How Did I Get Here? My Amazing Genealogy Journey

If you are not familiar with the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blog Prompt series created by Amy Johnson Crow, check out her website. Here's the link:   https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks/ The prompt this week is "Favorite Photo." Tell the story of the people, place, and event in a favorite photo. Where did the photo come from? Who has the original now? How did you get a copy of it? I have many family photos that I treasure. Who can pick just one? Well for this post I had to do just that. To tie this in with my post from week #1, I chose a picture of my maternal grandmother and her siblings. Years ago, I scanned a ton of pictures from my mother's collection. This was one of them.  Pictured from left to right:  Eloise, Loris, Ray, Mary, and Rosa If you missed Week #1's prompt, click here .  Ophelia Jones Bryant of Morehead City NC was my maternal great grandmother. She married my great grandfather Frank Bryant in 1911 and together th...

Yup. That was me yesterday forgetting my blogiversary. LOL We'll just have to celebrate a day late. It's been a beautiful journey so far. In these last six years, I've made cousin connections and learned so much about my own family history. I've had the pleasure of being part of a wonderful online community of fellow genealogists and family historians. Many thanks going out to all those who have helped me on my journey. I may not be posting as often as I used to but I will continue to post. I hope you will continue to stop by from time to time to see what I've discovered.  While you're here, let's celebrate with some cupcakes. Mmmh Yummy! My most popular post of the year was somewhat of a fluke. Many of you probably followed April the giraffe and the birth of her baby.  My Daughter's Field Trip: Animal Adventure --Harpursville, NY  was a post I shared back in June 2015. It featured pictures from my daughter's class trip to the pl...

In honor of National Women's History Month, I am going to try to do a couple of posts this month to honor fearless females in my family. Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog is hosting once again the Fearless Females Blogging Prompt Series. If you aren't familiar with these blog prompts, be sure to visit her blog for more information.  March 13 — Moment of Strength: share a story where a female ancestor showed courage or strength in a difficult situation. My maternal 2nd great grandmother Jonas Bryant was someone I would most definitely categorize as a fearless female. She was born March 15, 1867 in Morehead City NY to parents Henry Bryant and Caroline Ellison Bryant. She raised two children on her own and helped to raise her sister's son. She was a hard worker doing whatever was necessary to take care of her family. During her lifetime she worked as a clammer and as a maid.  According to Jonas's death cerificate her cause of death was breast cancer.  ...

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. 

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. ...

Images from the Annual catalog of the Negro Agricultural and  Technical College  of  North Carolina, Vol 13, No. 2 I had to take a break from researching my Sampson County, NC kin on my father's side. It was making my eyeballs hurt. So I did some Googling on my Morehead City folks and came up with something new. My maternal great grandma Ophelia T. Jones Bryant attended Summer school in 1921. The above entry was from a list of teachers who attended The A & T College Summer session in Greensboro, NC that year. Ophelia Bryant worked as a school teacher in Morehead City, NC. She was also a devoted wife and mother. It's interesting to note that my great grandma attended Summer school the year before her daughter/my grandmother Mary Bryant Harrison Horton was born. My great grandmother Ophelia and my grandmother Mary. You can read more about Ophelia Jones Bryant in these posts: Fearless Females Blog Post: Genealogy Trading Card For...

Mary Bryant Harrison Horton (July 22, 1922--August 7, 2001) I think this is the only picture I have of the inside of my aunt Eloise Bryant Grigsby's house when she lived in New York. Here's my maternal grandmother Mary seated at the piano. The love of the piano was inherited from her grandmother/my 2nd great grandmother Jonas Bryant who had a piano in her home. My grandmother's parents Ophelia Jones Bryant and Frank Bryant also had a piano in their home at 1400 Fisher St in Morehead City, NC.  Life has been rather busy as of late. Thought I should do a quick post to let y'all know I'm still around. 

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...