How Did I Get Here? My Amazing Genealogy Journey

Prompt for Week 1 "Start." Some ideas include starting with yourself or whoever the "home person" is on one of your family trees. Maybe you focus on the person who got you started in genealogy or the ancestor you wanted to find first. You could talk about a relative who started a business.  I know I've already written about her many times on this blog. It just seemed fitting to start this year's 52 Ancestor Challenge with my maternal great grandmother Ophelia Jones Bryant. After all, she's who my genealogy journey began with. You can learn about Ophelia in these posts 52 Ancestors --2015 Edition: #7 My Inspiration--Ophelia Jones Bryant  Great Grandma Ophelia Went To Summer School  This Came Monday And Of Course Now I Have More Questions  Fearless Females Blog Post: Genealogy Trading Card For Ophelia Jones Bryant  I didn't want to just rewrite statistics about Ophelia for this post. I wanted to include something new t...

Wow! Has it been a year already since the last Genealogy Blog Potluck Picnic?! Time flies. Last year, Elizabeth O'Neal of My Descendants Ancestors blog hosted the first potluck picnic on her blog. If you missed it, click here .  This year she is back again as our wonderful host to the festivities. It's not too late to join in. You can check out the details for this year's event here .  When you are invited to a potluck event, you are asked to bring a dish. A Genealogy Blog Potluck Picnic is no different. The theme put forth by Elizabeth O'Neal is this: Q: TELL US HOW YOU DID IT. This is a broad topic that can cover just about anything genealogy-related. The only requirement is that you explain how you did it. Well what I'm bringing to this year's potluck is this. How I created an on-line tree to test a theory I had.  My theory involved a man by the name of Carolina Jones. He's someone who I stumbled across while doing research on my 2nd gre...

My bad! I almost completely forgot about the Genealogy Blog Party going on over at Elizabeth O'Neal's blog Little Bytes of Life . Elizabeth put forth the theme of sharing the strangest thing you've come across while doing genealogy research. Well, this was mine. A cousin of mine was kind enough a few years back to share several pictures of folks from my Jones family line, including this one. This picture isn't in the best condition but you can still make out that it is a medical student performing an autopsy of some sort. It is a picture of my 1st cousin 3x removed William Thomas Jones.  He was born in 1886 in Morehead City, NC to William Henry Jones and Emma Shepard Jones. He was a promising young medical student in this photo. His life was tragically cut short by influenza in 1918.   Even though the subject matter is a bit strange, I am still glad that I have this picture. Pictures help to strengthen our connection to those who lived before us. 

The folks in the genealogy community are some of the kindest most curious people you'll ever meet. They are problem solvers. They think outside of the box and they like to share what they know. People who carry these traits want you to be able to find your people. They find joy in it.  I would like to thank two members of genealogy community who helped me recently. As a result, I think I found my 3rd great grandfather Cesar Jones listed in a probate record for a William Jones (born about 1764 -- died July 9, 1838) of Onslow County NC. This William Jones just so happened to be the father of Allen B Jones who I wrote about in my post,  Digging in The Dirt --Part Three: Did Allen B. Jones Own My 3rd Great Grandfather, Cesar Jones? My first thank you goes out to David French of the Family History Society of Eastern North Carolina . Part Three of this series I published on August 2nd and David read my post on August 4th. He sent me an email that night, mentioning he had jus...

Me and Mr. Allen B. Jones might have a thing going on. Well at least that's what I'm speculating here. Sorry it's been a while folks. I hated leaving off in the middle of a series but I was in need of a break. I'm feeling refreshed now so it's time to dive back into things.  If you missed the first two parts of this series here are the links:; Digging in the Dirt -- Part One: Names And A Place Digging In the Dirt -- Part Two: Who Was Jonathan Hawkins? For those of you who are new to my blog, here's a quick summary of my Jones family line. My Joneses were originally from Swansboro, Onslow County, NC and then later settled in Morehead City, NC sometime around the Civil War. My 3rd great grandparents Cesar Jones and Mary Hawkins Mitchel Jones and their children were slaves prior to the start of the war. Based on information found in their son Carolina Hawkins's Civil Pension file , it appears that Carolina was owned by someone with the surnam...

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.  By Bjørn Christian Tørrissen [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],  via Wikimedia Commons I have a tendency to let my mind wonder while I am on vacation. Sometimes I wonder through my thoughts. Other times I wonder through records. When I do, I tend to do searches using a family surname and a particular birth place. Sometimes, I am lucky and find something new. Other times something I had previously overlooked is brought to my attention. It turns out I had overlooked something about my 1st cousin 3x removed George Jones. He was a war hero. George Jones was a cousin of mine from my maternal line. Here's how he's connected to me.  The other night I was doing some wondering through records using the search terms of "Jones" and "Morehead City" on Ancestry.com and came across numerous entries.  Of course, I came across many familiar names since Morehead City is one of my ancestral homepl...

Did you hear about the Genealogy Blog Party going on over at Elizabeth O'Neal's  Little Bytes of Life  blog. If you haven't, click here for more information.  Theme: What was your Genealogy "Duh Moment," and how did you solve it? For this month's Genealogy Blog Party, tell us about a mistake you've made in your genealogy research, how you discovered it, and ultimately, how you solved it.  I have to be honest with you. I have had so many "Duh" moments that I would be probably writing for days if I were to provide all the details. For this post, I am going to focus on just one.  This "Duh" moment involves an ancestor that I recently identified as a maternal 2nd great grand uncle. His name was Carolina Hauckins. I have been sharing how I discovered him and what I know so far of his life in theses posts: His name was Carolina Hauckins -- Part One His Name Was Carolina Hauckins --Part Two His Name Was Carolina Hauckins --...

If you missed Parts One and Two, please click on the following links:   His name was Carolina Hauckins -- Part One His Name Was Carolina Hauckins --Part Two So you know how you read something and then all of a sudden a whole new world is potentially opened up for you. Well, that's what happened when I read these words. "My father was a slave and I took the name of my master --name Hauckins."  These words I found in my 2nd great grand uncle Carolina Hauckins's Civil War Pension file. Pension files are such wonderful records to find. They can provide details sometimes that you just can't find anywhere else. Finding out that Carolina Hauckins's master was someone with the surname Hauckins gives me an avenue to continue my research. I may have unlocked a door to finding out the names of other kin who were owned by the same man. Before I came to the page that had the words I highlighted at the beginning of this post, I came across this. Now ...

If you missed Part One, here's the link:   His name was Carolina Hauckins -- Part One Well, as I continued to review through Carolina Hauckins's Civil War pension file it became evident that this man was indeed my 2nd great grand uncle. I mentioned in my last post that the pension information for Carolina's widow was mixed up with his own pension paperwork. I was too eager to find out if this was my dude so I decided to organize the paperwork at a later time. These affidavits were part of Agnes Hauckins's paperwork for her pension. Affidavit provided by Wm H Jones and Oliver Jones Affidavit provided by Elizabeth Jones The Jones siblings provided testimony that Carolina Hauckins was their brother and that Agnes Hauckins was his wife. In addition to that I now had marriage date for the couple, May 5, 1881! But why did Carolina go by the surname Hauckins when the rest of the family went by the surname Jones?  To be continued...

My last post was one that I had started a few weeks ago, but just got around to finishing last week. In it I mentioned how I came across a man named Carline Hauckins when I did a review on what I knew about my 3rd great grandfather Cesar Jones. If you missed that post click here .   I ordered Carline's Civil War Pension file to see if in fact we were related.  I wasn't going to rely on just what was on Carline's  death certificate. Yes, it did list a Cesar Jones and Mary Jones of Morehead City, NC as his parents. Were these my Cesar and Mary? Well, Christmas came early this year because guess what came in the mail. You guessed it, the pension file. Did I get answers? Yes. Will I share them? Yes. First, I have to clear one thing up in particular. His name was Carolina Hauckins. Previously, I referred to him as Carline and that was incorrect. So from this point on, Carolina is how I will refer to him. Here's a look at how Carolina's potentially connected to ...

Carline, are you mine? That's a questions I've been toying around with lately. Wait. Hold on a minute? Who is Carline?  Carline Hawkins may just happen to be another son of my maternal 3rd great grandparents Cesar Jones and Mary H Mitchel of Morehead City, NC. If you missed my posts about Cesar and Mary, here are the links so that you can get acquainted with them.  52 Ancestors: Week #6 --Cesar Jones 52 Ancestors: Week #7 --Mary H Mitchel Jones Amanuensis Monday: The Will Of Mary Mitchel Jones A couple a years ago, I came across an entry in Ancestry.com's North Carolina, Marriages 1741-2011 database that I thought might have been for my 3rd great grandparents.  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. ...