Genealogical Research

Well, my daily posting is…not. Between the problems I’m having with my brand new computer and homeschooling my son (not to mention work, household chores, the garden, and keeping up with family), I have not had time to post. That’s not to say that this blog is completely off my mind, because it isn’t. I have two posts I’m writing right now, but which aren’t quite finished yet. One is a review of genealogy books for kids, and the other is a Wordful Wednesday post on my paternal grandmother. The latter is one I’ve been working on for at least two weeks. All the photo albums have come out, and I’ve been flinging questions desperately at my parents about Nanny, but none of that has helped me to actually finish the post.

I’m still working on some genealogy projects, when I have time. I was quite pleased to discover a copy of James E. Wooley’s Buncombe County, North Carolina, Index to Deeds, 1783 - 1850 in the Macon County Public Library (it’s currently out of print). Handy little book, that, for anyone who has ancestors living in Western North Carolina before 1850. I had fun looking for Hiram Dillingham (two entries, both as a grantee; what happened to the land he had in Buncombe County after he moved to Rabun County???), Amos Curtis (who I didn’t expect to find, and didn’t, but I had to look anyway), and other Little Tennessee River Valley residents. Interestingly enough, I chanced upon an entry for a Samuel Hopper; I was very excited to see this, since I haven’t been able to definitively trace him from Tennessee back to North Carolina yet (from Rabun County to Tennessee, yes, but not any further back), and since one enduring question I’ve had about him is how he met his wife, Sarah McKinney, who was from Buncombe County. That’s not to say that the Samuel Hopper listed in this index is my Samuel Hopper, but it’s worth further investigation.

And on that note, I shall retire, and as I do, I shall also endeavor to ignore the piles of photocopied records pleading for my attention.

Obie Hawks, Oct. 22, 1871, April 10, 1916

I was looking through my pictures of tombstones today when I ran across this one I took for a fellow researcher several years ago. Obie Hawks was buried in the Grey Hill Cemetery, which is located near downtown Commerce, Jackson County, Georgia. Apparently, he came from a fairly well-to-do family, as the stone itself stands (as best as I can recall) about four feet above the ground. And look at how intricately carved the blanket is at the top of the marker. Someone put a lot of time and effort into designing and carving that stone.

I’m always amazed at the different ways we humans mark the spots where our dead are buried. From the pyramids and mastabas of many ancient peoples, to the longbarrows of Neolithic Britain, to the intricately carved marker of Obie Hawks, each culture leaves its own imprint on a burial site for later generations to find and interpret. I often wander how correctly we have interpreted these sites, and how often not.

A few years ago, I was visiting the graves of my Grandfather Ledford’s first wife and third child at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church Cemetery in Macon County, North Carolina. The cemetery is a large one, old and beautiful and rather peaceful in spite of its location in the midst of a crowded rural neighborhood. I parked my car across from the church, paid my respects at the grave of a woman I had never met, and turned around to find an astonishing site:

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Genealogy is, for some reason I have yet to fathom, a pastime filled with forms. There are forms for abstracting particular records, forms for recording families, another for recording pedigrees. There are correspondence logs and census forms and timeline sheets and on and on and on until our files and folders are filled to the bursting point. Most of these forms are unnecessary and, in fact, some forms are downright harmful since they force the researcher to arrange information out of order or don’t provide the necessary space for every detail that needs remembering.

In fact, most times a plain ol’ sheet of paper will work, if it’s something that really needs to be done or kept up with. Research logs (aka research calendars and journals) are a case in point. I’ve looked at many pre-printed research log forms and have been completely dissatisfied with each one. Before I explain how I handle research logs, however, let’s look at a brief definition of a research log, how and why to use one, and the information each log should contain.

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I was in the library in Franklin, NC the other day and happened to run across a book in their “new books” section called The Art of the Family Tree: Creative Family History Projects Using Paper Art, Fabric and Collage by Jenn Mason. I picked it up, thinking it was a book for those just beginning their ancestral quest (the subtitle had completely escaped my attention). When I opened it, I found all these amazing items that had been made based on family history, using pictures and copies of old letters and whatnot. Then it hit me: this wasn’t a book for beginning genealogists, but for genealogists who are also crafters.

While this book does feature a simple guide to tracing one’s ancestry (Chapters 1 and 6), I recommend that most people skip this and instead go straight to the meat of the book: ancestry as art. Using step-by-step directions, Mason guides the reader through the creation of several interesing, visually appealing projects, from shadow boxes, to three-dimensional fan charts as part of a pop-up book, to family trees made from pictures mounted on painted canvases. The methods used also encourage the reader to experiment with unusual items (like coin books). Any of these would make wonderful gifts to those who aren’t nuts about digging up their roots, but they are also items that could be made and kept as decoration in the creator’s home.

I highly recommend this book for those interested in finding unique ways to display and gift their ancestry.

On Tuesday night, my sister’s team won during their second round of play at the state tournaments. They are now in the Elite 8, the top eight teams in the state for their division (AA). They play again on Saturday night in Rome.

Yes, I do actually have another genealogical point to make (plus, again with being the proud big sister). I received word after last Friday night’s game against Armuchee High School that one of my sister’s cousins by marriage had picked up a copy of the Rome newspaper the day after the game. He had bought this issue because of its coverage of the previous night’s game against our girls. Apparently, Armuchee disputed the game in some way; they thought our team had committed a foul at the end of the game, and were upset because they didn’t receive the corresponding foul shots (with the winning score 55 - 54 in our favor, those foul shots might have changed the outcome of the game).

Whatever the outcome of Armuchee’s protests might be (I haven’t heard anything further on it), this article did make me think a little about how we, as researchers, might overlook sources because they weren’t generated in the locale where a certain event took place. Naturally, a future researcher interested in that game would look in both The Clayton Tribune (our local paper) and The Rome News-Tribune (Armuchee’s local paper), as these are the most obvious sources to use. But what about other sources of information? Should said researcher check those? And how thorough should he or she be in searching for sources on this single event?

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My blog plans for this week have gone far astray. I’m not sure how (although it might have something to do with three unplanned out-of-town trips in one week), only that I fully intended to post Tombstone Tuesday and Wordful Wednesday posts on those two days this week, but it just hasn’t worked out that way. And judging from the way this week is going, the plans I’d made for other posts this week will not see fruition either. So, rather than becoming overly philosophical about the “best laid plans of mice and men”, here instead is a list of the genealogically-related books I’m reading right now. These are all books I’ve ordered through InterLibrary Loan (ILL):

• Courthouse Research for Family Historians by Christine Rose. I’ve really enjoyed several aspects of this book, namely Rose’s discussions of the way land was laid out in Federal Land States (as opposed to State Land States, which are the only ones I’ve researched in to date) and the various types of indexes used in courthouse record books.
• The Family Tree Guide to Finding Your Ellis Island Ancestors and A Genealogist’s Guide to Discovering Your Immigrant and Ethnic Ancestors by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack. I’m actually finished reading through these, but am holding them so that I can write down several source suggestions on researching Irish immigrants to the United States.
• Genealogical Evidence: A Guide to the Standard of Proof Relating to Pedigrees, Ancestry, Heirship, and Family History by Noel C. Stevenson. I’ve read this standard in the field of genealogical research before, but it was such a heavy read (and the information included within it so important), that I thought I’d give it another go. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is seriously interested in researching their ancestry.
• Abstracts of Wills Recorded 1752 Through 1800 in Orange County, North Carolina, Will Books A B and C, plus 20 Pages in Book D and 202 Early Marriages Not Shown in the Orange County Marriage Bonds compiled by Ruth Herndon Shields (Clearfield Company, Inc., 1991). I was curious as to whether a possible Drake ancestor had left a will in Orange County, hence this book. I could not find one, so my next step (yes, you knew that was coming) is to search the will books themselves. But I’m not quite ready to go all the way across NC to do that right now, so I’m simply reading it and wondering if any of the other families mentioned are related to my own.
• Georgia Bible Records by Jeanette Holland Austin. This is a handy little book (ok, not so little) for anyone having ancestors who lived in Georgia. The one downside is that almost no specific sources are given for the records, just a general nod to various repositories, and sometimes to individuals.

And, per usual, I have the stacks of books from my personal collection that I’m using in current projects as base references (right now, Sketches of Rabun County History by Andrew Jackson Ritchie, and Rabun County, Georgia and Its People, Vol. I by the local heritage committee), but I also have the newest additions to my genealogy library set out: Evidence! Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian by Elizabeth Shown Mills, The Family Tree Problem Solver: Proven Methods for Scaling the Inevitable Brick Wall by Marsha Hoffman Rising, and Genealogical Proof Standard: Building a Solid Case by Christine Rose. The first two books I’ve read front to back many times over, and so knew exactly what to expect from them. The third I wanted as an at-hand reference on using the GPS; however, I’ve found it to be overly simplistic in its treatment of the subject, and wish now that I had purchased the BCG Genealogical Standards Manual instead (although, it is on my list for a future purchase). But that’s ok! I still learned something from that book, and so it was money well-spent.

After searching through early Rabun County, Georgia records, and thinking through the problem of how to tackle my Little Tennessee River Valley Origins Project (LTRV), I’ve decided to narrow the focus to a couple of families at a time. I’m starting with Amos Curtis, with the goal of trying to find out who he might have travelled into the county with, and also with the hopes of finding possible relatives of his and his wife’s. The short list of candidates includes:

• Hiram Dillingham, who at one point owned land in the same land lot as Amos, and who was enumerated next to or near the Curtis family on several U.S. censuses. Hiram’s grandson, John W. Dillingham, married a daughter of Amos.
• William Gillespie. While Hiram was an obvious choice, I was surprised at this one. William turned up a few names away from Amos on the 1836 tax digest of Rabun County. He was one of the first people to purchase land here (as opposed to drawing land in a land lottery); the deed for that land gave his place of origin as Burke County, North Carolina, which Amos stated as his place of birth.
• Robert N. Woods. I know nothing about the Woods family in Rabun County, so this will be a fresh experience. Robert turned up near Amos on the 1836 tax digest.
• Eli Ritchie. While Eli came from South Carolina, I include him here because of his proximity to Amos in several household-ordered records. I’m a descendant of this Ritchie family, so this will be an excellent opportunity for me to re-examine the records I have, and perhaps fill in some gaps.
• The Allen family, who were interrelated with the Dillinghams.

That’s it for now. I will most likely expand on this at a later date, and will do my best to post updates as I find new or interesting information.

Yesterday, my son and I travelled with my brother and a family friend to Rome, Georgia to cheer our local varsity girl’s basketball team on in their first appearance at a state tournament since my sister began coaching the team three years ago. Our girls won, 55 - 54, against Armuchee High School. It was an awesome game; this appearance at state caps a tremendously exciting season wherein the girls went 22 and 2. My sister was named All-Region Coach of the Year, and two of her girls were elected to the All-Region team.

Yes, I do have a genealogical point here (also, I’m so proud of my sister and her girls that I had to share). Armuchee High School, who hosted the game last night, printed a brochure just for the game that included the date, time and venue, as well as the names of the people playing on the two teams. They had special tickets made as well, which I am saving along with all the other mementos of this season. What most people would consider junk will, in a hundred years, be a valuable treasure to my sister’s descendants.

Newspaper articles and brochures might reconstruct her life, but they won’t tell someone who wasn’t there how happy she was to win, how exuberant the girls were, how hard they played, or how Rabunites held their collective breaths when RCHS No. 3 missed a foul shot with 4.3 seconds left on the clock and Armuchee rebounded the ball. They can’t recreate the noise of the crowd as Armuchee passed across the court, shot the ball, and missed, the roar of our team’s fans when we won, the smile on my sister’s face…or the disappointment of Armuchee’s team as they slapped hands with our players (good game, good game), and walked off the court with their heads hanging in defeat, their fans silent in the face of a season so abruptly ended.

There are limitations to what we can preserve, but we must do the best we can. It is so important to capture today’s memories as they are being made, through journals, pictures, videos, and whatever new technologies the future brings. One hundred years from now, your children’s children’s children will pick up the scrapbooks you made and glimpse the sliver of your life with which you have presented them. But without those artifacts, without those impressions, they have little hope of understanding or knowing you as you are now, even though you will have played such an important role in those unknown children’s lives through the role you played in your children and grandchildren’s lives. Preserve your life as you can, and leave more than stories for your children to pass on to future generations.

I happened upon the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (CWSS) a few years ago while compiling indices of those who enlisted in the Confederate States Army (CSA) in Rabun County, Georgia or Macon County, North Carolina. The CWSS is an index of those who fought in the War Between the States in either the Union Army or the CSA, and who were listed on General Index Cards (see the CWSS System Overview page), held by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The project is spearheaded by the National Parks Service.

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