THE NEXT CIRCLE

When we are young, we don't think about the longevity of our parents and grandparents. It is only until we get somewhere between 30 and 40 that this shares space in our minds. For some of us this happens earlier, and for some, it happen later or not at all. 

But one thing is for sure. When our parents and grandparents die, all of the knowledge and history that they possessed, is GONE. The questions that you should have ask are just that now, unanswered questions. So now you wonder who you can go to. You have not been in close contact with other family members, because you wanted to do thing your way, and be on your own. So............now you start asking yourself where can you go to get some answers. You will need to ask yourself some of the following questions. The answers maybe YES or maybe No.

Are there any siblings alive?

Sounds like a no brainer, but not really. Your parent or grandparent maybe the last one in that branch of the family. If there are other family members, they may not be able to recall information.

Are there extended family members that you can get in contact with?

Sometimes family members can drop off the face of the earth. Meaning that they don't want to be found.

Do you have any siblings that you can talk to?

Sisters, brothers, and cousins can be a world of knowledge. Parents share stories with their family members, those that want to know. There may have been someone in your family that loved those stories.

Do you have any obituaries?

Gold mines. So much information are listed in them.

Do you know any of your parents or grandparents friends?

Life long friends can give you a lot of information about family members.

Do you know where they were born?

Sometimes we think we know where a family member was born. But this is not always the case. What you were told and the facts are two different things.

Do you know their birthdays?

Sounds silly right. But not all parents and grandparents tell you the truth about when they were born. My grandmother was 21, for over 60 years. We still don't know if the year she was born is right.

When you cut a tree down, and look at the rings in that tree, it will tell you how old the tree is. I recently experienced the closing of a circle. My Aunt was the last one in her circle, and as others we did not ask questions, now that circle is closed, and all of the stories and knowledge went with it.

IT'S A HARD KNOCK - PART II

 Our parents and grandparents wanted something better for us. They had to claw and scratch for everything that they had. No one gave them anything. Let's go way back here. Yes, I'm getting ready to go there. During slavery our ancestors worked with what they had, what they were given, and what they knew. 

O.K. then, what are you talking about, LAND. Are ancestors work the land for others, so they knew the soil, they knew what would grow in land that others thought worthless, THEY KNEW!.....even though they could not read or write. They survived and adapted into a land that was not their own. In this new land, they understood to have wealth, one of the keys was owning land. Our ancestors knew that land had a value, and that there was a certain amount of land on the earth. And once it was gone that was it. Pretty good for a group of people that could not read or write. 

Another key was education. Slaves were not allowed to read or learn how to write. Can you imagine being told what and how you should think. And then after centuries of your ancestors being enslaved to be free of other thoughts. What would be one of the thing that you would want beside land. And Education, and yet still...IT'S A HARD KNOCK.

IT'S A HARD KNOCK

 For most Americans of African decent, it is a hard knock going into the past when you are doing genealogy. We realize some very important things. First, we realize that we don't have all of the information on family members that we thought we had. We may not even know family members past our grandparents. We have lost the sense of community. 

When my parents were young, community life was all that they had, it was as I said, a way of life. Everyone knew everyone else and sharing with others, family members and friends was a necessity. Children were raised by everyone. Parents took care of their parents. When one of the community children made it to College, it was a big deal, and everyone celebrated their success. And guess what? The child would come back to the community because they knew that their degree would help everyone in the community. And guess what? Most of the times the child got a degree in Education. YES, I said the curse word. ED-U-CA-TION. When my parents were growing up, a school teacher was a highly respectable job. Teachers poured knowledge into children that had been denied to them when we were brought here as slaves. Remember one way to keep a group of people down is to not educate them.  IT'S A HARD KNOCK.

THE OLD 96

A lot of Americans of African descent came to South Carolina. Listed here are some of the counties that they ended up in. 

In the colonial period, the land around the cost was divided into parishes corresponding to the parishes of the Church of England.

The Ninety-six District was created on July 29, 1769, as the most western of the seven original districts within the Province of South Carolina. Its boundaries included the current Abbeville, McCormick, Edgefield, Saluda, Greenwood, Laurens, Union and Spartanburg counites; much of Cherokee and Newberry counties; and small parts of Aiken and Greenville counties.

DIFFERENT NAMES

How many names can a person have?.....

In genealogy that could be a lot of areas that need to be explained. So lets get started. Birth records are the start of it all. It gives the name of hospital or home of where the baby was born. The babies given name, race, date of birth, city, township and state. If the baby was male or female, or twins. (Birth order of the twins.) Parents names along with the maidan name of the mother. The parents age, resident, race, occupation, and where they were born. With the mother they want to know how many children she has given birth to. Midwives have been around since time begin. My great grand mother was a midwife. And she would have her grandkids fill out the birth certificates. My mother told me that they did not always know how to spell the names and they recorded the name as they sounded. Census taker also recorded the names how they sounded, not all Census taker could spell well. So when you are searching look at all of the possibilities that the name could be spelled.

Josephine- Jossie

Mary- Marie

Henrietta- Hattie

Elizabeth- Liz

Beth- Elizabeth

Alexander- Ellie

Odie- Odee

Elaine- Ellin

Lucinda- Lucy

THE FEMALE LINE

We don't always start with the female line because it is hard to trace. Somewhere between the ages of 14 to 16 years of age you can find the family member still living at home with her family. After that, for the most part she it gone....Not unless you know who she had married. 

When we start researching genealogy we are excited about all of the information that we find. Somethings we know about, and somethings are a complete shock to us.  We search countless records. Anything or something that will give us a clue as to what has happened to the female in the family. The females that do not get married are easier to find, but for those that marry, it is much more difficult. So what is the answer? 

Obituaries.

Find the historian in the family and ask if they have any obituaries of family members, if they do, this is your starting point. These pieces of paper will have who the females in the family married.

Social Security Records

Once you have this information, the next area to search is the social security records. The record that you want is the application record. On this record you will find the person full name, birth, and parents names. If the mother was married more than one time, all of her married names will be on the social security records.

Death Certificates

These record will then lead you to death certificates. You will find the same information with additional information such as, age, what state parents are born in, full name of spouse, mothers maiden name.

PASSING THE TORCH

One of the most important things in ones life is family. When it comes to genealogy you always find out who are the family historians. These are the people in the family that people don't pay a lot of attention to. There importance is not realized until we need them. They know everything, and if they don't, they know where to go to get the information. Family historians are very patient people, they gather information that no one else wants. They get excited about old newspapers, bibles, obituaries, cemeteries, etc.

I have know two members in my family that were great at this job. Gert, and my Aunt Voicey. In other cultures they would be called story tellers. These are the ones that can go back to the beginning of the family line and bring it to the present. They where passionate about their quest, and could look at a family member and tell you who their parents are. They will be missed. The information that they have passed onto us is invaluable.