Microsoft Office Downloaded Image I woke up this morning and unplugged my phone and checked my calendar like I usually do and there was this lovely pop-up reminder that came on the screen to remind me of my blogiversary. I knew with all the hustle and bustle with young children this time of year, that I would forget the date so about a month ago I plugged it into my phone to remind me. One year of blogging! Wow, where did all the time go? All I can say is that it has been quite the adventure. Through my blog I've connected with family that I didn't even know existed and made many new on-line friends.  I want to thank everyone who has stopped by to check out my posts this past year.  Thank you to all who have reached out and provided me help with research or have inspired me with their own genealogy stories. Okay, I know this is turning into an Academy Awards speech, but I can't help myself. I am very proud of what I have started here.  So where do I go from here? I k

Marriage record for Oliver Jones and Esther Lincoln "North Carolina , County Marriages, 1762-1979," index and images, Family Search Oliver Jones and Esther Lincoln Jones were my 2nd great grand uncle and aunt. Oliver was a brother of Alexander Hamilton Jones, my 2nd great grandfather. State of North Carolina.                                                          Carteret County      I, William J. Moore a minister of the gospel do hereby certify that I solemnized the rites of matrimony between Oliver Jones and Esther Lincoln, and joined them together as husband and wife in Carteret County on the 3rd day of November A. D. 1867 I found   online a terrific resource which featured an etching of minister William J. Moore. It's the electronic edition of "One Hundred Years of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church or The Centennial of African Methodism," by James Walker Hood. The electronic edition is part of the University of North Carolina at C

Me at 3 months old. Me at 6 months old. I have had babies on the brain lately due to some family friends who either recently had babies or who are due to have them shortly. It's so nice to see others experience the joys that come with bringing a child into the word. A family friend who babysat for our children brought by her one month old son this week and I got a wonderful little baby fix. There's nothing like holding one of those precious little bodies. I just love the way they smell (except for when they have a poopy diaper.) Anyway, I was straightening up my living room and my hand somehow wandered over to the bookcase where we keep the family pictures. I pulled out these shots which were mounted on cardboard and that are too large to put in an album. I will have to get something to protect them. Well, I thought it would be a good idea to scan these pictures just in case something should happen to them. Will there be anymore babies in my future. Hmm. No, I do

So an interesting dynamic happens when you blog. Sometimes something gets started with just a feeling. As of late, I have had this urge to review information that I had found on my Mitchell family line. This branch of the family was from a town about 9 miles south of New Bern, NC, called Riverdale. By doing this I was able to locate some new information on family members which I will feature at some point on this blog.  Well, the other day I received a phone call. I had a lovely conversation within someone who has ancestors from Riverdale, NC as well. This individual found my blog online and that's how we became connected. Well the combination of my urge to research the Mitchells again and this phone call led me to review pictures I had taken from my January trip to New Bern and Morehead City. In my blog post,  Tombstone Tuesday: Willie Kennedy --The Future Is Now! , I featured a picture that I had taken of the grave of a Solomon Allen.. In the background of this picture there wa

Last week, I featured a page from Samuel Whitney's estate record which showed an inventory of items.  Here's the link in case you missed it  Amanuensis Monday: Samuel Whitney's Estate Record . I have to admit I am a little frustrated by the handwriting in the file so it will take me some time to get through it. It appears he died with debts and his belongings were sold off to pay them.  Here's a recap on this Samuel Whitney. He was born around 1775 and I believe he was my 4th great grandfather. According to oral history Samuel Whitney was of Portuguese descent originating from the Azores. He is listed in the 1830 and 1840 censuses living in New Bern, NC. In 1830 it's only him and 4 other free males in the household. On the 1840 census he is listed as a slave owner?  Could these slaves have been possible relatives? Image courtesy of Ancestry.com Now this is the theory I'm have been working with. If a man of possible Portuguese descent settled in

This post I wish to use as a teaching moment for anyone who makes assumptions when they see a woman with a baby and they try to guess the relationship. Don't guess. If you don't know, simply comment on how cute the baby is. Now that I am a few years out from this picture and people in my community know me and my daughter they don't make this mistake anymore. They know us. People of color are familiar that in African American homes that there can be quite a variance in the shades of complexions of family members. For folks who are not familiar with this, please don't assume someone is the help. I am just saying.

Ha! I am really starting to believe I am a bit of a weirdo. Most moms I know get excited over things like getting their nails done or a pedicure. Not me. I get excited over spit. Well to be more specific, I just mailed out my sample for my AncestryDNA test.  Here's what the kit looked like. Okay, I have to be silly for the moment. I am old school and I know this doesn't really matter but I appreciate the fact that this thing came in a box. All the money we spend on these test kits and yes I do realize that part of that money goes into packaging. I simply like to feel like I am purchasing something. I still have problems these days with how we purchase music. The good ole days you bought an album and you were buying something. Now we buy data and download it. There's no packaging, no nothing. I don't like it. I like something tangible. Just saying. No swabs for this test. You spit into a vial for this one. The directions were very easy to follow.  My test re

Image courtesy of Buzzle.com What a welcome surprise to come across an estate record for the man I believe was my 4th great grandfather. Samuel Whitney, born about 1775, I had written about in prior posts. Here are the links to provide some background. http://howdidigetheremygenealogyjourney.blogspot.com/2011/08/strange-week-crazy-weather-and-whitney.html http://howdidigetheremygenealogyjourney.blogspot.com/2011/11/interesting-finds-on-wrg-website.html This Samuel Whitney can be found on the 1830 and 1840 censuses for New Bern, NC. After which he seemed to have disappeared from the records. Well, until the other week that is. I have been finding a lot of records on-line for Carteret and Craven Counties in North Carolina on the  FamilySearch.org website . One of those finds was the estate record for Samuel Whitney. The file is thirty-three pages long so I will only highlight certain portions. Here is an inventory of his property. Inventory of Property belonging to the est

Could this be a picture of my 2nd great grand uncle and aunt? Possibly, William Henry Jones and Emma Shepard Jones. William was a brother to my 2nd great grandfather, Alexander Hamilton Jones.  Recently, I connected with a cousin who so graciously shared this picture with me.  She inherited a suitcase of pictures from her father and she believes that this is  a picture of her grandfather's parents. It was the oldest one in her collection.

How quickly we forget how tiny these little children are when they first come to us. Tonight, I tried to go to sleep a little early. It wasn't happening. Anyway, I decided to pull out a photo album which had pictures of my son in it from the ages of 2-4 years of age. Where did all the time go. Poof. Gone. Now he's 7. S-E-V-E-N! How does this happen so fast. My husband and I were commenting about him after he went to bed, how we can already see him at 22. He's a seven year old mini-man now. My first born. Funny, when I say that right now, my mind flashes to a scene from the series Six Feet Under, on HBO, where the matriarch from the series holds a toast to her son, her first born who recently died. Wow. First born children break the mold of the old person you were before you had kids and simultaneously set the stakes in the new form for the person you become after kids. We all love our kids first born and so on. Just that first one changes you so deeply. They hold a special

Microsoft Office Downloaded Image Okay I have to say I have been intrigued by the information that Ancestry.com has been showing about their new DNA test and when I got the invite Friday to buy a test kit for $99, well....I couldn't help myself. Impulsive? Um...yes. However, it will give me more information about my ancestors! So that makes it okay, right? LOL! Okay I have to say I am a full blown genealogy junkie now. I can't hide it. I am sure many of you out there feel the same way. I just had to giggle at myself at how fast I whipped out my credit card. Now why did I do this, you may ask? Well, this is why. If you have been following my blog you probably came across my posts regarding me using African Ancestry's DNA admixture test which they offered I believe up through February of this year. I have a feeling they stopped doing the test once they learned of the forthcoming release of Ancestry.com's new kit. Anyway, my results came out to be 70% African and

Mom, Grandma, and Me The back of the picture says January 1976.

With my last post being  Sunday's Obiturary: Clifford McGhee Wooten , I thought it would be a good follow up post to highlight a couple of newspaper articles I came across in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers database. Clifford and Harkless Wooten were extremely multi-talented people. They were successful business owners who owned and operated the Edgewater Hotel in Morehead City. Harkless Wooten was an accomplished chef who worked at places such as The Dunes Club, The Coral Bay Club, and the John Yancey Restarurant, all on Bogue Banks. He even worked at the Atlantic Hotel when it stood in Morehead City. Clifford Wooten managed the Edgewater while her husband worked at other establishments. She later went on to earn a bachelor's degree in education and eventually a master's degree in counseling.