Where To Now?

Today was our final day with a family history stop, which was to be in Pulaski, TN. We left Kimball first thing this morning and were on our way. Since we were going to an area that isn't serviced by Interstates, we enjoyed a calm, traffic-free drive through the Tennessee countryside. We stopped at a place called the Swiss Pantry with the intent of finding cheese curds, which we didn't find. What we DID find was a "vendor appreciation day" underway... where all of their vendors who grow and raise and sell their farm-fresh produce and meat were set up outside the store with samples! We tasted cheese grits (they had made the grits), sausage balls, chicken, popcorn, fudge... yeah, it was a fortuitous stop. I had a nice conversation with a young single mom who had moved to the area from Fort Worth two years ago and was enjoying a slower pace of life... and learning to raise sheep alongside her 11 year old daughter! Back on the road, we continued to marvel at how...

I can't even tell you how amazed I am with Sarah Jane Overstreet, one of the volunteers at the Henry County Genealogical Society, housed in the Brown House. Before we even arrived in Henry County, she had taken the little information I had given her about our Reuben Deering and pulled page after page of interesting information. (Not only that, she baked a pound cake that we enjoyed for snack!) We weren't even sure Reuben owned land (in fact, we thought perhaps all of our Deerings up until the current family farm had leased their land). Sure enough, she found land lottery records and deeds and probate records and so much more about our Reuben. Not only did he own land, but he too deeded some of it for the building of a church, the New Bethel Baptist Church. I have yet to figure out which church this became... if it's still around... if there's a cemetery nearby, etc. He could even be buried there. He deeded the land in 1835. I found a record that indicated the chu...

Today we left Boone headed just south of Atlanta, to Henry County, Georgia. As it was mostly a driving day, there's not much to report.... except our first visit to Bojangle's (it was quite good) and a sidestep to Neal's Creek Community just south of Anderson, South Carolina, where our Vandivers had quite an impact. We're still a little unsure who did what and when... but we think our Edward (my 5th great grandfather, b. 1748 d. 1837) was a charter member of the Neal's Creek Baptist Church. One of the Vandivers (we think our Edward, but could be a close relation) donated the land on which the church and cemetery are built. Somewhere there's a marker that says as much, but we couldn't find it. We found lots of other Vandivers buried there, though. Upon further searching after we reached the hotel, I see that a John Vandiver is credited with the land donation... don't know how he's connected, but we'll see. After extensive picture-taking of Van...

Our goal for today was to check out the little town of Blowing Rock, which is the inspiration for the town of Mitford in Jan Karon’s books. I took a wrong turn immediately, which sent us past stunning views of the Watauga River and a couple of little waterfalls as the recent rains drained down the mountainsides. Once we got on the right track, it was a quick trip to Blowing Rock. It’s an interesting mix of vacation spot (i.e. touristy places) and tiny town charm. It has a cute Main Street with good places to eat, and plenty of places to spend too much money on things you can get cheaper elsewhere. But I suppose it’s all in the experience. We spent about 3 hours (the length of time you can legally stay parked) eating an early lunch (whistlestop – which was basically a BLT made with fried green tomatoes - and trout sandwiches) at the Storie Street Grill, then browsing the shops. I managed to get a bear Christmas ornament that is reminiscent of North Carolina, as well as some fudg...

I don't have the compulsion to leave the house every day like some people do. Looking at the weather forecast, we had decided to make this a stay-in day, as it was supposed to rain all day. Weatherman was wrong. It was sunny all the way up until about 5 pm when we had a nice light rain for about 30 minutes. Nonetheless, we stayed in... finished our puzzle, read books, snacked on pastries and cheese and crackers, and worked on genealogy. Mom finished filling in what she knows of her lineage on a large 15 generation tree. I worked on matching up photos I'd taken on genealogy excursions to people in my tree. Our only contact with the outside world was the Spectrum support people (regarding the wifi) and Dad who called late in the day. Mom was wishing him happy anniversary (as they've done on the 22nd day of just about every month for the past 50 plus years) just as the sunset show began. Tonight's show was especially lovely... with the last vestiges of mist fr...

We had a leisurely day... Reading books and working on our Mountain Hideaway puzzle. At a point we needed to find Wi-Fi so that we could book our rooms for the last leg of our trip. We also needed a few things... Like coffee and pastries and something for lunch. We waited for a break in the rain and then headed into Boone.  We first located the library, where we planned to spend some time looking at genealogy and using their Wi-Fi to make our plans. We got our bearings, and responded to calls and texts and emails that had accumulated since the last time we were "alive" to the world. Then, we drove around looking to locate a place for a bite to eat. We wandered briefly through the campus of Appalachian State University, with it's beautiful grounds bright with azalea blooms. Our first stop was the Stick Boy Bread Company, where we found some delicious spinach cheddar scones for a light lunch, knowing that we were going to have an early, heavy dinner. We also walked...

This morning we had a quick breakfast with Jeanie in the hotel, then loaded up our belongings and checked out. Then the four of us – AnnAdell, Jeanie, mom and myself – headed to First Presbyterian Church for morning worship. This being Pentecost Sunday, we were greeted with many congregation members dressed in red. A couple asked about our visit, and we shared with them that our ancestors had helped establish this church back in the 1700’s when it was called Fourth Creek Presbyterian Church. We enjoyed the accomplished Sanctuary Choir, a song led by the Sunday School Class for Special Needs adults, and a nice message by Wes Pitts, who is a young man filling in with all pastoral duties while they are without a pastor. He is not yet through his ordination process, and did a great job of carrying the service nonetheless. Mother and I loved his words of benediction about the Holy Spirit going before us, beside us, above us and behind us. After worship, we set out for lunch, whi...

We started today in the usual way of a genealogy trip... head down in the library. We heard some interesting comments from Joel Reece at the Iredell County Library - the local history expert. He shared about the origins of an old map of the region that has been ubiquitous in our research... the William Sharpe map of 1773. The purpose of the map was to illustrate the need for additional Presbyterian churches in the area. Sharpe did this by mapping out circles around the Fourth Creek Presbyterian Church, in one-mile increments. It showed where all of the congregation members lived (our Thomas and McKnight families among them), and how far they would have to travel to get to the church. Here's basically what it looked like before Joel had it restored (it was on cloth): We finished going through the box of information that Mike Trivette from the Iredell Genealogical Society provided, wrapped up our book research, and headed back to the hotel to pick up Jeanie for lunch. We ch...

We spent the whole day (9:30 am to 6 pm) in the library. Now I know to some of you that may sound terribly dull. But imagine that you've been searching for gold and all of a sudden you find the mother lode. Do you walk away? No... you keep digging. There was so much information in the Iredell County Library about the McKnight, Thomas, Jetton and Brevard lines... too much. These families are so intertwined I don't rightly know who's who at the moment. I spent all day scanning in documents to study later. We spent lots of time reading interesting stories to each other. Jeanie reads an anecdote to us (see what she's reading below)... Now, I know that most all of the information there has already been gleaned by other families, but until you read it then it's all new. Just because someone knew it before you doesn't mean it's old news. One of the things that we came here to do was go out to the burial site of John Thomas (my 5th great grandfather). We...

Mom and I set out yesterday from DFW on our way to Statesville, North Carolina. Mission: To meet our 5th (or so) cousins, visit our ancestral land, and generally stalk dead people. I didn't post yesterday because 1) I didn't think about it; 2) I fell asleep as soon as we hit the hotel room; 3) We didn't stalk any dead people. The whole of yesterday was driving... Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama. Spent one night in Eutaw, AL, and had some amazing ribs (mom said) and catfish for dinner. Even more amazing (to me) was the potato salad and pecan pie. We hit the Georgia Welcome Center and picked up a map (didn't realize I didn't have one yet)... where I also squished and rubbed the face of a 5 month old Neapolitan Mastiff and lamented the plight of a Silky named Bailey who wanted desperately to run off-leash with the big dogs. Lunch was a special surprise. We were going to just pull through Chick-Fil-A for a quick lunch, but the particular one we chose was ...