Where To Now?

Yesterday and today, we spent our time wandering Newberry and Spartanburg Counties in order to try to see where our folks lived. During a visit to the Newberry Library local history room, we came across a description of the Cappleman land in an equity filing that said it was along Cannon Creek. The 1810 and 1825 maps of the area each had a pinpoint that said Cappleman's Hill and Cappleman respectively. With those tidbits of information, we were able to deduce the present-day location of this land... which is currently under development to be the future home of First Baptist Church Newberry! We also visited the Newberry Museum, where we learned about the history of the area and looked through the exhibits to try to find names we recognized. The only one that caught my eye was Senn, the family who donated a large cupboard that was right beside the elevator. Elizabeth Senn was my 5th great grandmother, wife of Heinrich Boozer (their daughter married a Cappleman, and the lineage goes d...

Well clearly I fell down on the job regarding blogging the Maui trip. My only excuse is I didn't take my laptop and it's really annoying to blog on a tablet.  But on to the next thing. This week is my trip with mom to South Carolina to stalk dead people. We moved it up to spring this year instead of fall for myriad reasons. So far, we're off to a bit of a slow start, as mom's flights were delayed and I'm just killing time in a Starbuck's outside Charlotte waiting for her to land. Not all bad, though, as it gave me some time to wander a bit. Primarily, I looked for scenic views, and was rewarded with a brief section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I have to say that the drive through Virginia, in particular the Shenandoah Valley, is one of my absolute favorites. I suppose it's fitting that I would choose this particular lookout as my destination as the sign explains how our folks ended up coming through here...they were among the Scotch-Irish pioneers referenced h...

I started my day at a leisurely pace, making the decision to get off of the Interstate for a while. From Knoxville, I took US 11, which dovetails with Tennessee 1, the first state road in Tennessee. I thought this might be a good way to follow the likely route of early settlers, although it was constructed 100 years or more after my people would have come through there. I made a couple of stops in Kingsport, which is quite a charming little town along the Holston River. It has a beautiful green belt along the river, as well as a branch of the Abingdon Olive Oil Company , which was the purpose of the detour. Kef had purchased some olive oils at the Art of Oil in Boone a few years back. Although Boone wasn't on my route, this place was. So I stopped in to pick up some "necessities." Finally, I added the nearest Zaxby's  to my route before heading on to Virginia. The purpose of my shorter trek today was to stand on ancestral lands. By getting off of the major highway,...

We woke up early this morning, primarily because we went to bed so early yesterday. Kef had about 4 hours worth of conference calls in the middle of the day, so we went right to breakfast to make sure we were back in time for all of that. We drove south to a restaurant we saw on the way here...  Black Bear Diner. I had a delicious cinnamon roll french toast, plus walked away with a cute coffee mug. Kef had a hearty chicken fried steak with hashbrowns, eggs, and a ginormous buttermilk biscuit. We had a few minutes to spare before Kef needed to be back, so we made our way up to a scenic lookout point near the airport. The view was spectacular... and apparently many tour groups come here. There was a large group that had come in to the Phoenix airport at the same time we did. But they moved on and cleared some space for us to get a view and some photos from a prime location. The parking lot attendant told us we should come back for sunset... our parking pass would still be good. ...

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...

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 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 ...