52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 1 -- Start

-
I got my start in genealogy before I even knew there was a word that described "chasing dead ancestors." One summer, Dad, Mom and I took Grandma (my mom's mom) on a two-week trip through the Deep South trying to find cousins that Grandma had lost contact with over the decades or had only ever known via letters. (Remember snail mail?) I was only about seven years old, so I was absolutely no help with this process, but I was acutely aware of our mission and thought it was the grandest adventure.

I'm certain that my memories and the reality of that trip are worlds apart, but I still remember some things vividly:

  • A distant cousin's huge old house filled with dozens of grandfather clocks that all chimed on the hour, but none of them in unison.
  • Driving hours through the countryside to find the old family homestead. (I'm sure the reality was more like a 10-mile drive.)
  • Finding a relative in Atlanta who had written and published a history on our Johnson family, a resource I find myself using more and more these days.

The Atlanta home of Ezra Johnson, family historian


"It doesn't matter if we never meet again / What we have said will always remain / If we get through for two minutes only / It will be a start!" -- The Jam, "Start!"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2020, Week 27 -- Solo

-
Image
“How about someone on a line where you feel like you're the only one researching them? (I have a couple of those!)” --Amy Johnson Crow I know exactly how you feel, Amy. Welcome to my SHEHORN family. Unaided, unaccompanied, unassisted I search. I fly solo because I haven’t encountered another researcher since the mid-1980s who knows anything about this family.  My confidence that I’ve found “my” Shehorn family is fairly low, because there are so many unknowns. Here’s what I know as fact: Me < My Mother < My Grandfather (Ralph Wayne Jones) < My Great-Grandfather (John Henry Jones, Jr.). These first four generations I know exist, as I have the primary source evidence. :) Then the record gets a little sketchy when the Shehorn name is introduced. John Henry Jones, Jr.’s mother may have been Mary Eleanor Shehorn (b. 1835-d. ~1908). Mary’s father may have been William Shehorn (b. ~1802-d. 1846). The only “evidence” I have connecting John Henry Jones, Jr. to his mother is (1)
Read more

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 27 -- Independence

-
Image
My maternal 5x great-grandfather Zebulon Brevard was born 29 March 1724 in Cecil Co., Maryland and died 8 Aug 1798 in Iredell Co., North Carolina. In between he married, raised a family of 10 children and "assisted in establishing American Independence" [1] by serving as an ensign in the colonial militia in Mecklenburg Co., North Carolina. He also served as a jury member in the same county. (Perhaps that will make you rethink avoiding jury duty.) Obviously not a Brevard from the 1700s. This is my paternal grandfather John Frederick Goehring with a 48-star U.S. flag. I estimate this photo was taken ca. 1942 near the beginning of America's involvement in World War II. Although I don't know much about Zebulon Brevard (yet) as an individual, the Brevard family from that era were well-known and appear in many written histories of North Carolina. • The first Brevard ancestor in America -- Zebulon's father, John Brevard or Jean de Brever -- was a Huguenot refu
Read more

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 15 -- Taxes

-
Image
Have you heard of poll taxes? Generally speaking, a poll tax is a tax levied on every adult, without reference to income or resources. (In Middle English, "poll" meant "head" so this was a tax on the head of every adult.) As a practical matter, poll taxes were a pre-condition of the exercise of the right to vote. [1] "After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the 15th Amendment, many Southern states enacted poll tax laws, which often included a grandfather clause that allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. These laws achieved the desired effect of disfranchising African-American and Native American voters, as well as poor whites who immigrated after the year specified." [2] Although my Goehring ancestors presumably weren't denied any rights by failure to pay poll taxes -- being white, land-owning males and all -- I
Read more