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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

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28. Wordless Wednesday: Christopher Columbus

Statue of Christopher Columbus located on River Walk in downtown Columbia. by Robin Foster

Thursday, September 23, 2010

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27. Open Thread Thursday: Share information about resources that helped you

Old Bethel AME Church in downtown Columbia, SC by Robin Foster

Many people searching for clues about their ancestry are out on the internet searching for connections and resources.  When we share photos with captions and blog posts with descriptive titles, we are helping others to connect and locate helpful resources.

Our information is even more easily accessed with the new Google Real-time Search. 

When we share specific information about the historical collections we use and where we discovered them, visitors who are researching similar areas learn a lot when they follow us.  Old Bethel AME Church on the corner of Taylor and Sumter Streets in downtown Columbia is being rennovated and will reopen as a historical museum. I have been researching the history of Bethel and have discovered several resources that document my family and many others.

Some of the place are the South Caroliniana Library and  WorldCat.  On a visit to the library, I discovered old tithing records which document my ancestors and collateral lines.  I searched WorldCat and found other sources for Bethel such as this old 1923 church program:

Official program of the mid-winter session of the Bishops' Council of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, February 14, 1923

I went over to the online catalog for the South Carolinina Library Manuscript Division and found a link to the actual online version of the file:  

Official program of the mid-winter session of the Bishops' Council of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, February 14, 1923 . The 56 page program is a great piece of history and  because it includes biographical information and photos of several leaders at that time.

Cornerstone of Bethel AME by Robin Foster

Bethel was established in 1860, and the first site burned.  The 1923 program was published just after the new building was established with the help of the first registered African American architect, James Anderson Lankford (b. 1874)


 

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

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25. Tombstone Tuesday: Inez and Baby Johnson

Inez Rebecca Moore Johnson 1893-1930 and infant Andrew Johnson January 5, 1929
When I moved to South Carolina, I discovered this cemetery in Hodges on July 4th thanks to another cousin who showed the way.  That was our family's first brush with chiggers, but it was worth it.  I did not know who Inez Rebecca Johnson was at the time let alone the name of the infant buried alongside her.  I later discovered she was the wife of a cousin who descended from my maternal great grandparents, Andrew and Jane Smith Johnson. 

I could not find a death certificate for her in 1930 even though they first began to be recorded in South Carolina in 1915.  I knew many of my Johnson family members migrated to Asheville in the 1900's in search of work.  I searched for death certificates in Buncombe County, North Carolina and found two where I discovered Charles Johnson and Inez Rebecca Moore Johnson  had a twin child , Andrew Johnson.  So Andrew Johnson is the name of the infant buried with his mother.

Back then it would have taken much effort to bring them back to this unmarked cemetery, but this was where it all started for them, and other family members are buried here as well.

References:  North Carolina Death 1906-1930, Record Search : 


 Inez Johnson -April 9, 1930
                                                                                                      
 Andrew Johnson -January 5, 1929


Friday, September 17, 2010

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24. Friday Follow: Finding genspiration, what goes around comes around.

One of the greatest things that happen out on Twitter is that you are able to find people to connect with who become a great source of inspiration to you. From the moment I started following @SusanAnnBlakley, she has uplifted me with her tweets.  She also usually answers the question:  "What is happening?" where she has been keeping her followers up to date about the efforts she is putting forth to compile her family history.

Twitter helps us all in the genealogy community to satisfy two very strong desires:
1.  To find our own voice and to be heard.

2.  To help others and become a part of something bigger than ourselves.
There are so many great communities out there.  I follow some of the best people I know.  I am learning a lot.  I am stretching and drawing closer to others who are doing the same. It feels so good to make these connections and to be learning so much.  

Because of the way that I have been excepted and helped by those I follow, and because I have been given the opportunities to be of service too, I feel a strong desire to share on a bigger scale.  As everyone probably knows, African American research has been in the past ever so challenging.  I can remember that it was not so long ago that I thought it was impossible for me to even find my great great grandparents.  

I have been fortunate to have found access to some of the best resources like FamilySearch resources.  Now this industry leader and others are collaborating to make resources available to us that would have taken a great deal of time and a lot of money to access. These leaders are encouraging us to collaborate and share what we know on sites like FamilySearch Forums and FamilySearch Wiki.

I feel the strong need to reach out and help others who are just starting and have to follow the same trail of records to document their ancestors.  That is why I started the African American Resources webring where members can share and and ask for free help in locating resources.  The resources that we know about and discover will be added to FamilySearch Wiki where others can find access to historical documentation that will get them past those brick walls.  I hope they will be able to at least accomplish what I have been able to accomplish.  

Below is my traveling family history display that I use at family reunions and family history workshops.  I almost had forgotten how difficult it is when you do not know where to look for resources.  One of the African American participants at a recent workshop said, "You know, I had almost given up....until I saw this!"


My Southern Family Archive (Chick-Tucker, Johnson-Vance and extended families!)
  In this close knit group, we will also help each other keep up with the technology useful within the various communities and in showcasing our work on blogs and websites.  I began this post telling you about @SusanAnnBlakley and the great genspiration she has been to me.  Well, this week I was able to find out a little more about how awesome she is.  

She was the first person to register her blog at African American Resources.  I had not actually been to her site.  I am totally amazed by what she has been able to find and present.  I am so fortunate she has been able to see the vision of what we want to accomplish.  I am now following her blog, and I know she will be a source of great inspiration to many others.  

Just browsing her site makes me want to find a possible connection to my family :),  but all the surnames are different....so far.  
Click here  to visit. Don't forget to follow!




So there's the power of a #FF!  Finding and connecting with others increases our capacity to do good.  Thanks, Susan! 

If you know anyone who feels like giving up or wants to know how to get started blogging or twittering, please help them by sharing the following link:


Thursday, September 16, 2010

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23. Those Places Thursday: The Symbol of Learning for Me

This is a photo of my grade school in Joliet, Illinois which I attended from the first through the fifth grade.  It is a church now, but it used to be called St. Cyril and Methodius Roman Catholic School.


I did not attend kindergarten because I was over two years ahead of that age group.  I stayed one year ahead each year, attending class with those students one level above me.

I have many fond memories of classmates, teachers, and our principal. I my teachers were first and second generation immigrants from Slovakia, Croatia, and various parts of Central and South Eastern Europe.  I learned a great deal from them in my formative years, and they reinforced lessons learned at home.  We used both sides of paper, some of which was scrap paper from electrocardiograms donated by local doctor's offices.  We wore uniforms and were taught in all the  basic rudiments.  

I learned that self-discipline was the basis for all success and that my education and what I learned in life was my responsibility. Parents and teachers are to help, but I was to be responsible to make sure that what I learned was true and useful.  From the third grade on, I would go to the public library in search of the other resources that would broaden the scope of what I had been taught during the week.  I gained a love for learning, and I can identify many  principles and talents that became the foundation for my success in this stage of my life.

I can recall many memories of the days I spent in this building.  It is not the best  picture, but I am still prompted to pick up a good book or visit the local library when I see it.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

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21. Tuesday's Tip: Is your ancestor's name among church history?

Does your ancestor's church still meet? If so, try to find out how you may access the church's history to see what you may learn.  You may also be fortunate enough to


  • find members who can recall details about your ancestor
  • visit on a special occasion, such as a church homecoming when extending family come back to visit.
  • find connections to other ancestors or extended family
Emory Wallace Vance (1901-1973)
I searched for my grandfather, Emory Wallace Vance (1901-1973) on Google first, then I recalled the name of his church and was able to find a church history on Google  for Central Chapel AME in Yellow Springs, Ohio where he was mentioned as one of the first trustees of the church. 

This means that now I can contact the church to see if they have other records to share.  I am glad to be able to include this history because he was a very active member, and served in many ways.

He would take me there when I visited when I was very young.  The building was in walking distance of his house.  He was a quiet and gentleman who endured a great many trials throughout his life.  One of his favorite songs was "Peace in the Valley," written by Thomas Dorsey in 1937.    I was able to find it on YouTube.


Even though I was a very young child, I can remember when this song was sung at my dear Grandaddy's funeral at Central Chapel AME. It brought me great comfort. This rendition by Romance Watson below is the closest to what I remember: (It takes a moment to load)


Monday, September 13, 2010

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20. Amanuensis Monday: Sweet Aunt Cat

Catherine T. Harrison (1917-1999)




This is an oral history interview with Catherine T. Harrison, my great aunt, on February 12, 1996. Aunt Cat is the daughter of George Anderson Tucker and Daisy Chick Tucker. This is the first interview I had ever done. I was encouraged through a class I was taking at Chicago State University on African American genealogy by Tony Burroughs, a famous genealogist who recently appeared on the PBS Series African Ancestors' Lives.


Aunt Cat was very supportive and kept in touch always with family members. She was truly a family historian. From the information that she shared, I was able to eventually find the census records from 1870 to 1930 for the Chick-Tucker and Sims-Talley families.

 
Question: Where did you go to school?


Catherine Tucker Harrison: 


" I went to school back in Buffalo, South Carolina...a grammar school...at a little school that was about a mile from our home. I went to rural school. I was there from the first grade through the seventh grade. I was pretty alert, so my older sister, who is your grandmother, ...she was married then and living in Columbia, South Carolina, and so she took me to Columbia, South Carolina, and I started school in the eighth grade there at Booker T. Washington High School.


I finished high school there in 1937. Then after I finished high school, there was a college in the same town, Benedict College, and I enrolled in Benedict College. I spent four years there, and I graduated from Benedict College with magna cum laude. Then after that, I taught at various places in South Carolina."




Read more at Suite101: Interviewing Extracts Rich African American heritage

Friday, September 10, 2010

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19. Follow Friday: FamilySearch, a tribute to an old standby

The following is an excerpt from my book,  "Brought Home by a Story:  How family history changed my life"  which illustrates how FamilySearch resources have helped me to link to generations past: 

"After I had put so much together on my mother's parents, it occurred to me that I did not know much about her grandparents. I knew if I wanted to be able to trace them, I needed to start gathering what oral history I could.  I just started by asking my mother to tell me about her grandparents.


     The only one she really knew well as Lafayette Franklin Vance (1861-1952), the father of Emory Wallace Vance.  Most of what she could recall about him occurred between the years 1943 and 1951 during the time they lived on the farm in Gadsden, South Carolina.  I began to see similarities in his life that were interwoven in the lives of his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.


     We are all hard workers.  Most of us live by high moral standards and have become very involved in the churches with which we are affiliated.  We have strong family values and are actively serving in our communities.  Lafayette helped and served in many communities throughout South Carolina.  He overcame the obstacles which were faced by African Americans from the time of Reconstruction on through segregation.  Like their forefathers, his descendants believe in the power of education.


     I was so fueled by the legacy he left behind, I wanted next to know who his parents were. Unfortunately at the time, no one could help me.  The only online resource that I knew of at the time was familysearch.org.  The 1880 US Census was free, and I figured that since Lafayette was born in 1861, I had a pretty good chance of finding him.


    All that was available where I lived was the dreaded dial up, but that did not matter. The page loaded like a curtain on open night.  I was not expecting what I saw when the screen came into view.  As it loaded ever so slowly, my eyes which were fixed on the center of the monitor, fell upon the name of Lafayette Franklin Vance.


     I had little doubt that I could find him.  What came as a great surprise to me was the fact that his entire family was so large that it practically filled the length of my screen.  I was speechless.  Tears just started streaming down my cheeks as I raised my eyes to the first two names at the head of the family group.

     My mom was waiting to see as well, and for the first time ever, the descendants of Emory Wallace Vance looked upon the names of Lafayette's parents, Beverly and Matilda Vance."
I am truly grateful the folks at FamilySearch for making genealogical resources available to the world for so many years.  This service has been a great benefit to me and to my family.  I am able to identify and preserve records for future generations. The new resources that you are rolling out are making wizards of even the most ordinary family historians.  Thank you!

More Links:
  




Thursday, September 9, 2010

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18. Treasure Chest Thursday: Let the Flowers Grow


























We love flowers, and we spend a lot of time taking photos of them.  My daughter is quick to remind my husband on special occasions, "Remember Dad, Mom does not like cut flowers."  I inherited the love of flower gardening from my Grandmother Otis.  She moved from Columbia, South Carolina and settled in Ohio before I was born. She always had the most beautiful flowers growing in different varieties in her yard.  Her flower strewn walk ways were very inviting. 

It was not until my family moved here to trace family history that I realized where she developed her love for flowers and her sweet disposition.   Roses bloom all year round since we have been here.  Vegetation has the chance to fully mature and grow far and wide.  Colors amplified in the strong sunlight are more brilliant than I have ever seen.  We photograph them because we feel they are almost too wondrous to behold.  Even hedges flower.  Flowers grow wild.  Every flower we start from a seed grows and matures and reseeds. Each season brings it's own treasured masterpiece.

The extended life flowers have here has had a great impact on our psyche.  There is a strange energy to a cut flower that withers and dies that went unnoticed before.  We do not experience extended periods of overcast.  We have seen our creativity and endurance in life expand in all areas.  The  beauty of  foliage permeates the soul bringing joy, and thereby, creations such as the lily pictured fulfill the intentions of their Creator.  

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

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16. Tombstone Tuesday: Remembering My First Church Cemetery Visit

Headstone for Anderson Chick (1860-1903) and Elenia Coleman Chick (1860-1933),
Seekwell Baptist Church Cemetery,
Maybinton, Newberry, South Carolina.
This is the headstone of my great great grandparents, Anderson Chick (1860-1903) and Elenia Coleman Chick (1860-1933) located in the church cemetery of Seekwell Baptist Church in Maybinton, Newberry, South Carolina.  It is the oldest grave that I have been able to locate for an ancestor.

After pouring over census records and browsing through lists of next door neighbors for each family member in Newberry County, I was overcome to find the same names inscribed on nearby headstones.

Oral history interviews of their granddaughters led me to a cousin that guided me through this cemetery.   I had no record of death for Anderson because he died before deaths were recorded in South Carolina (1915).  I was unsure of the spelling of Elenia's name. I was able to find a death certificate for her.  The inscription at the base of the headstone says that Anderson was a charter deacon for Seekwell Baptist Church.

I have since found documentation for each of their parents and siblings.  Record types include land records, a former slave owner's will, census records, and more.  I even met a church member who walked from his home as a small boy to the funeral of Elenia in 1933. 

I am very fortunate that this landmark exists and that the church still meets weekly.  I have attended a few of their annual homecomings where nearly everyone who attends both near and far looks like a member of my Chick family.  My cousins introduce me to the people I do not know after these services and they are able to tell me how each person is related.   How will I ever get all the history waiting for me there?  How I am glad that some things never change...and we can go back!

Monday, September 6, 2010

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15. Madness Monday: I am not just "Waltzing Matilda"

Grandma Matilda, if it were not for the 1870 US Census, 1880 US Census, an Abbeville County, SC land deed, and my first glimpse of your name in print in an old church hymnal before I was school age, I would think you were only a figment of my imagination.

I have no photograph, and no one living seems to have any recollection of you.  Oh yeah, there's that one mention of you in the biography of your son, Lafayette Franklin Vance in 1919.  I know you were born around 1841 and your mother who is nameless to me was born in Virginia during slavery.   Your maiden name was Dunlap.  I am going mad trying to connect you to parents.  Do you know how many Dunlaps were in Virginia?  Did you leave her behind when you came to South Carolina? Whew!

I suspect your mother could be Sarah Dunlap who had a son named Robert living in Calhoun County near Abbeville, but close is just not good enough.  You have simply got to give me a little more to go on.  You just disappeared after the 1880's with not even a trace in a descendant's memory.  That is pretty hard to do with 8 children...one would think.

I share the blame.  I could have asked more about you when I opened your grandson Emory's hymnal.   He did not volunteer any information other than you were his grandmother.  The fact that hymnal was dedicated to you means you made an impact somewhere.  Only one problem.....someone forgot to keep your memory alive.


For goodness sakes, no one even knows where you were buried or even when you died.  We are only talking  five generations here...what a shame.  I have gone far past that on other lines.   You make me think of the song "Waltzing Matilda."  People are in disagreement about the origins of the song and they even think the song is about  traveling with a bag over your back.  Some argue that the Matilda in the song is a bag not a lady.  See Waltzing Matilda and Waltzing Matilda a little ditty. How could you lose the memory of someone or something you cherish so much?  People love the song so much they have written many versions, but know one is sure what it is about.

I know so much about all your children and your brave husband, Beverly Vance (1832--1899), who I consider a Reconstruction Era hero.  You were there too.  If he made the choice in 1868 to vote, he would have been dead in ten days as he had been warned.  He did not cross party lines though, and in 1876, he was a constable standing guard at the ballot box.

Thanks for that decision....I would not be here.  He was one mile from the place Senator B. F. Randolph was shot and killed in 1868.  A different decision would have cost him the same price.    I wish you were here to experience my day.  I saw a YouTube video, We Are All Cousins, the other night that made me feel so fortunate to have the genfriends that I do. Elizabeth Shown Mills explained that she has never encountered feelings of prejudice among members of the genealogy community.  I feel the same.

So Grandma...I have to be going...I snuck away from the family BBQ.  It's Labor Day.  Just remember, I am not just waltzing here.  I could use some help :). 

Love,
Your GGGrandaughter, Robin

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