The Family History Writing Challenge-Days 19-22-In Search of a Familiar Face

NOTE: Since several years have elapsed since this reunion and my memory has faded, the following draft was assembled by viewing digitized photos taken by multiple family photographers. I assembled them in order based upon groupings within the room, and used the variations of sunlight and darkness from the windows to attempt some sort of chronological order. I "tell" this story in its rough draft, but later on I will go back and develop the "show" element that is lacking in my attempt to reconstruct the events coarsely.

*****

Sandwiches, chips, a variety of salads, two-liter bottles of soda and bottled water sat on a table to our left as we first entered the room, and family members (we had not yet met) were busy preparing dessert platters.

"Come on in, family. Help yourself."

Since so few relatives had yet assembled, we decided to take a seat and wait a bit; but, as people we knew entered the room, my husband and I got up to greet them. Dorothy and her daughter descend from Malachi Carter, who was my grandfather-in-law's younger brother by three years. She linked arms with me and beamed,

"Hello, Cousin!" 

Three years older than my mother, and like her, Dorothy does not show her age...a petite lady wearing a royal blue t-shirt and jeans, her short cropped black hair is only edged with gray.

"I want you to meet someone," she says, waving on a tall slender gentleman dressed in white to come join us. "This is your cousin, Walter. He comes from Elijah's line. He lives in Virginia." 

Our small group descends from three brothers: Hezekiah, Malachi and Elijah...born in that order. While there were only three years between the older brothers, seven years had separated the younger two of nine surviving children born to Isaac Carter and Martha Ann (George) Carter. When the family historian is visiting with living descendants, her mind becomes, at times, a whirlwind of attempts to make connections, but seldom is there time enough to capture those moments on paper. I had thought of recording conversations, but soon discovered that in this family it usually brings the natural flow of chatter to an abrupt halt.

The five of us gathered in the far corner of the room near a window, framed with burnt orange, jacquard drapes. Outside, the afternoon sunlight faded in a blue-gray haze of approaching dusk. We talked, catching up on recent family events, and at times looked off into the crowd, seeing new family faces entering the room.

Just behind my chair, along the wall, a man wearing a white polo shirt, khaki shorts & ball cap carried in several large pedigree posters. I had heard that a descendant of the Nathaniel Carter branch would be attending the reunion for the first time, and that he would be sharing his research with us. He sat the first two down against the wall below the banner: GEORGE FAMILY REUNION: Keeping the Tradition Going.

People were curious to see where their leaf of the branch connected from the trunk. One surprising note was that this genealogy confirmed my findings that the father of the five siblings was Theophilus George, as reported in my 2007 presentation, The Land Deeds of Theophilus George, father of Emanuel, James Bland, Nathaniel, Martha Ann and Nancy George. I had thought that the deed was proof enough that the children listed in deed were the children of Theophilus and not Emanuel. Apparently, family myths are hard to part with, and to this day, no one knows why our early family historian had written in his notes the parents of the "original" siblings as Emanuel and Matilda George.

Cousin Eula Mae walked over slowly to our little group in the corner...one of the matriarchs of the Moore family and my husband's third cousin. She appeared as always, very dignified...composed...well dressed, yet casual in her purple and white pants suit. Her smile expressed such love...and something was different in her eyes. A sort of tiredness...or pain, that she would never let on about...the same age as my mother, she carefully took her seat next to Cousin Dorothy.

After my husband posed for a few photos with his cousins, he ventured past our little group to the next one over...the family of the Nathaniel George historian. By this time, a few cousins brought in a large collage of family photos and placed it between the banner and the pedigree charts. I got up to look at them...but at a disadvantage. When you're an outsider...or, one married into a family...adopted, you might say...unless you have been living in the ancestral community or have close ties to your husband's kin, unidentified photos appear as just a collection of nameless...connection-less faces. How I wished I could just photograph every photo, and find someone to identify the faces I did not recognize...but people were more interested in spending time with those in the room than in looking at the collage. And if they did glance at it, they would comment on a few and then move on.

The same thing had happened at the Peter James Hyman Family Reunion we had attended in Beaufort, North Carolina. Our Cousin Margaret had enlisted my help to  preserve the photo collages with clear contact paper...working so closely with untold identities...no time to ask questions in a hurried frenzy of last minute activity.

As the night wore on, one of the cousins from the reunion committee...my co-historian's niece, assembled us to play a game of family history jeopardy. She looked about the room, trying to find volunteers and then selected Cousin Eula Mae's son-in-law, Billy...a tall, slender cousin dressed in green with a broad smile showing several gold teeth...and myself. How did I get selected? I have no idea. Certainly I would not have volunteered...perhaps it is a test to see how much this outsider knows about the family history.

The questions seem to be more related to black history for several rounds until finally, some familiar Craven County questions pop up...and then, finally, a few questions about family ties.

Written on each person's face is the weary of travel catching up with them as the night wears on, and soon after the game, we disband for the night, going back to our hotel rooms to rest for the next day's boating excursion, shipboard lunch, tour of Beaufort and Neuse River.


Word Count: 1065

The Family History Writing Challenge-Day 8-As the Reunion Approaches

It is amazing how during the sabbatical year, even up to six or five months before a reunion, family history research takes on a more leisurely, methodical approach.  Then, suddenly, March first arrives and the research requests start to trickle in...then building up momentum...until the final crescendo of frenzied cries for help to gather as many details for the reunion booklet as possible. Each year the volumes of binders and loose papers multiply exponentially until the day the booklet goes to press.

2009 starts with requests for the co-historian's family, beginning with her grandmother, Sarah Jane (Moore) Moore's four babies who died young. From Moore to Harkley and Hardesty...

Always on the back burner~hoping one day to find the death certificate for David Henry Moore - b. July 1869.... (16 Mar 2009)

On the 18th, a request for Cousin Hattie's address...no longer in Yonkers, NY...she has returned to the home place.

Interwoven between family history requests is a conversation between myself and another cousin. He is a young and tenacious researcher, whose father introduced us one night on the telephone because of a connection to our Hyman family. My husband's grandmother, Hannah Jane (Hyman) Carter, is the only ancestor for whom we have a photograph.

This is another reason Cousin Hattie is so adamant about meeting with the children of Chester Carter, Sr. Within the walls of the home place, once designated as Bert Carter Heirs land (the oldest son of their father by his first marriage). lies the answers to unsolved family mysteries, the truth about family legends, and the artifacts and pictures of those who predeceased us.

In all, Hezekiah Carter had six surviving children...three by his first wife, Stella, and three by his second wife Hannah Jane, pictured above. While Hezekiah's father, Isaac, died intestate, he had divided his land among his children while he was still living. Hezekiah, though, died intestate...without a will. And according to the family stories, the oldest son, Bert, tried to claim all the land for himself.

The home place sat on a parcel of land 5.34 acres. The deed for the family land across the street where the original two-story house sat before it burned down around 1920 was not in Hezekiah's name, however. It was in his mother's name, for she had inherited it from her father, Theophilus George. To this day it is still designated as Martha Ann Carter Heirs land (17.4 acres). And this is the property that straddles both sides of Blades Road.

As Letitia fires research requests to me on a near daily basis during this period, she tells me that in speaking with a cousin, they reveal that Bert's oldest daughter, Eleanor, did not die within the past six months as Cousin Hattie recollects, but over a year ago. Hattie had believed that Eleanor was in possession of the key to the home place. She had tried to contact her, but with her failing health, Eleanor died before Hattie could speak with her.

My membership to Ancestry.com had run out in October, so I began taking the bus downtown to Pack Memorial Library every chance I could get to use the computer in the North Carolina Room. I would take print-outs of the emails, make notations on them, and then print the requested information to send to the co-historian. But by November, my bus route was eliminated due to a lack of funding and ridership. On my days off from work, I would ask my husband to drop me off on his way to work, and then pick me up on his way home.

Much of the assignments I received seem to be the descendants of Thomas Moore, our cousin's own family branch...birth certificates, death certificates, marriages, census documents showing the names and reported ages of children. By the end of March I was working on the descendants of James Bland George...also part of the co-historian's branch....then the Godette and Bell families.

April brought research on Hoyts, Bectons, Harkleys and Richards. I was gathering so much information so quickly that my binders used for those surnames related to my husband's family connections became overfilled, and piles of sorted loose papers sat stacked about my desk. On April 10th Letitia writes:

Hello Bizzybee: I am trying to keep up with you. One day you are looking at Harkleys and the next day back to the Georges and the next day the Moores.

By May we were working on editing the family history pages for the reunion booklet, based on the descendants of the George ancestors recorded in the first reunion booklet in 1989: Emanuel, James Bland, Nathaniel, Martha Ann, and Nancy. At this time, more of my husband's close ancestors' descendants were added or corrected.

On May 13th I emailed Letitia:

You're gonna laugh when you hear this one! I actually have filled a 2-inch binder with Godette information for the first two pages of the To Do List. Then I got to the bottom of page 2..."this is for the future." You should've heard me laugh!!! I got most of the info requested in 2 DAYS!!!....

She replied the very next day:

Debra: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! You were right~I was Laughing Out Loud. That was a good one. Perhaps I should have put the note at the top of the email. Oh well~the best part is you found the information we needed....

The end of May brought the request for help on double cousins. Then, in the beginning of June, all the reunion committee members' contact information was released. Requests for specific pages of the reunion journal were announced, and I began to look for a poem which expressed the heart of family reunion.

On June 1st, the reunion announcement letter was printed and released to the family. Still, the research continued through mid-June. And then, on June 14th, a request for the committee to vote on the ancestor who died the previous year for whom the reunion would be dedicated. There was a choice between two family members, and the one selected had been a member of the first reunion committee, and had served with Cousin Hattie.

James Modica George, Jr. was one of the pioneers who spearheaded the George Family Reunion. In addition, he assisted in the original genealogy research of the George family descendants and provided the first George Family History Report. 

In one month we would be traveling across the state to Havelock, North Carolina for the long awaited George Family Reunion.  While Cedric and I were excited about meeting with the family, we were especially hopeful to meet with Cousin Hattie at her new home.



Word Count: 1107

The Family History Writing Challenge-Day 6-Moore Interests in Heir Land

In order for heir land to be sold, each and every heir needs to be identified, and their fraction of interest in the land determined. The more children, grandchildren and great grandchildren an ancestor had, the lesser the fraction of interest they may claim from the heir land. Not only must they be identified and served by the court, they must all agree to sell the land, unless it is confiscated by the government as when Cherry Point USMC base was established at Little Witness community in Havelock, NC.

March 20, 2008. Cousin Letitia, my co-historian on the family reunion committee, had sent me a manila envelop containing a copy of court land document entitled, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. 124.44 ACRES OF LAND, MORE OR LESS, IN TOWNSHIP 5, CRAVEN COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA; EULAH MOORE FRAZIER, et al., Defendants. In the report of the Special Master which followed for Parcels No. 141 and 143, forty-nine descendants had been named as defendants, followed by "et al.," denoting perhaps even more unidentified descendants. The names were known by me. Names representing the lives I had researched, some of whom are now deceased, some I had met at family reunions.

Section three in the report stated that "Parcels 141 and 143 are two separate parcels of land which were condemned together because of an uncertainty concerning the proper dividing line between properties."

While the researcher could not locate any deed of record, it was acknowledged that the community recognized Thomas Moore to have been the owner. From there,  a list of his children provided a framework for extending the branches to living descendants.

Another related case for 118.77 acres of heir land included thirty-two descendants, which was divided into ten sub-parcels. The fractions of interest the descendants held varied between 1/6 to 1/54. For example, one parcel was divided up between four individuals and the heirs of another, their names not yet known, and the interest varying: 11/18, 1/9, 1/9, 1/18, and 1/9. In another parcel, four individuals each had a 1/120 interest, and another eight held a 1/480 interest. The smallest interest was two women's claim of 1/3150. The total amount of money offered by the government was only $115,000.00. (The final claims recorded would calculate to an interest valued at thirty-six dollars and fifty-one cents each.)

From all the many names and relations accounted for in these documents, it it possible to sketch their branches onto the existing family tree.

*****

As I write these facts, I am trying just to get the general information on the page. It is still difficult to see just how this piece will fit in smoothly with the narrative. I've decided to let it rest, and after observing how other authors treat explanations of factual information, I will consider how to approach it...next month or after.

*****

Writing the email to my husband’s siblings would seem like a simple task, one of mere conveyance of information, Your first cousin once removed wants us all to gather at her home following the reunion to go over land records and family history with you. Each sibling had their own take on it, however. The oldest and youngest wished to relinquish their rights to any land…the second born son was interested, but wary of any cost involved. I replied that this meeting had nothing to do with purchasing land, and if there ever was any money involved in a transaction following Hattie’s death, it would be to locate an heir who would choose to voluntarily pay the taxes on the property. No lawyers were necessary…I just wanted to learn more about the family and the pattern of inheritance. I wanted to see the old documents, to touch them…read them…and try to understand how my father-in-law…Hattie’s favorite cousin…might have felt about this.

Several times he had made trips from Erie, Pennsylvania to North Harlowe and New Bern concerning family lands. One such trip was upon the death of his half-sister, Gertrude. She had lived in the city of New Bern when she died, and her estate had gone up for public auction. Chester and his brothers gathered, prepared to pay a sum…however, less than the sum finally paid for the property.

He had also gone south with his sons…the first time with his two oldest boys, the second time with my husband, the third and last son. My brother-in-law remembers sitting in the car while his father entered the house from a rear or side entrance. Every one we have ever spoken to about the subject of family land refers to Mean Uncle Bert…and one cousin who had paid taxes on her father’s portion of the land for many years, referred to him as “the devil himself.”

Word Count: 773
Word Count: 790