How Did I Get Here? My Amazing Genealogy Journey

At last, some genealogy right?!! LOL. I decided to jump back into things with an Amanuensis Monday post. I have to thank a fellow genealogy friend of mine who helped me out a couple of months ago, Nathaniel Glasgow. He brought to my attention a deed which documents the sale of about an acre land from a woman named Charity Ambrose  to the trustees of Mt. Olive AME Zion Church in Riverdale, NC. Guess who's listed among the trustees. My maternal 3rd great grandfather and his son, Mortimer and Alfred Mitchell.  State of North Carolina}      Craven County This deed made this 6th day of November in the year 1893 by Charity Ambrose of the first part of Craven County, and Mortimer Mitchell, Charles F. Hall, Anthony Dennis,  Edward Hooker, Killis Green, David Sampson, Phillis Borden, Ezekial Pastuer, and A. F. Mitchell of Craven County and State of North Carolina of the second part , Trustees of the Mt. Olive Church, African Methodist Episocpal Zion Ch...

If you are not familiar with the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt Series hosted by fellow blogger Amy Johnson Crow, please take a moment and check out the link here:  https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks/ Week 4 Prompt: This week is "Invite to Dinner." Which ancestor would you most want to invite to dinner? Do you have a story of a memorable dinner with an ancestor? Is there a special recipe that's been handed down?  I wish I could have met Annie and Effie Sampson, my maternal 1st cousins 3x removed. They were two self-sufficient ladies who lived their entire lives in the small community of Riverdale, NC. Their mother Mary Jane Mitchell Sampson was my 2nd great grandmother's Rosa Mitchell Jones' sister.  The land that they lived on was a portion of land once owned by my 3rd great grandfather Mortimer Mitchell.   Image courtesy of Google Maps. The land that the Sampsons lived on is marked in red. If I could have...

You have to love those light bulb moments that happen while your researching. You'll come across something that seems familiar. At first, you can't place where you've seen something before. Then...Bing! A bulb goes off in your head and you say to yourself, "I got it!" Well, that's what happened recently when I was reviewing through the deeds of some of my 3rd great grandfather's neighbors. I wrote about one of these neighbors in particular, Vine Allen Tolson, in a few different posts. Here are the links if you missed those posts: Mortimer Mitchell's Neighbor Vine Allen Tolson --Part One Mortimer Mitchell's Neighbor Vine Allen Tolson --Part Two  Mortimer Mitchell's Neighbor Vine Allen Tolson --Part Three  My 3rd great grandfather Mortimer Mitchell purchased land from the Vine Allen Tolson's half sister, Elizabeth Hardison Williams, in 1878. In that deed, a description of the land was provided. Deed information courtesy...

Back in 2012, I visited Mt Olive Cemetery in Riverdale, NC. It's the final resting place for many from my Mitchell and Sampson family lines. At the time of that visit, I hadn't figured out what became of my 2nd great grand aunt Margaret Mitchell. She was the sister of my 2nd great grandmother Rosa Mitchell Jones of Morehead City, NC. A couple a years after that trip I discovered that she had remarried after her first marriage to Alonzo Pelham ended in divorce. She wed William Thompson on Oct. 2, 1912 in Riverdale.  Image courtesy of Ancestry.com Source Information:  Ancestry.com. North Carolina, Marriage Records, 1741-2011 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: North Carolina County Registers of Deeds. Microfilm. Record Group 048. North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC. This was the last record I was able to locate for Maggie for the longest time. That is until a couple of months ago, when I started to do so...

If you missed Parts One and Two, here are the links: Mortimer Mitchell's Neighbor Vine Allen Tolson --Part One Mortimer Mitchell's Neighbor Vine Allen Tolson --Part Two Yeah, It's been like a month since I posted Part Two. I apologize for the delay. June quickly spun by. I had knee surgery at the beginning of the month which brought with it followup doctor's appointments and physical therapy. My kids finished school for the year and then we were quickly off to Cape Cod for a week of rest and relaxation. Then, I made a wonderful cousin connection thanks to the wonders of DNA. Next, the 4th of July was upon us.We had a little barbecue in our backyard. I've yet to post pictures from the day (Coming soon!) Lastly, I've spent a good chunk of time this month being Taxi Mom, shuttling my son to soccer camp and my daughter to gymnastics practice. Whoo! I'm pooped. No time for rest though. There's genealogy to do! In Part Two, I shared a newspaper art...

If you missed my last post, you'll want to start there. Here's the link:   Mortimer Mitchell's Neighbor Vine Allen Tolson --Part One Newbern Journal of Commerce,  23 Feb 1869, Tue,  Page 1 You can see from this newspaper post Vine Allen Tolson was not able to make payment on money owed to Alexander Mitchell and his son Thomas. This must have been an extremely stressful time for Tolson family. Vine's own words from the trust deed most accurately describe the dire circumstances he found himself in .  "if the said sale should take place I will be entirely delivered of the only means whereby I can reasonably expect to raise sufficient money where with to support my family and pay my debts" Did Vine Allen Tolson get his land back? That will be in my next post. 

Part of researching your ancestors involves researching their neighbors. I've been working on building family trees in the last couples of weeks for neighbors of my 3rd great Mortimer Mitchell. One of the reasons why I am doing this is to see if I can identify any families who originated from Martin County, NC. Martin County, NC is where I believe my 3rd great grandfather was born. Perhaps he migrated with one of these family lines to Craven County. The other reason why I've been researching my 3rd great grandfather's neighbors is to figure out what connection they might have had with a man named Alexander Mitchell of New Bern. For a long time now I've been working on the theory that Mortimer Mitchell was likely the slave of this wealthy landowner.  I began with  Mortimer Mitchell's neighbor Vine Allen Tolson. Images from the book "The Heritage of Craven County, North Carolina, Volume 1" Page 318 Barbara Maxine Howard Thorne Vine Allen Tol...

Mortimer Mitchel , Hezekiah Foster (col'd) wish to hire P G Evans plantation, have worked on these about 4 years.  These words I featured in my post  Amanuensis Monday: Mortimer Mitchell Mentioned In Freedmen's Bureau Land and Property Records . If you missed that post, you may want to read that one first before continuing.  Mortimer Mitchell was my 3rd great grandfather who was born around 1835 in Martin County, NC. According to the 1870 Federal Census, Mortimer resided in Township 6, Craven County, NC that particular year. According to the land record I shared in my prior post, Mortimer's land contract on 10 acres of cleared land began around March 1864. Four years prior to this, he was working on the P G Evans plantation. Could I figure out where this plantation was located?  Col. Peter Gustavas Evans Picture is from "Histories of the several regiments and battalions  from North Carolina, in the great war 1861-'65," Edited by Walter Cla...