Long lost cousins

Several months ago I came across this blog written by Taneya, an African American woman who lives in Nashville. She was commenting on finding a marriage record for David Nunn and Mary Koonce.


David was a slave owner like many in North Carolina and had a slave, Solomon Koonce who was the ancestor of another African American researcher. David was also the first cousin of my ggg grandmother, Mary Nunn.

I have just started researching the Nunn family and only know about it because I found the death certificate for my gg grandmother and it listed her mother's maiden name.

I've helped on research for a couple African American families who lived in Florida for folks who found my email address on some genealogy web page and saw some surnames that matched theirs.

I have some difficulty in doing family research but for them it is many times more difficult due to the lack of records and also the lack of surnames. Slaves were listed only by sex and age up until 1870. Even after that since many of them could not read or write, their census record was not correct.

Many slaves took their surname from their owner and it may have changed. It has to be an amazing accomplishment to actually obtain some written documentation that would prove their ancestry.

Taneya is the administrator of several North Carolina and Tennessee County genealogy web pages so I am sure much of her time is spent doing research and locating valuable records that help others.