52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Independence

This post is part of Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks for 2018. The prompt for the week of July 2, 2018, is Independence.

I thought I’d write about one of my Revolutionary War ancestors, my maternal 5th great grandfather George Wyche, to learn his role in the war. 

According to an approved Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) application submitted by one of my Pendleton/Young cousins (digital copy on ancestry.com), George Wyche was “one of 45 deputies assembled in Provincial Congress at Savannah, Jan. 18, 1775.” George was elected as a field officer of the Lower Battalion for Richmond County and Augusta District. He was a Colonel, and his commission was dated June 15, 1779. 

The SAR application notes that two months later, on August 14, 1779, the Lower Battalion was ordered to join Col. Few and “proceed to the Western frontier (where George Wyche was placed in command).” I looked up Col. Few online to see if I could find what George may have participated. There were two Few brothers in the Revolution, Benjamin and William. According to the Georgia Encyclopedia, Col. William Few fought in the Battle of Burke County Jail, but that battle took place on January 26, 1779, several months before George joined "Col. Few." Benjamin Few commanded the Richmond County regiment. I don't know what Benjamin's rank was in the regiment, but perhaps higher than a colonel? 

The SAR application also says: “The name of George Wyche, officer of Richmond Co. appears on the roll of honor among a list of 42 leading men of Georgia, after the capture of Savannah.” The British had overrun Savannah in December 1778. Colonial forces fought to retake the city from September to December 1779 but failed. I wonder if George fought in this battle. The British held onto to Savannah until 1782 just before the war ended.

I wasn’t able to find any records of George’s service on fold3.com. There may not be any original records left, and I know not everything has been digitized.

I usually go more in depth than this when figuring out an ancestor's role in a war, but I will have to leave this research about George for another day.

Catherine

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - The Old Homestead

This post is part of Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks for 2018. The prompt for the week of March 26, 2018, is The Old Homestead. I thought I’d write about the old plantation for this topic instead, because I’ve always wondered about the exact location of the land that belonged to my maternal 2nd great grandfather Remer Young, and I received some photos of some of  the people Remer owned before the Civil War.

Remer Young owned a plantation in north Lowndes County Georgia in an area called Mineola. According to a post on findagrave.com about the "Old Young Plantation" (author unknown), a portion of the land was originally part of the estate of Francis Rountree. In 1841, Michael Brady Jones bought Lots 36, 56, 82, and 83 in Land District 12 from Rountree’s estate. The following year, in 1842, Jones sold the land to Matthew Young. Young sold these lots plus two others (Lots 36, 56, 57, 81, 82, and 83) to Remer Young in 1857 (see the map below). By 1860, Remer had acquired more land, totaling 6,000 acres: Lots 36, 37, 56, 57, 81, 82, 83, 102, 103, 128, 129, and 149 (see map below). 

I don't have a citation for this map. I saw it at the South Georgia Regional Library in Valdosta laid out on a table in the genealogy room. There's no information on the map or date. I've marked the Remer Young property: yellow for the lots he bought in 1857, red for what he owned as of 1860.

The land includes a slave cemetery, noted in Church and Family Cemeteries in Lowndes County, Georgia 1825-2005 Part 2 as “Northwest of Valdosta: Approximately 1/2 mile northeast of junction of N. Valdosta Road and I-75, on what was formerly the ‘Young Plantation.’ No Markers.” The findagrave posting adds that the cemetery is about 300 yards northeast of the intersection of N. Valdosta Road and I-75 in a stand of trees, but sometime in the 2000s, the trees were cut down and a subdivision established. I wonder what happened to the cemetery?

The 1860 U.S. Slave Schedule for Lowndes County, Georgia, Districts 663 and 1200 (ancestry.com), shows that Remer Young had a total of 88 slaves in 17 “slave houses.” That's about five people per small cabin. The oldest person was 56 years old and the youngest was only two months.

In the winter of 1904 to 1905, my 2nd great aunt, Lawson Young Pendleton, came down to Valdosta from Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, to visit relatives in the Valdosta/Lowndes County area, including her sister Catherine Young Roberts (my maternal great grandmother). (Lawson and Catherine are two of Remer Young’s and Mary Wyche’s children.) Lawson brought three of her daughters, Amena, Constance, and Freda Pendleton. 

The day after Christmas in 1904, Freda and Constance visited the Young plantation in Mineola with their uncle John Young, who owned the property at the time. In Confederate Memoirs, Constance Pendleton (1958) describes the visit to Mineola:

The family house was gone, and the place was not being cultivated, but timber was being cut, and there was a sawmill, a small group of houses, and a commissary or store near the railroad station. The overseer’s old house was a little distance away, and the site of the family house at least a mile beyond…A number of old family servants [slaves], too old to work, were living on the place in small houses here and there, and were permitted to draw rations from the commissary, free of charge.

Constance and Freda met several of the people who had been owned by their grandfather, Remer Young: Judy, Easter Johnson, Mose (former foreman of the plantation), Emily Johnson (former dairy maid), William (Wilts) Johnson (Remer’s former body servant), and Nancy (who ran off to the circus after the Civil War but returned). 

Near the end of 2016, my Pendleton/Young cousins from Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, Erik Odhner and Alan Pendleton, began the laborious task of scanning old family photographs. These included some of the former Young plantation slaves taken during the 1904/1905 trip to Valdosta: 

Judy

Easter Johnson

Mose, Emily Johnson, and William (Wilts) Johnson

"Mineola hands" (former slaves)

I'm grateful to my Bryn Athyn Pendleton/Young cousins Erik and Alan for scanning and sharing these photographs (among others) and to Constance for writing about her visit to the former Young plantation. As much as I love maps, seeing photographs and reading written accounts bring the past to life, however painful. 

Catherine

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References:

Clifton, Geraldine McLeod and Dorothy Peterson Neisen, Church and Family Cemeteries in Lowndes County, Georgia 1825-2005 Part 2. Reprinted 2007 by Genealogy Unlimited Society, Inc., Valdosta, Georgia. 


Constance Pendleton, ed., Confederate Memoirs: Early Life and Family History, William Frederic Pendleton and Mary Lawson Young Pendleton. (Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1958)

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Strong Woman

This post is part of Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks for 2018. The prompt for the week of March 5, 2018, is Strong Woman.

For every female ancestor I considered for this prompt, Strong Woman, I discovered I’d already written about her in previous posts, so I had a hard time coming up with someone unless I went even further back in the generations. And the further back I go, the less information I have and the harder the women are to research. 

Any of my female ancestors who survived long enough to give birth to a healthy child who became my ancestor was a strong woman indeed. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. In fact, any woman who survives to adulthood is a Strong Woman, whether she leaves behind children or not. 

So as I perused my family tree and looked up a few ladies, I settled on my maternal 6th great grandmother, Amy Goodwyn/Goodwin, for no other reason than I haven’t written about her before nor have I done any research. As soon as I began researching, I found that she’d been married twice and had children by each husband.

I don’t know if the dates of birth and death that I have for Amy are correct. I don’t even remember where I got them, probably from someone’s family tree on ancestry.com before I knew better than to just copy trees. She may have been born on August 31, 1732. A findagrave memorial says she married my 6th great grandfather, Thomas Mitchell, in 1747 and they had seven children: John, Henry, Thomas Goodwin (my 5th great grandfather), Tabitha, Winifred, James, and Richard. Amy’s first husband, Thomas, died about 1762 or maybe before, as she married her second husband, John Raines, that same year, on October 5, 1762. After marrying John, she gave birth to four more children: Thomas, Robert, Cadwallader, and Amy. 

Amy died February 14, 1773, in Sussex County, Virginia. 

Here’s my descent from Amy:

Amy Goodwyn/Goodwin and Thomas Mitchell (my 6th great grandparents)
Thomas Goodwin Mitchell and Ann Raines (my 5th great grandparents)
Susannah Mitchell and Littleton Wyche (my 4th great grandparents)
Thomas Clark Wyche and Catharine MacIntyre (my 3rd great grandparents)
Mary Barry Wyche and Remer Young (my 2nd great grandparents)
Catherine Young and John T. Roberts (my great grandparents)
Leona Roberts and William Redles (my grandparents)
Leona Redles and Albert Pendleton (my parents)

I also didn't find much online about Amy's first husband Thomas. Maybe one day I'll get back to this research.

Catherine

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - #42 Catherine Young

It dawned on me the other day that I've been remiss in writing about my maternal great grandmother Catherine (Kate) Margaret Young. I've mentioned her a few times, so I guess that made me think I'd written about her before.

Kate was born on January 25, 1855, to Remer Young and Mary Barry Wyche in Thomas County, Georgia. Her siblings were Thomas Wyche (1846-1870), Susannah Elizabeth (1848-1929), Henry Michael (1850-1914), Mary Lawson (1851-1938), Sarah Hannah (1853-1936), and John Remer (1856-1905).

Remer's uncle gave him a plantation in Mineola, Lowndes County, Georgia, (now a residential and business section in north Valdosta), so the family moved there. Kate was six years old when her mother Mary died. After Mary's death, Remer sent Kate and her siblings to live with their maternal grandparents Catharine MacIntyre and Thomas Clarke Wyche in Thomas County. The children stayed with them until their father remarried to Sarah Frances Goldwire in 1865. The children returned to the plantation in Mineola.[1] Kate's half siblings were James King (1866-1926), Mitchell Jones (1868-1870), Burton (1873-1884), Coma (1876-?), and America Remer (1884-1974).

The children of Remer Young and Mary Barry Wyche, April 4, 1888.
Back row: Hannah, Kate, and John Remer. Front row: Susannah, Henry, and Lawson

Kate married John Taylor Roberts on October 25, 1883, in Lowndes County.

Marriage record for John Taylor Roberts and Catherine (Kate) Margaret Young (from Georgia's Virtual Vault, Marriage Records from Microfilm, Lowndes County Marriage Book 1870-1890, page 73) 

An article in The Valdosta Times dated October 27, 1883, says they were married at 7:30 in the morning of October 25. Then the couple boarded the 10:00 a.m. train to attend the Louisville Exposition. From there they were probably going to visit Kate's sister in Chicago.[2] (This sister was Lawson Young who was married to my paternal great, great uncle William Frederic Pendleton. They lived in Chicago for a few years.)

The young couple first lived at 412 East Hill Avenue in Valdosta where possibly the first six of their nine children were born: William Leland (1884-1864), Kathleen Wyche (1886-1980), Maie Dell (1887-1976), John Young (1890-1953), Stella (1891-1968), Margaret (1893-1986), Leona (1895-1955, my grandmother), Edwina (1897-1969), Mary Remer (1900-1990).

412 East Hill Avenue, Valdosta, Georgia.
The fist house of Catherine Young and John Taylor Roberts.

John and Kate moved their large and growing family to their new home at 206 Wells Street after the property was deeded to John in 1894. This house is known in my family as "the Big House," but it is also known as the J. T. Roberts House or the Wisenbaker-Wells-Roberts House. The original part of the house was built in 1845 by William Wisenbaker. It's part of the Fairview Historic District.

The J. T. Roberts house at 206 Wells Street, Valdosta, Georgia. I took this photo in 2008.
It's now owned by the Valdosta Heritage Foundation. 

This house was continuously occupied by the Roberts family for nearly 100 years. My mother Leona and her sister Catherine also grew up here.

Education was very important in the Roberts household. All of the children went to college (except for Edwina), but not all of them graduated. Kate was the glue that held the family together. Her children knew they could always come back home. She would stretch out on the living room floor for a 15 minute nap and then be off and running again. She never knew how many people would show up for dinner because of the large size of the family, which included grandchildren and cousins. [3]

Catherine (Young) Roberts

John died on January 19, 1920, and Kate died nine years later on June 24, 1929. Both are buried in Sunset Hill Cemetery in Valdosta.

The grave of Catherine (Kate) Young Roberts, June 1929, Sunset Hill Cemetery, Valdosta, Georgia

Catherine

This post is part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by genealogist Amy Crow at No Story Too Small.

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[1] Constance Pendleton, ed., Confederate Memoirs: Early Life and Family History, William Frederic Pendleton and Mary Lawson Young Pendleton. (Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1958), 153-155, 160.

[2] Wayne and Judy Dasher. Wiregrass Weddings and Births, Volume 1, The Valdosta Times - April 10, 1875 to December 30, 1893; Berrien County Pioneer October 19, 1888 to March 20, 1891; The Tifton Gazette April 17, 1891 to December 22, 1893. Privately published, 2000. Repository South Georgia Regional Library, Valdosta, Georgia.

[3] Catherine Redles, interview by Catherine Pendleton, Valdosta, Georgia, 2 November 1997; Albert S. Pendleton, Jr., "The John T. Roberts Family," Lowndes County Historical Society Newsletter, V, no. 1:2-3, 1975.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - #28 Catharine Barry MacIntyre

Born January 11, 1809, in Twiggs County, Georgia, Catharine Barry MacIntyre was my maternal 3rd great grandmother. She was one of the six children of Archibald MacIntyre and Hannah Lawson which included Daniel, Hannah, Jane, John L., and Archibald T. (1822-1900). (I only have birth and death dates for Catharine and Archibald.) In Confederate Memoirs, Catharine's middle name is written as Moore.[1]

Twiggs County, Georgia, as of 1807 (map from randymajors.com)

Catharine married Thomas Clarke Wyche on March 5, 1826.[2] They may have been married in Thomas County, Georgia. I haven't found a marriage record for them, but their first child Mary Barry Wyche (my 2nd great grandmother) was born the following year, on March 27, 1827, in Thomas County. Besides Mary, their children were Martha Susan (1829-1864), Elizabeth Hannah (1832-1858), George Archibald (1833-1934), Catherine Caroline (1836-1929), Thomas Lawson (1838-1844), and Alice Maud (1839-1890).

Thomas County, Georgia, as of 1825 (map from randymajors.com)

Catharine and Thomas had a plantation in Thomas County called Mill Pond Plantation. The 1860 slave schedule has 44 people listed as being held as their slaves. The oldest slave was 62; the youngest slave was two months old.[3] On their plantation, they grew "every kind of plant and tree which would grow in that climate and soil." They grew flax and mulberry trees and raised silkworms. Their slaves wove linen and spun silk.[4]

Catharine died on December 27, 1864, and Thomas died six years later on July 5, 1970. Both are buried in the family cemetery on Mill Pond Plantation.

Catherine

This post is part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by genealogist Amy Crow at No Story Too Small.

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[1] Constance Pendleton, ed., Confederate Memoirs: Early Life and Family History, William Frederic Pendleton and Mary Lawson Young Pendleton. (Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1958), 155.

[2] Ancestry.com. Georgia Bible Records. Transcription of the Thomas C. Wyche family bible, page 282. Marriage date for Thomas Clarke Wyche and Catharine Barry MacIntyre.

[3] Ancestry.com. 1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedule for T. C. Wyche.

[4] See Footnote 1 above.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - #13 Mary Barry Wyche

Mary Barry Wyche was my maternal second great grandmother. She was born on March 27,1827, in Thomas County, Georgia, to Thomas Clarke Wyche and Catherine Barry MacIntyre. Mary's siblings were Martha Susan (1829-1864), Elizabeth Hannah (1832-1858), George Archibald (1833-1934), Catherine Caroline (1836-1929), Thomas Lawson (1838-1844), and Alice Maud (1840-?).

Mary's paternal grandmother was Susannah Mitchell, about whom I wrote in a previous 52 Ancestors post. I mentioned Mary's mother Catherine MacIntyre and Mary's daughter Catherine Young (my great grandmother) in a Fearless Females post about my namesakes during Women's History Month in March 2013.

Mary married Remer Young on May 7, 1846, in Thomas County, and she gave birth to seven children: Thomas Wyche (1847-1870), Susannah (Susan) Elizabeth (1848-1929), Henry Michael (1850-1914), Mary Lawson (1851-1938), Sarah Hannah (1853-1936), Catherine Margaret (1855-1929, my great grandmother), and John Remer (1856-1905).

Marriage record for Mary Wyche and Remer Young, Thomas County Marriage License Book 1835-1865, p. 140, 7 May 1846; digital images, Georgia's Virtual Vault, Marriage Records from Microfilm (http://cdm.sos.state.ga.us:8888/cdm4/countyfilm.php : accessed 5 April 2014).

Mary's husband Remer ran his uncle's (also named Remer Young) plantation in Thomas County. The uncle gave Remer a plantation in Lowndes County at Mineola, which was outside of Valdosta at the time. Now it's a residential and business area in north Valdosta.

Mary was only 34 years old when she died on May 14, 1861. She's buried in the Wyche family cemetery on Mill Pond Plantation in Thomas County beside her son Thomas. After Mary's death, Remer sent their children to his in-laws' plantation in Thomas County for four years. When he remarried in 1865 to Sarah Frances Goldwire, he brought the children back to Mineola.

I found the photograph below in my mom's collection. At first I believed it was Mary Barry Wyche because of what my grandmother Leona Roberts wrote on the back:

Is this Mary Barry Wyche or Sarah Frances Goldwire? See below.

The back of the above photograph:

"Grand Mother Young
Mother of
Kate Young"

If the woman in the photograph is the mother of Kate (Catherine) Young, then this is Mary Wyche. However, if this is Mary Wyche, none of her children look like her, in my opinion. Could this be Remer's second wife Sarah Frances Goldwire instead? Below is a photograph of Mary's children still living at the time it was taken.

Front row: Susan, Henry Michael, Mary Lawson. Back row: Hannah, Catherine, John Remer

Sarah Frances Goldwire died in 1907 when my grandmother Leona was 12 years old, so she would have known Sarah Frances and probably thought of her as her grandmother.

I have yet to visit Mary's grave. The family cemetery is on private land, and I would need to get permission. One of these days, I'll make arrangements to go there.

Catherine

This post is part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by genealogist Amy Crow at No Story Too Small.



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Some of the above information came from: Constance Pendleton, ed., Confederate Memoirs: Early Life and Family History, William Frederic Pendleton and Mary Lawson Young Pendleton. (Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1958), 153-155, 160.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - #7 Ann Raines

My maternal 5th great grandmother Ann Raines was born on September 3, 1762, in Sussex County, Virginia, to Nathaniel Raines and Susannah Parham. Nathaniel was a Revolutionary War soldier in Virginia. Ann married Thomas Goodwin Mitchell, who also fought in the Revolution. Ann and Thomas had 11 or 12 children. As I noted in my post about their daughter Susannah (my 4th great grandmother), besides Susannah, according to Huxford, their children were Amy Goodwin, Hartwell, Nathaniel Raines, Richard, Thomas G., Tobitha, Nancy Green, Taylor, John, and Robert.[1] I have Edward listed as a child of theirs in my tree but I don't have Tobitha listed as a daughter. While researching for this post, I found a genealogy website about the Raines family that notes "Tabitha" died in infancy. Edward is listed as a child and died in Jasper County, Georgia, in 1824, but Robert isn't listed as a child of theirs. See Descendants of William Raines http://zdraines.homestead.com/files/w_raines.htm. Looking at this website, I see many connections between the Raines family and several of my surnames: Goodwin/Goodwyn, Wyche, and Mitchell. Apparently these relationships go way back.

Ann and Thomas moved to Hancock County Georgia after the Revolutionary War and then moved to the portion of Montgomery County that was later included in Telfair County. Thomas may be the Thomas Mitchell in the 1806 Montgomery County, Georgia, tax digest below. It notes "Do [ditto Montgomery], Hancock" next to his name. Below his name is a Thomas Raines who may have been a relative or sibling of Ann's. Listed above Thomas Mitchell is Edward Blackshear who may be the same person who married their daughter Amy.[2]

1806 Montgomery County tax digest for Thomas Mitchell (click on image for a larger view)

In 1825, Ann and Thomas moved to "newly formed" Thomas County, Georgia, where Thomas died the following year. Ann died there in 1830.[3]

Catherine

This post is part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by genealogist Amy Crow at No Story Too Small.

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[1] Folks Huxford. Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia. Vol. 1. Cooper Press, Jacksonville, Florida, 1966, 184-185.

[2] Ancestry.com Georgia Property Tax Digests 1793-1892. Militia District Number 51. Citing Georgia Tax Digest [1890]. 140 volumes. Morrow, Georgia: Georgia Archives.

[3] See footnote 1.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - #6 Susannah Mitchell

My maternal 4th great grandmother, Susannah Mitchell was born September 20, 1780, in Sussex County, Virginia, to Thomas Goodwin Mitchell and Ann Raines. She was the oldest of 11 or 12 children. Her siblings were Amy Goodwin, Hartwell, Nathaniel Raines, Richard, Thomas G., Tobitha, Nancy Green, Taylor, John, and Robert.[1] I have a brother named Edward in my tree but I don't have Tobitha listed as a sister.

Susannah married Littleton Wyche on May 2, 1798, in Richmond County, Georgia.[2] She gave birth to daughter Nancy in 1799, and by the birth of their second child Thomas Clarke in 1801 (my 3rd great grandfather), they were living in Montgomery County, Georgia, where the rest of their children were born: Rebecca Taylor, Martha Susannah, Maria, Elizabeth, Henry, Margaret Bryan, William, Patience, and Littleton.

By the 1830 census, Susannah and Littleton had moved their family to Thomas County, Georgia. Littleton died in 1834, and Susannah may have moved in with their son William. There's a female of the right age (about 60) living with William and his wife in the 1840 Thomas County census. Susannah is enumerated in the 1850 Thomas County census as living with son Thomas and his family.[3]

This is an 1863 Georgia-Alabama map that I've labeled with the counties to show the migration of Susannah Mitchell and Littleton Wyche from Richmond County, to Montgomery County, and finally to Thomas County Georgia (A. J. Johnson's map of Georgia and Alabama from http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/histcountymaps/ga1863map.htm)

1830 Thomas County, Georgia, census for Littleton Wyche (click on image for a larger view)

1840 Thomas County, Georgia, census for William Wyche (click on image for a larger view)

1850 Thomas County, Georgia, census for Thomas C. Wyche. Susannah is listed as living in his household (click on image for a larger view).

Susannah died when she was nearly 70 years old on July 29, 1850. According to her memorial on Findagrave.com, she and Littleton are buried in the Gatlin-Wyche home cemetery four miles east of Thomasville, Georgia.

Catherine

This post is part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by genealogist Amy Crow at No Story Too Small.

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[1] Folks Huxford. Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia. Vol. 1. Cooper Press, Jacksonville, Florida, 1966, 184-185.

[2] Ancestry.com. Georgia Marriages 1699-1944

[3] 1830 U.S. census, Thomas County, Georgia, population schedule, Not Stated, p. 17, Littleton Wyche, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 February 2014), citing NARA microfilm publication M19; 1840 U.S. census, Thomas County, Georgia, population schedule, Thomasville, p. 292, William Wyche, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 February 2014), citing NARA microfilm publication M704; 1850 census, Thomas County, Georgia, population schedule, District 81, p. 35B, dwelling 504, family 54, Thomas C. Wyche, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 February 2014), citing NARA microfilm publication M432.

Fearless Females March 3 - Namesake

Lisa Alzo of TheAccidental Genealogist is having the fourth annual "Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts" for the month of March to Celebrate Women's History Month. There is a topic for each day of the month of March to commemorate the "Fearless Females" in our families. The topic for March 3 is, in part, "Do you share the first name with one of your female ancestors? Perhaps you were named for your great-grandmother, or your name follows a particular naming pattern."

I was named after two Fearless Females in my family. I'm named Catherine after my mother's sister Catherine. My middle name is my mother's name Leona.  My first and middle names come from two separate lines on my maternal  side. I thought I'd see how far back I can trace these names.

Pretty Ladies - My mother Leona, my aunt Catherine, and my grandmother Leona. Probably taken in 1945 when my mother graduated from Ward Belmont, a junior college in Nashville, Tennessee.

Catherine

Aunt Catherine was named for her and my mother's maternal grandmother (my great grandmother) Catherine Margaret Young.  Catherine Young may have been named for her grandmother Catherine Barry MacIntyre. I'm not sure about the spelling. I've seen it spelled Catharine. Or it's possible that she was named for her mother's sister Catherine Caroline Wyche.  Maybe she was named for both. There is a Catherine Lawson who is the great aunt of Catherine MacIntyre and sister of my sixth great grandfather Roger Lawson.  She may be for whom Catherine MacIntyre was named. Here's where the trail ends for me in tracing my first name Catherine.

Leona

My mother Leona was named after her mother (my grandmother) Martha Leona Roberts. My grandmother Leona was named for her aunt Martha Leona Roberts, her father John Taylor Robert's sister. The trail ends here.  I don't have enough of these branches filled out on my tree to trace this name any further back.

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These names have continued for at least one more generation but in variations of the names. I named my daughter after my great aunt Kathleen Roberts, my grandmother Leona's sister. I was told that Kathleen was a derivative of their mother Catherine Young's name who was called Kate for short. My oldest brother named his daughter a shortened version of our mother's name (Lee) combined with her other grandmother's name.

I had a professor in college who decided he was going to call me Kate. He said "Catherine" was too long. I don't like being called a nickname, but I told him I'd allow it since that's what my great grandmother was called. To this day, he still calls me Kate. 

Catherine

Friend of Friends Friday—Alfred Dunlap, Successful Freedman

I came across this interesting newspaper article about Alfred Dunlap, a successful Freedman in Thomas County, Georgia, while I was researching Moses Waddell Linton, whose son John Linton is the son-in-law of my maternal 3rd great grandparents Thomas Clarke Wyche (1801-1870) and Catharine Barry MacIntyre (1809-1864).

Alfred Dunlap was a slave of Moses Waddell Linton who became a successful farmer after emancipation.  I found this article via the Georgia Historic Newspapers: South Georgia website. It’s from the 16 October 1886 Thomasville Times. [1]


Below is a transcription:

Alfred Dunlap, one of the most successful and trustworthy freedmen in the county, was the first man who ever ran a steam gin in Thomas county. He was then the property of the late Moses W. Linton, and the gin was put up on the old Linton plantation, now owned by the Messrs. McIntyre, in 1854. Alfred continued to run the gin till freedom, and since that time has been farming for himself. He now owns a good plantation of some five hundred acres, makes a plenty of everything, has a good credit, enjoys the esteem of his white friends and is gradually growing rich.

I found through searching the Georgia Historic Newspapers website for Thomas County, that Alfred’s wife was named Jennie and that he died sometime before August 1, 1900.[2] I found an “Alford” and Jennie Dunlap and their 11 children in the 1870 U.S. census for Boston, Thomas County, Georgia (see below).[3] His was a farmer, and he was born around 1814 in South Carolina. This is probably Alfred Dunlap.



Above is the 1870 U.S. Census Boston, Thomas County, Georgia,  for “Alford” and Jennie Dunlap. Click on image for a larger view. It’s hard to tell from this copy, but it looks like he had real estate worth over $400 and a personal estate worth $600 which is quite a bit more than what his neighbors had.

I wasn’t able to find the Dunlaps in the 1880 census or find out anything else about Alfred in the newspaper or on ancestry.com. Jennie died sometime before March 4, 1912.[4]

Catherine
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[1] Thomasville Times, 16 October 1886, p. 3. Article about Alfred Dunlap. Presented online by the Digital Library of Georgia. http://sgnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/sgnewspapers/search
[2] Thomasville Times, 18 August 1900, p. 2. Legal notice for Jennie Dunlap widow of Alfred Dunlap. Presented online by the Digital Library of Georgia. http://sgnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/sgnewspapers/search
[3] Ancestry.com. 1870 U.S. census for Militia district 754, Thomas County, Georgia; Roll M593_177; Page 83A.
[4] Daily Times Enterprise, 4 March 1912, p. 3. Ordinarys Court. Legal notice about the estate of Jennie Dunlap. Presented online by the Digital Library of Georgia. http://sgnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/sgnewspapers/search