Pictures!

Well I'm finally getting a chance to review that family video tape. Taking a little break from it now b/c it is rather long, but I've got a few more pictures to add to my tree!

I was able to find a picture of Rhoda Pridgen, William Burse Parker, Ada Davis, and a few of Burse and Ada's children. I was disappointed that there were no pictures of like the Daughtridge or Bone (except for della) families. It looks like the only pictures from grandma's side were john hardy and della bone. But i'm glad that i was able to get something.

I was also able to correct and verify some dates. I had the year of birth off one year for Burse and Ada, and I was able to get the actual birth/death dates (according to the video). I was right on the death dates. I also knew that my grandparents married on Dec. 7 but now I know it was in the year of 1930.

I think now that I have a face to these names, I really want to delve right in and start researching, and there's no reason why I can't. :) I do seem to be hitting a lot of brick walls on grandma's side and I've hardly done anything on grandpa's. And I want to get as much done before my subscription at ancestry.com runs out.

I think I'm most interested in finding out more about my great grandmother Ada. I still don't have the names of her parents. She's very beautiful in her picture. It's so nice to put a face with her name!

Ahnentafel

I added the ahnentafel I've been working on to the blog on the side. Neat huh? A giant list of names! It's for my grandma's side, which is who I'm focusing on for now. Eventually I'm going to get to my grandpa parker's side.

This will really help me get familiar with all of these names I have! Not enough room to put their dates of birth, etc, but that will be on the tree when I get finished. Having the names on there is enough for now. Plus this helps me know which names and lines I need to focus on.

Definitely still a work in progress and not all verified but for now it'll do.

Okay...now i'm going to bed. I sure hope all of this makes sense in the morning, I'm very sleepy right now lol

;)

UPDATE: I added the ahnentafel for grandpa too, but there aren't too many names on it yet. And yes, some of the same ancestors are on both lists. It's not a mistake. Yes, that's right, my grandparents were cousins ;) FYI, interesting fact I learned on ancestry.com. Anthropologists claim that everyone on earth is a 40th cousin. That means that any two people can trace their family trees and find at least one common ancestor. Small world, huh? :)

Johannah Sawyer (Norsworthy?)

So today, I'm researching one of my great grandmothers, and I couldn't tell you how many greats but I'm sure it's a lot!

First of all, I just love her name. I think it's so pretty :) It's not a name you hear everyday. Johannah.

So anyway, Johannah was the wife of John Biggs, and from what I understand, she and John married in England and then got on a ship and came to America and settled in Norfolk, VA.

Here's where it gets confusing. When I first put her name on my family tree at ancestry.com, her name came up as "Johannah Sawyer Norsworthy". But then when I was verifying who Ann Bigg's mother was, it just said "Johannah Sawyer".

From google searches, I've got two fathers for Johannah. A Tristram Norsworthy and a John Sawyer. So which one is it?!? And what's her last name? Where did Norsworthy come from? I'm leaning towards it being John, and that would make sense if he wanted to name his daughter after him. (John sounds like Johannah in a way) But I need to find out what this Norsworthy name came from.

Guess i've hit a brick wall, but at least I know that Johannah is the mother of Ann! :) And looks like I've got two more ancestors that are from England.

England!

Well I made my way to England! :)

I knew that's where my family came from, but now i have proof. I traced my Batchelor line there, all the way to a Richard Batchelor born about 1643 in Buckinghamshire, England. :)

I've been working on the Biggs line as well and so far that's been going well. I think it's pretty amazing that I've been able to trace some ancestors back to the 1600s!

See, I knew if I focused on another line of my tree, I would get somewhere. :)

brick walls on Daughtridge, Land, and Braswell lines

Well, I suppose I've hit a brick wall on Daughtridge. I found two different websites and one says the father of John Daughtridge is William Benjamin, and the other says it's James. So I have no clue. I've tried looking over the census records, but they don't seem to be any help. My hunch is James but I have nothing to prove it.

As for Land, I haven't been able to find any more info on Sally Land.
:( I would really like to find the name of her husband, which I know is Braswell. What makes matters even more complicated is that there is another Sally Land in Edgecombe Co, but she isn't my Sally Land. Of course I've found plenty of info about her.

As for the rest of the Land Line, I did find some more information (although nothing verified) on where this line has come from. I've got Charles Land, son of Curtis Land III, his father is Curtis Land II, his father is Curtis Land I, and he apparently came to Virginia from Middlesex, England around 1650, and I found that his father is William Land. Of course, like i say, none of this info is verified with sources, only information I got from postings on message boards, but it's all I've got for now. I don't even know how I would begin to verify all of that! But I have a hunch that it's right. I know my family came from England.

I'm driving myself a little crazy b/c i keep running into brick walls. I feel like I'm the only person even researching some of these people b/c everytime I do a search on the ancestry.com message boards, I come up with 0 messages as matches. :( It's not very fun playing geneasolitaire :(

So I think for now, I should take a break on researching the Land and Daughtridges and all of the other lines i'm having trouble with. Sometimes if I go away from it for a while and come back later, I find something at a later time. Like for instance, I wasn't even looking for info on Charles Land when I stumbled across his will, and that led me to Sally. So yeah, time to take a break. I will come back to it another time.

But I'm not taking a break from researching the rest of the tree. I think now I should spend a little time researching my Barnes, Winstead, and Batchelor lines. Maybe I'll have better luck with them.

Oh, and I haven't got around to my video project yet. I didn't feel well yesterday so maybe later today or this week if I get the time. I'll get around to it eventually!

Sally Land Braswell

OMG. I think I just found out some important information about Sophia's mother.

So tonight, I decided to browse through the Edgecombe Co. wills on the genweb site. Not really looking for any one person in particular, just anyone that's in my family tree. Well I ran across the will of Charles Land. Now, I know from a record on ancestry.com that Sophia's mother was the daughter of Charles Land, Sr. It doesn't list her name though. Well, of course, I had Susan Land listed, but had a hard time verifying this info. The only other place I saw Susan Land listed was the familysearch.org site and someone's random family tree on the web. No sources, so who knows if it's right?

Well anyway, back to the point...I found his will. He lists his children and wife, and then at the very end, he says, "to my beloved daughter, Sally Braswell, one bed and stead and furniture and one pine chest."

Sally BRASWELL.

Could it be that I had her name wrong all along? It's Sally and not Susan? Or maybe it is Susan, but maybe Susan's just a nickname or middle name? In any case, it must be Sophia's mother. It's got to be. And plus, I know that Sophia's maiden name was Braswell b/c it's listed on the county marriage record.

I'm so excited! I've been looking for some kind of information, some kind of breakthrough, and this is just a little one but still pretty amazing.

One more thing that I have to wonder about...the pine chest. My mom's got a trunk, but we all call it grandma's trunk b/c it belonged to my grandmother Mary Elsie. And she got the trunk from her mother, Della Bone. The story of the trunk is that it traveled overseas from England. But when it traveled and whose possession it was in, we don't know. But according to my mother, her grandfather, john hardy, wanted my grandmother Elsie to have it. So that makes me think the trunk came from Della's side of the family. So could it be that this mystery trunk came from the Land Family?? From Charles to Sally to Sophia to Susan to Della to Elsie to my mom? Hmm...I'll have to check with my mom to see if that trunk is made out of pine!

Weekend Project

So I have a little project for the weekend. Mom lent me an old family video. Someone in the family put it together a long time ago and made copies for the family. It's a tape with a bunch of pictures/video mixed with music. It's really long too...over an hour I'm sure. The last time I saw it, I was a kid. And it was very detailed too...showing old photographs and the names of the family members, dates, etc.

Well I'm very excited about it...there are TONS of pictures! Mom took a few pictures with her cell phone camera of her parents and grandparents from the video, so I finally had some pictures of them to put on my family tree at ancestry.com :) Well I'm going to review it this weekend and hopefully I'll get some more pictures. Mom says she doesn't think there are a lot of pictures of the really old people, but I'm hopeful I'll find something.

We really need to get this tape put on dvd. I think soon I'll look into that. And plus, it'd be easier to snap pictures from it. :)

Isaac Braswell and family

I added a little poem on the side of my journal - The Elusive Ancestor. I just thought it was funny....and so true! I feel like Isaac Braswell is the "elusive ancestor" in my family.

Here's what I think is true: Isaac Braswell was born in 1800, married Susan Land in 1826. Sophia (aka Sophronia) was born in 1827. That seems about right, one year after her parents marry.

Then things get confusing. First of all...Susan Land. I am having a hard time finding info on her as well, but my hunch is that she must be Sophia's mother, b/c I know Sophia named her first born daughter Susan. I think Susan Land died when Sophia was little, and that maybe she named her daughter after her mother.

Okay, so Susan dies and Isaac remarries, at least, it appears this way. When I do a search for him on ancestry.com, I come across a record of his wife being Elizabeth. Well sure enough, doing a google search proves that an Isaac Braswell did marry an Elizabeth and they had several children. But is it the same Isaac Braswell?

The 1860 census has Isaac and Elizabeth living together with many children, the oldest being 25, which would put them getting married sometime around 1835. This seems to match somewhat with what i have about Susan. I have it listed that she died before 1838.

I found online Isaac Braswell's will...1873 I believe was the year. He does not mention his daughter Sophia. Now why is this? Of course, it's not as if she was living in his house anymore and needed to be supported. But I know she was alive b/c I found on her on the 1880 census. Why would you leave your supposed first born daughter out of your will? *scratches head* Well...then again, he DID have a lot of kids, but strange that he doesn't at least mention her.

Okay...I digress....back to my point. I can't find anything on Isaac and to prove his relationship to Sophia. Except I did try the familysearch site (with the mormon church) and they did have a record of Sophia being born in 1827 w/ isaac and susan as her parents. But how accurate is this record? But as far as finding out who
isaac's parent's are...no such luck. No records found. Not even on ancestry.com. Or maybe i'm just not looking in the right place.

I sure do wish the early census records were more detailed. I like the mid to late 1800s ones where they list EVERYONE in the household, not just the head. It sure does make this process a little easier!

Daughtridge Line

Tonight I've been working on the Daughtridge line. I've been going through the surnames of my family tree to try to verify information and prove relationships (as best I can). So far I've worked through the Pridgen and Bone lines as far as I could go. Now on to Daughtridge.

Susan Daughtridge, my gg grandmother is the first one from this line. I know her father was Willie Daughtridge, who served in the Civil War. (Susan is listed in the 1850 census along with her parents, Willie, Sophia, and sister Charity.)

Now, here's where it gets kind of tricky. From what I know, John Daughtridge was Willie's father, at least, according to this Daughtridge family website I found. It says that John married Zilla and they had several children, including Willie. Everything seems to match up. The dates, the names. And I have found sources that indicate that John and Zilla did marry and that they lived close to Willie. The 1850 census shows they lived pretty close, but not in the same house. See, Willie got married just a few years before in 1847, so of course he would have his own home by then.

I'm trying to prove that John was Willie's father. The 1840 census isn't much help b/c it only seems to list the heads of the households. It does indicate that a male child about Willie's age then was living in the house, so that could be a clue.

So say John is in fact, Willie's father...than who is John's father? The website claims that two brothers, William Benjamin and James came from Europe, possibly Ireland, and settled in the Nash/Edgecombe area of NC. It says that William's son was John. And yet, someone else has a tree on ancestry.com and they say it's James. I can't seem to find any information on any of these Daughtridges. The website doesn't list any sources, only that the info was compiled by someone in the family. And it doesn't help that I've see Daughtridge spelled in so many different ways.

I hope to find out more infomation soon. I'll just have to keep seaching. But it is exciting to think that I may have some Irish blood in me!

Who is the mother of John Hardy Pridgen?

Well once again, I seem to be having mother issues.

Today I decided to research Phoebe Eason, who I had listed as the wife of Alexander Pridgen and mother of John Hardy. Well I'm trying to verify that this is indeed, the true information, especially since yesterday when I found out I had the wrong mother listed for Neverson Bone.

It's listed in a Pridgen book that Phoebe and Alexander married and had several children together. But now i'm not so sure. Other than this book, I can't seem to find any other record to prove that Phoebe is the mother of John. I've found sources that do say Alex and Phoebe were married, but could this be a first wife? Or is there another Alexander Pridgen? Or am I just overthinking this? I'm so confused!

Then today as I was doing a search on Ancestry, I pulled up a record that said the wife of Alexander was this woman named Cleta N, and that she was also the mother of "hardy" (and a few more children that were listed in my tree along side John Hardy). This is the first time I've come across this name. So then I do a google search for Alexander and Cleta Pridgen. I don't really find anything. Then what I realize is that what I really need to find is the 1880 census. I needed to find out who exactly was living in that household. And I was having a hard time finding that particular census year. Well through this family search site, by amazing luck, I found it! The image was at ancestry.com but for whatever reason, it never would come up when I did a search through ancestry.com. I pulled up the census image and got some surprising info.

First of all, and this isn't related to John Hardy, but I discovered Sophia Daughtridge! She's my great,great,great grandmother. I knew it was her even though it was just listed as S. Daughtridge b/c it had some of her children listed and that matched what i had. Plus Neverson Haywood Bone and Susan A were listed as well, her daugher and son-in-law.

Anyway, back to the point, I scroll down and see a listing for Alex Pridgen. It clearly says that his wife is Cleta N. Then it has a listing of children in the household. Hardy is listed, age 8, which would put him being born about 1872 which is about right. And I know Hardy had a brother named Ulysses and he was listed as being one year old. And that's about right too b/c i had his birth year as being 1879.

So now I'm wondering...is Cleta N really John Hardy's mother after all? Is it not Phoebe Eason? I sure have had a very hard time finding anything on Phoebe Eason. If the information I have is wrong, maybe that's why? Still don't know her parents names. Who is Phoebe Eason? Who is Cleta N? And who is John Hardy's mother? These are definitely questions that will take a lot of research to answer.

Lesson 1 - Do your own research!

This is my first journal entry. I decided that it’s important and helpful for me to write down all of my experiences during my genealogical research. And unfortunately, I start this journal off with some disappointing news.

Ever since I started researching and putting together the family tree, I had thought Neverson Haywood Bone’s mother was Adaline Elizabeth Baker. Well, I was wrong. She was his stepmother! His actual mother turns out to be Elizabeth Barnes. I can’t believe I just realized this, especially after all of the hard research I did last week to try to find out who Adaline’s parents were (which I found out by the way, and hadn’t known since I put her name in the tree).

I’ll explain how all of this confusion got started. First of all, Neverson Haywood Bone is my great, great grandfather. And from my research, I knew that Philamon Bennett Bone was his father. Now, Philamon had two wives. His first wife was Elizabeth Barnes, and they got married in 1839. His second wife, of course, was Adaline. Well I found someone’s family tree online who was researching these same individuals. This should be my first lesson…do not take other people’s word as the truth! I must prove the relationships myself! Well, I made the mistake of believe what this person said, Adaline was the mother of Neverson, to be true. So I put that down on my family tree and thought everything was fine.

Then as I was going through the Bone line, researching and verifying that I had correct dates, sources, and names, etc, I stumbled across something that I hadn’t realized yet. Philamon married Adaline in 1867. Now that fact is pretty significant considering that Neverson was born sometime between 1851-1853! (not sure on the exact year considering three different sources say completely different things.) But one thing is for sure…how could Adaline be his mother if she didn’t even marry his father until 1867? And this is the 1800s we’re talking about. I know people who move in and have kids and they don’t marry until after the kids are born, but this kind of stuff didn’t happen back then. And furthermore, that’s like 17 years later anyway! LOL.

To further add to the confusion, I mistakenly thought when I read the 1860 census that “Elizabeth” was really Adaline. See…Elizabeth is her middle name. See my confusion? And lots of people went by middle names. I know my grandma did. And there are a ton of Elizabeths let me tell you.

More proof that I failed to realize before is that in that same year, 1860, the census says that Adaline was living with her parents. Well I remember seeing that and thought, well of course she still was, she didn’t marry Phil until 1867. DUH MELODY! I should have realized it then but with so many dates, sometimes it’s hard to keep up. How could she be living with her parents and have her 9 year old son live in another house at the same time?

So anyway, looks likes I’ll have to delete some names from my tree. At least I didn’t get too far into my research. I would have been really mad if I hadn’t realized it until after I had gone and published my results.

BUT, on a much lighter note, I do have some good news to report. And speaking of results to publish…I’ve been toying around with the idea of putting up a website of sorts, you know, to display my research with the rest of the family. Well I found a great website that basically does all the work for you. All you have to do is upload your gedcom, which you can download from your family tree at ancestry.com. And it’s also password protected too, so I don’t have to worry about people looking in on it until it’s all finished. Or if I choose, I can let only some people see it and give them a visitor password. I uploaded what I had so far. It’s pretty cool! I can’t wait to finish it! Or can you really finish genealogy? It seems to just go on and on and on. :)