Afrigeneas has new blogger!

David Paterson's Journal will now be blogging for Afrigeneas.com.

As most African American researchers know, Afrigeneas is the #1 resource for African American Ancestry. The introduction of a blog by Afrigeneas is a wonderful thing.

A lil about David.

David E. Paterson, AfriGeneas Slave Research Forum Manager, was born in Scotland, UK, grew up in Seattle, WA, and earned a BA in History from University of Oregon before joining the U.S. Navy in 1975. Although an avid reader as a child, David became so busy with his seagoing career that he did not read a complete book for fifteen years. His passion for history reawakened in 1988 while he explored the antebellum records in the basement of the Upson County courthouse. Now David’s idea of fun and relaxation is reading a book or spending 12-hour days researching at the National Archives.

Thru the blog, more doors will be opened for many of the African-Americans still trying to connect the dots in their tree with straight lines.

I have no shame.

Besides my bad interviewing skills that is. But I have no shame in cold calling or e-mailing possible family members. We have a large family that branch out to the east coast (even a few in the west).

The way I was brought up, you are our cousin. There is not just 3rd cousin 4 times removed. It was passed down from my great grandmother who is and who isn’t family. She pointed out to all of her children cousins and aunts. However, she left out the little detail of exactly how they were related. So, growing up, they just knew that this person and that person were cousin. Come to find out, they were all distant cousins. Either way, they are our cousin and loved no less.

Every year at our family reunion, we have the most recent and most distant of cousins that come. We’re that type of family. Heck, we even have friends in the neighborhood that show up because they know we’re going to have food.

However, as I’ve begun the search thru my family tree, I’ve noticed a lot of branches missing. Missing because the information that my great grandmother passed on to her children didn’t trickle down like it should have. When the elders passed away, their children missed the information also. I’m trying to reconnect those branches of my tree.

Plus you never know, they may hold the missing link to go even further back. So, if you’re a distant cousin that got the Cousin Connections newsletter, it’s because you’re family. Now it’s time you figure out how.

I wish I knew

I wish people would just write on the back of pictures. Don't they know that people will come looking and wonder who they are.

In my Wordless Wednesday picture, you can barely see the faces. It's obviously a picture of some people at a military camp. There are 4 people sitting in this care and I can't make them out for anything!!!

So, if you have pictures at home, take time out and write who's who on the back of them!!! Please.

Thank you,

Wordless Wednesday - Unknown Picture

NC Archives - Wrong Link!!

Well, I just received my copy of Carolina Trees & Branches and it had an article in there about accessing Wills on the NC Archives MARS SYSTEM. While the information was correctly printed, I found error with the NC Archives website that will cause issue unless fixed soon!!!!

I followed the instructions. Here they are:

1. Go to the MARS search Page.
2. Scroll Down to "Records of Probate: Wills.."
3. click on the "+" sign at the left.
   
4. Find the alphabetical range of the last name of the testator.
   
5. Scroll to the name you need and click on 'View Description' at the right.
   
6. to see images of the pages, click on "view documents" at the right side of the page.
   

Now this is where I take issue. Unless you have the DjVu Plugin installed, you're going to run into a problem. When I initially clicked on the link to install the plugin, it too me to this page. Well, apparently the company, Celartem, granted the rights of the DjVu Plugin to another company.

However, in order to download the plugin to view documents, you'll have to go here. I was able to download the plugin and now I'm able to view documents on the NC Archives MARS System.

I hope this helps someone. I sent an e-mail to the IT Branch of the NC Archives. Hopefully, they'll fix it soon. But, how annoying.

I should also note, if you want to use this archive, be aware...IT TIMES OUT WITHIN ABOUT 15 MINUTES OF INACTIVITY!! You'll have to redo the steps above to get to where you were at last.

My interviewing skills SUCK!

On 2 sheets of paper, is an interview with an knowledgeable family member. She is the granddaughter of my 3rd great grandfather. To me, that blows my mind. Let me say it again, she is the granddaughter of my 3rd great grandfather, Caleb Banks. This is his land that was divided after his death among his children. I had the best time talking with her during my trip. The amount of knowledge she has is amazing! She's 85 years old and you would think she's 25+ years younger. She's is sharp, vibrant and active. Compared to some of the other elders that I've talked to in the family, she is a young woman. However, she may be the oldest out of everyone!

But anywho, back to my sucky interview with her. My 2 pages of notes that I have are only legible my me. lol. The 2 pages started off professional enough. Several questions listed, space for me to write the answer and space to add more. Easy right? HA..not for me. Apparently, I write as scatterbrained as I think. I have notes every were on the paper. Sure, the questions were answered, but she gave so much more information during the interview, I didn't have time to find an appropriate place to write it. So, I have words jotted here, and names jotted there. Of course, it only makes sense to me.

For example from my notes:

Laura Mae Lowry & Hazel Lowry first cousins but brought up together
John Banks owned land on 158
Henry was William Henry Banks.
Almond Banks Jr. owns family land

This is an example of my scatterbrained interview. I'm going to try and transcribe it into a legible interview that will make sense in the future. I need a better interview strategy.

Maybe next time, I'll try a recorder instead.

Who are you?

This picture was in a box of things that belonged to my great grandparents, Ed & Bessie Spence. While I was in NC in May 2009, I asked my grand uncle to go by the house and see if there was anything left that belonged to my great grands.

My great grandparents had alot of things, but most of everything went missing after my great grandma, Bessie, passed away in 1998. One of her children took the items from the home and somehow lost them. This includes a picture of Bessie's mother that had been in the house for years. That's part of a bitter family issue that's always a murmur thru the family, but never a loud noise.

Well, apparently the ancestors were working and knew I was coming eventually. In an old decreped box of papers, there were only 2 pictures. This picture above and this one.

The picture above is the one I'm curious of. I have no idea who he is. He looks like a Spence and closely resembles my grand uncle. I thought at first it may have been my great grandfather, but when I look at the pictures, they don't seem to look much alike.

The top picture was printed on a postcard. There is nothing written on the back and the picture, as you can see, is quite old. Does anyone know how I can identify the year this picture was taken?? Maybe that will help me identify who this is a picture of.

R.I.P. Michael

It is so sad that Michael Jackson has passed away. As a genealogist, I think about it in a family history way.

Just think 100 to 150 years from now, when a descendent from the Jackson Family decides to research their family tree, they’re going to see that they were related to the King of Pop. I think that would be pretty cool.

All the fascinating & sordid details of his life will become gossip to the family member’s years from now. Just like we do when we find out an ancestor was arrested, or died under mysterious causes. It’s interesting to us because it’s our family history. It’s our gossip about people that’s related to us who are no longer with us.

Michael Jackson’s life is one for the history books.

Side Note: Am I the only one that always thought he was saying "But the chair is not my son" lol

An Expensive Habit

Genealogy can be an expensive habit! With the subscriptions, research time, document requests, binders, paper, storage, etc. Let’s not forget travel because you’re going to have to get from in front of the computer one day and do hands on research!! It takes a lot of tools and time to make researching our family trees possible. What I’m finding out is, my family doesn’t quite get the labor of love.

Most of the comments I received are “I don’t know how you do it”, “doesn’t that cost $$$”, “My brain would explode”, etc. I guess, you have to really love what you do in order to understand why people do it. I try to explain to people, it’s just like anything else they may love to do. No one else wants to do it, but for you, it’s easy! Well, genealogy isn’t easy, but for us who love doing it, our minds are already wired to think in these complicated manners. To try to connect the dots with solid lines and figure out how people are related. Painstaking research and most of the time, you get the smallest clues from your research. However, those little clues seem to be the most satisfying.

A path to one’s past is excellent framework to one’s future. Most African-American researchers want to know where they come from. That’s why we research our trees so tirelessly. Our family is fascinated by the clues we’ve come up with. We can see leaving this legacy of information to our children. There is reward in our work. That’s why most of the time, those of us who have to spend the money to get a clue solved don’t mind so much. There is something in it for us.

Late Wordless Wednesday follow-up

I always wondered about how someone is your whatever cousin so-many-times removed. Without the chart at the bottom of my blog, I wouldn’t be able to figure out family relationships past 1st cousin.

I always thought that my great uncles children would be my second cousin and my great great uncles children would be my 3rd cousin..so on and so forth. But, since researching my family tree, I’m starting to understand the connections better.

Thru research, I’ve located 20+ cousins that I have never seen or heard about before. But, when I ask my grandmother about them, she says “oh yeah, I know such-n-such”. Which makes me always wonder, why don’t we hear about them or why aren’t they included on the mailing list. So that’s been part of my mission. To find the relatives and descendents of my great grandparents and keep up the database. Regardless if they’re 4th cousin 4 times removed.