Where To Now?

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...