entered in April 2008, I saw that pictures had been added! These pictures were added in April of 2009. I would love to have the ability to receive an email notification whenever a picture has been added to a memorial I’ve created. Currently, you can make a photo request and when it is filled an email is sent, however, it is much too cumbersome to submit photo requests for so many memorials. If Find-A-Grave users could establish this as a general preference setting, it would be easier to track your memorials.
3) FindAGrave gets many submissions each day. Wouldn’t it be neat to be able to set up an RSS feed for any surname of interest so you would know when a new record was added where your surname was part of the record? There is currently a New Listings page, but it is only for famous and somewhat famous individuals. I’d love an easier way to keep up. Right now, I just have to contine to do repeated searching. I have tried a few sites that create RSS feeds from any URL, but so far, none of them have configured the feed from a surname search exactly as I’d like it.
4) Linking Relatives — recently, FindAGrave added a nice feature that allows a person’s memorial to be linked to other family members, such as parents, spouses and children. This is great since when looking at any one person’s memorial, it can lead you to other family members, no matter which cemetery in which they are buried. However, currently this capability is only extended to the person who created the memorial. I would love it though if any FindAGrave member could be allowed to do this. It would remove one step in the process since the memorial creator would not have to be notified and then there is a wait until they do it. In the spirit of further collaboration, I think it would be important to expand this feature.
Until then, I’ll just keep my fingers crossed that they get around to adding these features. As I stated earlier, I am an ardent fan of the site and I greatly appreciate all that FindAGrave does. I hope to see some of these features coming up sometime soon in the future.
Addition (June 28, 2009) — when I am on the page for any specific cemetery and click on the link to “Add a Name to This Cemetery,” I should not have to search for the cemetery after I add the individual’s information. It would prefer the system automatically add the individual to the cemetery I was looking at before I clicked “Add a Name to this Cemetery.”
A couple of days ago, I discovered a new genealogy blog – Robyn’s blog, Reclaiming Kin. I found her through Randy’s “Best Of the Genea-Blogs” post from Sunday. Well, yesterday she posted on using court records for research and her experience of looking at records in Edgecomebe County, NC inspired my Tombstone Tuesday post of the gravesite of Kemp Plummer Battle, a resident of Edgecombe County whom owned some of my ancestors.
Well, last night Robyn emailed me stating that she had information to share regarding Kemp. We spoke on the phone last night and it turned out that she had a great discovery! The name Kemp P. Battle sounded familiar to her, so she went through some of her files and sent me a wonderful document.
Last year, while visiting the North Carolina State Archives, she’d transcribed some labor contract records from the Freedmen’s Bureau (M1909, Roll #56) which included some records of former slaves of Kemp’s. The labor contracts were for work in the two years following the Civil War and Robyn explained that some were very formal, others were very casual. In some cases, family clusters were maintained.
Among the transcription was my 4th great-grandfather, Allen Wimberly! Here is the list she provided:
Joe Battle, Henderson Dorsey, Jason Spicer, Jim Lawrence, York Lawrence, Jim McNear, Allan Wimberly, Alfred Wimberly, Joe Wimberly, Haywood Battle, Lewis Battle, Redding Battle, Norfolk Battle, Isabella Battle, Hardy Battle, Orph Battle, Jason Battle, Sarah Battle, Jerry Battle, Norfleet Dancy, & Illiad Dancey.
In addition to my own Allen Wimberly, some of these names I have seen previously in census records and county cohabitation records. I am not sure how they may connect with my own family, but I certainly need to continue to put these pieces together. I also note the name “Jim McNear” which may be a variant of my McNair surname — Allen’s daughter Mariah married Rufus McNair; and Rufus I suspect to be a slave of Dr. Augustus Harvey McNair.
I am very excited about this and during the course of our conversation, Robyn stressed the need to take advantage of local Family History Centers for access to records. While I’ve known I need to do this, I have not managed to follow-through with actually ordering any records. There are two locations in my county and they both are about 45 minutes away from me, but I’m going to have to just go! So, one of them is open the 3rd Saturday of each month, so I hereby resolve to take a field trip this Saturday to go and place an order for at least two films.
Here is my 1st list of film to work through. It may take me several months since I will probably order only two at a time, but at least I have some identified right?
Wills, 1663-1978; estate papers, 1748-1917 (Edgecombe County): Original wills Ausley, Joseph – Bryan, Thoma
Film #1548856
Wills, 1663-1978; estate papers, 1748-1917 (Edgecombe County): Original wills Killibrew, John I. – Middleton, S. O.
Film #1571217
Wills, 1663-1978; estate papers, 1748-1917 (Edgecombe County): Estate records 1748-1917 Barnes, Archelaus – Battle, Joe
Film #2069673
Wills, 1663-1978; estate papers, 1748-1917 (Edgecombe County): Estate records 1748-1917 Battle, John – Bell, Bythel
Film #2069674
Wills, 1663-1978; estate papers, 1748-1917 (Edgecombe County): Estate records 1748-1917 Law, William – Mayberry, Charles
Film #2070395
Wills, 1663-1978; estate papers, 1748-1917 (Edgecombe County): Estate records 1748-1917 Williams, Henry – Winstead, Richard
Film #2070963
Will records and index, 1760-1964, with a few marriages (Jones County, NC): Index to wills 1779-1964
Film #386902
Will records and index, 1760-1964, with a few marriages (Jones County, NC): Wills 1760-1842
Film #19228
Will records and index, 1760-1964, with a few marriages (Jones County, NC): Wills 1778-1868
This is my first Tombstone Tuesday post and since I had the perfect opportunity to do one, I thought I would. This is the tombstone of Kemp Plummer Battle Sr. Kemp was what you would call a “prominent” North Carolinian; he was highly active and involved in many matters of the state, including serving as President of my alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Kemp is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina next to his wife and other family members. Last month I created his FindAGrave entry, which was surprising to me that he did not already have one given his social position, and two days ago, my picture request was fulfilled by a FindAGrave volunteer!
Now, why would I interested in Kemp? I am interested in him and his family because he was the last slaveowner of a branch of my family. My third great-grandmother, Mariah Wimberly McNair was the daughter of Della Battle and Allen Wimberly. Della and at least one of her children, were slaves of Kemp’s plantation in Edgecomebe County, North Carolina, that he inherited from his father-in-law, James S. Battle. I know that Della was his slave from the wonderful resource of Dr. Barnetta McGhee -White on cohabitation records from North Carolina, Somebody Knows My Name.
I have not yet gotten to the point where I’ve begun to examine family estate and court records (which Robyn describes a perfect example to do so in her recent blog post), but when I do have that opportunity, I want to be clear on all the family members. Creating a Battle family tree, allows me to do so in order that I am adequately prepared.
Hmmm… would you call it ironic that I went to the University of the man who enslaved my ancestors? I personally don’t have any misfeelings about this – history was what it was, but at the same time, I do feel connected in a way, to this family.
Earlier this week as I was reading Randy’s “Best of the Genealogy Blogs,” I checked out Amy of WeTree’s post on getting kids into the genealogy fix. In her post, Amy shares some wonderful suggestions for how to get kids involved with your genealogy efforts and shares some interesting experiences. Bribes of course are one tactic
Her post was quite timely for me as this past weekend I took the kids out to a nearby cemetery. I wanted to photograph some tombstones to add to FindAGrave and they cooperated suprisingly well. This is about the 3rd time I’ve taken them to a cemetery with me and I had no complaints this time. Of course, I did use a bribe – telling them that if they allowed me an hour to do this, I’d treat them to a special surprise in the afternoon. The surprise? Frozen yogurt. Yummy!
So, we went to Harpeth Hills Cemetery which is about a 10 minute drive from me. I’d not been there before, and though I expected it to be a large cemetery given the present number of listings on FindAGrave, it was a lot larger than I thought. I was not looking for any one’s grave in particular, though next time I go, I’ll try to fulfill some photo requests.
When we arrived at the cemetery, I found a place to park and just had to stare at the view in front of me for a few minutes. It was absolutely gorgeous!
And, there was another large tree-covered hill to the right of this view.
I was telling the kids that back in the day, people used to visit cemeteries much in the same manner as we visit parks today. I learned that in my Death & Dying course in college. While we were there, they ran all over that field above, and then came and walked with me as I took pictures. Lately, Kaleya has been talking about an imaginary friend of hers named Cherry, so of course when we passed the headstone of John R. Cherry Jr., Jihad pointed this out to her. She loved it. I think she can now recognize the word Cherry.
At this cemetery, I took about 150 photos so over the next couple of weeks I’ll be adding them online. I truly think the kids enjoyed it. As we were leaving, we saw a family that had brought balloons to a gravesite to celebrate the birthday of the deceased. I think it was a child, for they were singing Happy Birthday and taking pictures. It was nice to see this. It was touching.
So, after that cemetery, I made one more stop to a local church cemetery, the Pasquo Church of Christ. I almost felt bad about stopping, but as soon as we parked, Jihad noticed that one of the grave markers was for a McPherson family and he was game – we live on a street named McPherson so he recognized the name. He wants me to research who this family was. I think I am going to save that for a different time as maybe I can suggest he looks them up and get him to go on a visit with me to the state archives.
So, after this, I fulfilled my promise and took them to get some frozen yogurt. They were quite content.
And, I think Jihad now has a bit of a genealogy bug. He asked me the next day if we could go back and now he wants to fill out his own family tree. I of course can accommodate this and prepared a short list of questions for him to ask his mom about her family. Within 10 minutes of finding out his grandfather’s name, I was able to locate a picture of him and show it to Jihad.
This was due to the fact that in Evansville, where both Kalonji and Jihad’s mom’s families are from, there is an excellent database of newspaper obituary listings that spans more than 50 years, the Browning Genealogy Database and sure enough, several of Jihad’s mom’s family members and ancestors are included!
I now have much work to do to work w/ Jihad to prepare his newfound family tree, but I think it will be a great experience for him! On our next trip to Evansville, I’ll be taking him to help find the tombstones of his own relatives, I think he will get a lot from that.
These type of activities certainly make it all worthwhile. :-) Thanks Amy for the excellent post which inspired me to write this one.
Facebook is now allowing users to grab a vanity URL. Thanks to watching my Twitter stream and seeing a couple of fellow genealogists tweet about getting theirs, I was able to go over and snag my name. You can now catch me at http://www.facebook.com/taneya
This past week I’ve been exploring Jing further for screen capture, so I decided to take a video of the frequency of Twitter updates on the hashtag #facebook – very interesting!
I’m feeling all inspired again with my genealogy blogging! I’ve gotten some great thoughts from reading others’ blogs. For this post, I’m taking Randy up on his last Saturday Night Fun quest, Where Were They in 1909?
The task was as follows:
1) Which of your ancestors were alive in 1909?
2) Tell us where your ancestral families were living in 1909. What country, state, county, city/town, etc. Who was in the family at the time? Use the 1910 census as “close enough.”
3) Have you found each of these families in the 1910 census?
Here is a brief synopsis of my ancesestral families and what they were up to in1909. To keep it simple, I’m going to go three generations back to my great-grandparents.
Barfield & Josephine (Holloway) Koonce - my father’s paternal grandparents were both alive and living in Craven County, North Carolina. The family was from this area. In 1909 they had been married for about six years and had two children, son Hampton and daughter Minnie. The third child that appears in their 1910 census record would not be born until early in 1910.
William Lawhorn Jr. - In 1909, my father’s maternal grandfather was not yet born! He was born August of 1910, so his parents, Sam & Cora (Cox) Lawhorn were close to his arrival as their 3rd child. His parents were also living in Craven County, NC and I have located them in the 1910 census. His future wife, Pearlie Kilpatrick, was not born until 1912. I’ve found her too in 1910.
Lewis “Christopher Columbus” Robinson & Lucinda (Lennon) Robinson – my mother’s paternal grandparents have thus far eluded me in the 1910 census. I periodically search for them, but I’m not sure where to look for them! They were both from the Columbus County area of North Carolina, but by 1920 they’d moved to New York. I do not know for certain when they were married, but their oldest child, Ethel, was born in 1908 in Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina. Their next child was not born for another 5 years. I have located a man that fits his description (age, race, state of birth) in the 1910 census living in Trenton, NY as a hired man, but I’m not sure if this is really him or not. If it is him, I suspect perhaps Lucinda may have been living with family with their young daughter? In any case, I’ve still got some searching to do.
Abraham Lincoln McNair- In 1909, my mother’s maternal grandfather was a 13 year-old boy living in Plymouth, Washington County, North Carolina with his father and five siblings. His mom, Gracy (Bullock) McNair seems to have passed by 1909 and soon after, his father would remarry. His future wife, Martha Jane Walker, was 12 years old, living in the same town, with her own parents, Anthony Walker and Martha Jane Baker and 4 other siblings. I have located both of them in the 1910 census.
So, of my 8 great-grandparents, only two were not yet born in 1909. I obviously have work to do tracking Lewis & Lucinda down in 1910. Very interesting to reflect on this. Thanks Randy!
