How Did I Get Here? My Amazing Genealogy Journey

Amy Johnson Crow, the author of the blog No Story Too Small, is the host of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt series. If you are not familiar with the project please click on the following link:   Announcing 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition. Week 52 (December 24-31) – Resolution. A resolution can be something that you resolve to do. It can also be the end or conclusion of something. What ancestor do you resolve to find more about in 2016? What ancestor have you resolved conflicting evidence about? So this is it!!!! The last one. Finally I've made it to the end. I'm seven days late but at last here's week number 52.  I have to send a huge thank you over to Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small blog for developing this challenge. It has been a great motivator for me to continue to get these stories about my ancestors written down. After all, I can't share them if they are just simply floating around in my head. I've enjoyed participating an...

Amy Johnson Crow, the author of the blog No Story Too Small, is the host of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt series. If you are not familiar with the project please click on the following link:   Announcing 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition. Week 51 (December 17-23) – Nice. Define “nice” however you want to :) Well I am not quite done with the 52 Ancestors 2015 Edition but I can see the finish line is just ahead.  I decided to share holiday pictures of the family and I. Can't forget to document the lives of the living. After all, one day we will all be one with the ancestors. Perhaps through these pictures our descendants will get a chance to see how we spent these special times together. Happy New Year, Everyone!

Amy Johnson Crow, the author of the blog No Story Too Small, is the host of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt series. If you are not familiar with the project please click on the following link:    Announcing 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition. Week 50 (December 10-16) – Naughty. We all have an ancestor who probably received coal in their stocking. It's 11:16pm so I am really getting down to the wire with getting these prompts done.  This picture I posted here on this blog before a couple of years ago but I couldn't help but to re-share it especially since it seems to fit the theme here. Now by no means do I think that my maternal grand uncle Ray Bryant was deserving of receiving coal in his stocking but this picture definitely shows how he could be a bit "naughty" at times. Ray Bryant, Mary Bryant Horton (my grandmother), Annie Marie Bryant Barnes seated on couch.  Eloise Bryant Grigsby seated on the floor. My uncle Napoleon Sanders is kneel...

Amy Johnson Crow, the author of the blog No Story Too Small, is the host of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt series. If you are not familiar with the project please click on the following link:    Announcing 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition. Week 49 (December 3-9) – Holidays. What ancestor do the holidays put you in mind of? I did pick my 2nd great grandfather Thomas Duke Harrison for Week 42 of this year's challenge but I don't really see any reason why I can't choose him again especially since his birthday fell on Christmas Day.  Plus I am running short on time in regards to getting caught up on these prompts before the New Year. It's 5:26 pm EST as of this writing so time is a ticking. (Smile) According to Thomas's death certificate he was born on Christmas Day. The year he was born was most likely around 1856 based on what was listed on an early marriage record for him.  I've featured my 2nd great grandfather quite often on this blog. ...

Amy Johnson Crow, the author of the blog No Story Too Small, is the host of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt series. If you are not familiar with the project please click on the following link:    Announcing 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition. Oh boy, I am really in for it now. I have 4 weeks worth of prompts to catch up with by the end of tomorrow. Can I do it? We'll see.  Week 48 (November 26-December 2) – Thankful. November 26 is Thanksgiving in the U.S. Interpret the “thankful” theme however you’d like. Now you're probably wondering what this thing is I created. It's a word cloud that I made for free on the website  WordClouds.com . This was my first time making one of these and I think it came out not too shabby.  So what does this have to do with the theme "thankful?"  The places that I've listed here are some of the places my ancestors came from. These were the places they called home. Finding where my ancestors lived and ...

Image courtesy of the book, Craven County  by Lynn Salsi and Frances Eubanks Dave Sampson is on the left. Amy Johnson Crow, the author of the blog No Story Too Small, is the host of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt series. If you are not familiar with the project please click on the following link:   Announcing 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition. Week 47 (November 19-25) – Sporting. Do you have a relative who was involved in sports? This theme was a bit challenging for me. I had to think outside the box of typical sports to find an ancestor that fit this topic. Then I remembered that hunting is often considered a sport and so I decided to go in that direction with this week's prompt. My 2nd great grand uncle David Sampson was an excellent cook. He was the chef at Camp Bryan a hunting campground found in Craven County, NC.  He was not only a chef but quite the hunter as well.   In my post,  Thankful Thursday: Thankful For Ano...

Image courtesy of  Freshwater and Marine Image Bank at the University of Washington. Menhaden fishermen lifting a purse-seine net. Amy Johnson Crow, the author of the blog No Story Too Small, is the host of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt series. If you are not familiar with the project please click on the following link:   Announcing 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition. Willis Harvey Jones Sr. was a menhaden fisherman. He was also my 1st cousin 3x removed on my maternal line. Here's how he's connected to me.  Willis was born on February 6, 1890 in Morehead City, NC. He was one of 9 children born to William Henry Jones and Emma Shepard Jones. Three of his siblings worked in the medical field. Willis and his brother George were the fishermen. You can learn about how important the menhaden fishing industry was to Carteret County, NC in this article that was published in Our State magazine. Here's the link:   The Fish That B...

Amy Johnson Crow, the author of the blog No Story Too Small, is the host of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt series. If you are not familiar with the project please click on the following link:    Announcing 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition. Week 44 (October 29 – November 4) – Frightening: Do you have an ancestor who did something frightening or lived through a scary event? Do you have your own ghost story in the family? Now is the perfect time to share! Can you imagine being 4 years old, the eldest of five children and your home and entire neighborhood caught fire. There's nothing left when it is all said and done. Just rubble, ash, chimneys reaching up toward a cold December sky. Feeling lost, lonely, confused and probably heartache for losing all that was familiar to you. That 4 year old happened to be my grand uncle John Thomas Harrison Jr. The Great Fire of New Bern took place on December 1, 1922. To learn more about what occurred that fateful d...

Amy Johnson Crow, the author of the blog No Story Too Small, is the host of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt series. If you are not familiar with the project please click on the following link:   Announcing 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition. Week 43 (October 22-28) – Oops. An ancestor who made an “oops,” or one that you made while researching one of them. (We’ve all done it, believe me!) My first oops here is that I am a tad behind on these prompts. (Sigh) Well, I'll get caught up when I get caught up.  The second oops is that I thought I had already written a blog post about my 2nd great grand uncle, Charles H Whitney. I've written about his siblings, Augustus and Samuel. Samuel Whitney was my 2nd great grandfather. You can read about him and his brother Augustus in these posts: 52 Ancestors: #15 Samuel Whitney --Who Or What What Were You Driving Around? Juneteenth Junction: Paying Tribute To Augustus Whitney But what about Charles H Whitney? W...