Skip to main content

Those Places Thursday--Mount Airy, Surry, North Carolina

Those Places Thursday is a Geneabloggers writing prompt that encourages us to think back to the places where our ancestors lived, worked or spent time.


I am looking forward to a mini-getaway coming up for us in the early part of next week when we will go back to Mount Airy, NC for our third visit. This time, however, will be different than the last two times. 


First we visited the town as curious tourists...
...Yes, this is the home of Mayberry RFD and the Andy Griffith Show...


The second visit took us to the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History,
to Mount Airy Public Library to print microfilmed obituaries,
and sent us on a goose-chase to try to discover the whereabouts of African-American cemeteries.

Since that last visit we were blessed with making a connection with living cousins...the great grand niece of my grandfather-in-law!

That would make her and her sister our second cousins once removed...
...and her mother (who is still living) is our second cousin!

This branch of the Carter family extends from Hezekiah's oldest brother, Elisha Carter, who as family legend has it, fled to Berrien County, Georgia because of some trouble he had gotten himself into (considering the times, it is assumed that there might be some racial tension involved) sometime between 1880 when he was an eleven year old son living in his parents' household in Township 5, Craven, NC, and 1900 where he appeared in Nashville, Berrien, GA as a 34-year-old Turpentine Dipper with three children. His wife, Millie (Anderson) Carter, was already deceased. 


Hopefully some questions will be answered by this trip, but it seems that the descendants of Elisha Carter also have some unanswered questions about their ancestry. Perhaps this connection will benefit both our research endeavors...but most of all,
two branches of the family will be reunited 
after over one hundred years of separation!





Labels:

Comments

  1. Andrea KelleherFebruary 16, 2012 at 4:53 AM

    How exciting! I hope you have a wonderful trip and have many of your questions answered.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Root DiggerFebruary 16, 2012 at 11:49 AM

    Enjoy your trip! Happy Research and reuniting with family!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honoring our Ancestors: Free Black Patriots of the Revolutionary War

When I was first contacted last October to assist in some research for a member of the DAR who was looking for the burial ground of her ancestor, Isaac Carter, I had no idea it would lead to such a wonderful tribute--with full honors--to our free black ancestors of Craven County, North Carolina. Nor would I have guessed that I would be meeting together with Ms. Maria William Cole, National Vice Chairman Insignia, of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, and a host of other dignitaries, from the highest officials of the SAR to state and local political and community service leaders, to pay tribute to these patriots. The turnout exceeded my expectation when this event proceeded on a cold and rainy Sunday afternoon, with close to a hundred and fifty people or more, seated on folding chairs under three canopy tents. The microphone cable lay along the wet grass and soon died out, and we, the speakers, were asked to use our "mother's voices" to make o...
7 comments
Read more

How Family History Writing Forces Us to Dig DEEPER

February is Family History Writing Month During the month of February, I went on hiatus from the Civil War Pension File of Isaac Carter in order to participate in the Family History Writing Challenge. My goal was quite ambitious, but I did succeed in setting up the framework of the family history memoir, and wrote a rough draft of the opening scenes. The memoir focuses on a promise I had made to our Cousin Hattie Carter Becton in an interview, following the the 2009 George Family Reunion in North Harlowe, North Carolina. In case you missed the Challenge, you can find the posts here . The site was developed especially for writing challenges, beginning with this year's; so, you may want to go back to the first posts in the archive. March was memoir reading, research & development month Last month I continued working on the writing, but also began focusing on webinars and YouTube videos related to writing memoir. Two really great sites are National Association of Memoir Writ...
8 comments
Read more

Those Places Thursday -- Robert Livingston House, Little River, SC

In July of 2008 we attended the Prince Livingston Family Reunion in Wampee, Horry County, South Carolina (my husband's maternal family). During our down time we decided to take a drive through Little River where the plantation owner, Robert Livingston, had once lived.  We inquired at the Visitor Center, and learned that the Robert Livingston House had been preserved as an historical landmark. The brochure we received listed several different sites that interested us, but the Livingston House was our first destination.  We drove along Highway 17S and drove past the turn off for Lakeside Drive. At the next light we turned around and headed back down the highway until we came to the street. About two-thirds of the way down the road we saw a sign along the roadside: 19th Century Victorian Home for Sale. Was that the house? The number on the mail box was 4441. That's it! We got out of the car and looked around only to find that the owner was at home, and he was in the process...
Post a Comment
Read more