Rewrite the History Books

It's fun finding a piece of history about your family that was lost to current memory. Several years ago I located a reference in an 1893 New Bern, NC newspaper to a distant grandfather being recognized as the first white male born in the Carolinas. I later found the same fact in a book written by the North Carolina Division of Archives. Certainly no one living in my family had ever heard of this.

Another North Carolina family connection to a piece of US history is the location of the Lost Colony settlement. We grew up being taught they started the first colony on the shores of Roanoke Island in the late 1500s. I recently came across folks who are certain the 115 colonist from Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition were actually setting up housekeeping on Cedar Island, located in the northeast corner of Carteret County, NC.   My wife and I drove to Cedar Island when we were visiting the area several years ago, just to see the coastal highway.

I had no idea there was a 400 year old controversy brewing there at the time. One of my distant cousins, who follows this blog, sent me an email about the story a while back and I decided to look into it. Jean Day wrote a book called "Cedar Island Fisher Folk" in 1994 that tells the Lost Colony story that had been passed down in her family for generations.

In fact there have been scholarly reports that proposed the Lost Colony settlement location was really on Cedar Island going back to at least the 1940s. They based this on the journals that survived, measurements and descriptions of the island, the physical layout of the North Carolina Coast and the currents and tidal action around Roanoke Island that would have not allowed the English ships to get close to it but match Cedar Island perfectly. There are also a Spanish explorer's report from 1606 about finding white men in the Cedar Island area.

So how do white settlers stay in an area so close to the later expeditions and remain hidden from view? The local account is they decided to live with the Indians, taking Indian wives and enjoying the land they had found. That is after all what their original purpose was in crossing the Ocean. They raised their families, planted crops, fished and lived out their life, happy to be in a good place. If you want to read all the technical arguments, pick up Day's book or find a copy of "Riddle of the Lost Colony" by Melvin Robinson, or read the many newspaper articles about the Cedar Island connection using Google news. There is also a recent  news flash about an old map supposedly with invisible ink showing the secret location of the Lost Colony, not at Roanoke Island.

For me the interesting part is the strong belief that has carried down over the centuries from those who live on Cedar Island. They have documentation of place names and deeds going back to the 1700s in the names of Berry, Smith and others who were part of the colony and the same names are found there today. Many of these are related to my family via multiple marriage connections. That is what happens when they stay in the same place for centuries.

But for the folks who live on Cedar Island today, there is no question where their ancestors came from. They've always known they were from the Lost Colony settlement! They tell you, their folks were never lost, they always knew where they were, it was the English explorers and financiers back home who were lost.

Luther's revenge

I wrote a story several months ago about my grandmother's cousin Luther Wilson who most of the family would probably just as soon forget. One of my Wilson cousins did some checking after seeing it and found the Orlando Sentinel had written a couple stories about the Deputy he killed in 1919 after one of his jail breaks. Their articles were published in May of 2011.

The reporter tried in vain to determine what had happened to Luther Wilson but the Florida Prison officials couldn't find the records. That should come as no surprise since they had such a difficult time keeping track of Luther or keeping him on the right side of the prison bars.

I helped the reporter with the rest of the story and they published it as an update.

The paper's interest in the story was to get Deputy B.C. Wilcox's name added to a Fallen Officer Memorial in Tavares, Florida.

Lake County Florida added another name to the memorial for a Deputy who was killed in 1929 and then the paper came across the story of Deputy Wilcox who's name had been omitted also. Well this week, 93 years later, the name of  Deputy Bob C. Wilcox was added to the memorial.The ceremony included a bagpipe tribute, Three volley rifle salute and helicopter flyover.

Cherokee Nation

In case you missed it, there was a funny story coming out of Massachusetts this week and it had nothing to do with Mitt Romney, his wife or his dog.

The leading candidate for their US Senate seat, Elizabeth Warren was caught red handed, or not. She has been claiming Native American ancestry for over 25 years in several jobs at major universities. Harvard, the Vanderbilt of the northeast has her listed as their diversity program poster child as a Native American Female Law Professor.

Unfortunately in a big money political campaign people check out your resume. If you give her the benefit of the doubt, she is really only 1/32 Cherokee. That is the same as my wife and her five siblings but they have never been able to turn it into a job preference. We couldn't even get a tuition break at Florida State University for my daughters, where they do everything they can to enroll Native Americans. I wrote about my wife's Cherokee ancestor in another story.

I suspect there will be several cases of white-out sold in Boston this weekend since there is no proof of Elizabeth Warren's Native American ancestry. She claims there was a marriage application for one of her great grandmothers from 1894 that said she was Cherokee. So far, no one, not even researchers at the New England Historical Genealogical Society can find it. Some of the press accounts (no doubt from Warren's PR team) said the Society had verified the record but they came out with their own press statement later and said that was not true. My wife at least has a paper trail to her Native American ancestor!

Quick trip to Tally

I've made a lot of quick trips to Tallahassee, some faster than others. When we moved to Jacksonville I kept my FSU football season tickets and I don't think I missed any games over those seven years. When we moved to Memphis I kept the tickets for about five years but didn't go nearly as often, since it was over 500 miles.

The fastest trip I made over those years was one from Jacksonville when my buddy Paul and I decided to rent a private plane.

Taking a plane 170 miles was not the most economical transport but it sounded like a good idea at the time. The pilot was a friend who needed to get some extra flight hours. It was a fast trip over but we got stuck in Tallahassee overnight on the return. There was heavy fog and the pilot wasn't legal to fly if she couldn't see the ground. So the return we could have done in about 3 hours by car took 15.

There is a family story about my great great grandfather making a quick trip to Tallahassee in 1890.

William Augustus Lundy was trying to claim a homestead on 80 acres of land in Manatee County Florida. He had already cleared part of the land when he got word someone else was making a homestead claim on half the property. The other man had mailed a land claim to the State office in Tallahassee. William Lundy had served in the US Cavalry during the Civil War so he took off by horseback to beat the mail. He was successful and filed his patent on August 5, 1890.

The trip is about 290 miles using the most direct route today. If he used only one horse he would have had to limit it to about 25 miles a day according to someone who is supposed to be an expert, so it probably took him a week to get there.

You don't have to call me Darlin'

One of the first people I met when I started doing genealogy research was from the family of Darling Rowell.

At the time, we didn't know if this family was connected to mine or not. That was over 20 years ago and I'm still not sure how we would be connected. I am pretty sure we are but just can't prove it. He could be a brother or son of my great great grandfather William Rowell.

Darling Rowell was born in South Carolina, maybe the Barnwell District on October 11, 1827 and died of disease on April 2, 1864 that he contracted while serving in Company D of the Florida 2nd Battalion Infantry Regiment. The story is that he became sick in February of 1863 and was sent home where he died a year later.

He was married to Mary Ann Morgan in 1849 in the Barnwell District of South Carolina, at "her father's home" according the the Florida Civil War pension application she filed after his death. They are buried next to each other in the Fellowship Primitive Baptist Church cemetery at Shady Grove in Madison County Florida. I came across the grave markers when I was there about 10 years ago looking for my Rowell family graves.

Whitehurst Landing

One of my distant grandfathers was William Richard Whitehurst who after arriving in America in the middle of the 17th Century, settled in Princess Anne County Virginia. He built what was described as a plantation home called "Three Runs" on the eastern branch of the Elizabeth River.

One of the books I found about him, written over 100 years ago, said he encouraged his family to remain on the family soil and there was still a "Whitehurst Landing" on part of the original land.

The book said it was in Norfolk County, Virginia. I decided to try and find it and see if any of the local residents still have the Whitehurst name. Apparently Virginia county lines have changed quite a bit and some were taken over by Cities. Much of the original Norfolk County has become the cities of Norfolk or Chesapeake.

The Elizabeth River is only about six miles long but has become a center of commerce. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard, where many of the US Navy's ships were either built or repaired over the last 210 years is located there. At the head of the river, according to Google maps is "Whitehurst Landing." So there you have it, 400 years and the family name is still there.

I also found the City of Norfolk, Virginia has a reservoir that supplies drinking water to the city called "Lake Whitehurst."

I Googled Whitehurst and Norfolk and found many people with the name. Charles B. Whitehurst is currently the Vice Mayor of Portsmouth, Virginia. Is he a relative? I don't know, he doesn't have my red hair, but anything is possible...

The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here!

The 1940 Census was released to the public last week. Privacy laws require Census records be kept under wraps for 70 years. This is the second census release I've experienced since I started doing family history research on a regular basis.

For now the only thing available is the images, no index or search feature. If you know where someone lived at the time you can find them, but it may take looking at a lot of images. A fast Internet connection is a necessity.

I found my wife's father and his parents in Smith County Tennessee which was amazing since I had no idea where they lived in the County. They were on the first couple pages I looked at. I'm not sure where my father was during the census since he was in the U.S. Army Air Corps. I've looked in several areas of the Panama Canal Zone, where I think he was stationed but haven't found him yet.

My mother and her parents, Walton "Tink" and Edith Fulford were easy to find since they lived in Cortez, Florida which then and now was a small town. It shows they owned their home as did most of their neighbors. My grandmother gave the information and said she had finished the 7th grade and her husband the 4th. My mother was in her first year of high school. I recognize almost all of the names on the census page since most are relatives. I'm sure there are surprises to be found on the census pages. If you want to find your family, the 1940 Census is available for free on Ancestry.com