Where To Now?

How is it that a map can show a populated place called Cappleman in the vicinity of where you expect your Capplemans to be living, but there are no records of deeds in their name? Ah, a mystery. But I'm getting ahead of myself. A followup on yesterday's task: finding the current location of what was once Ulrich Boozer's land. Sadly, there are multiple industrial complexes currently on that land, including a power station. Soooo... we won't be able to stand on that little piece of ancestral land. Today's search took us to the South Carolina Department of Archives and History , where we dove into deed and will abstracts, then culled microfilms for scans of the original documents in their fullness. My goal was to locate the land of Francis Mason (my 4th great grandfather), and therefore that of his son James Mason as well. They moved to Spartanburg from Virginia after the Revolution, so they didn't have original land grants but rather purchased from those who did. ...

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...