Don't Go Over the River, But Do Go Through the Woods

     "If you get to the river you've missed it."  Those were part of the directions sent to me by my cousin, Mitch, as we arranged to meet and track down the grave of my 4th Great-Grandfather, Willis Craft, in Elbert County, Georgia.  I had learned of this grave very early on my genealogy research, almost 10 years ago.  A few years back, I'd found a map with the location of the grave: out in the middle of the woods with no roads labeled.  I honestly never thought I'd be able to find it.

     Earlier this month, my cousin posted a photo of a Craft cemetery to Facebook.  I asked about it and, though it was out in the middle of the woods in Elbert County, Georgia, it was a different cemetery.  However, he was able to ask around and he found a lady who knew where the grave was.  He went out to find it, then took me out to see it today.

     I drove two hours, along with my mom, to reach a rural intersection just a short distance from the Savannah River.  I met Mitch and Diane and followed them down a series of gravel roads, which was part of a subdivision that had been partially developed but currently looks stalled. When we reached a cul de sac we got out and walked a few hundred yards into the woods.  On the top of the rise set a single grave that I'd been hoping to find for almost a decade.

     I had seen a black and white photo of the grave before, in which it was laying down.  This stone had been repositioned and was now upright.  Because of this, the death date is now buried.  Despite this, I would think that the upright position is better for the stone in the long run. And I do have the old photo, which shows the date.

     Willis is buried alone, while his wife and a few of his children (who died within a decade of Willis) are buried not too far away at the Rock Branch Baptist Church.  We speculated about why that was, but could only think it was sentimental.  Did he want to be buried on his own land with a view of the river?

     Standing at the grave, you could see water through the trees on two sides.  We trekked a bit further and found that we were in a bit of an inlet off of the Savannah River.  And boy was it beautiful!  It must have been amazing to live on this land in the 1800s, right along the river.  Hungry?  Go fish!  Mitch told me that the story is that the families used to farm on the islands in the river.  I certainly wouldn't complain to live on this land.

     Mitch also took me over to see the cemetery that he's posted pictures of on Facebook.  It was the burial place of Anderson and Lucy Craft, as well as a few others.  I took pictures of those graves and have updated everything on FindAGrave, including GPS coordiantes.

     Overall, it was a great day.  Who wouldn't drive two hours to meet up with a cousin you've never met before out in the middle of nowhere to go tromping through the woods to find a cemetery?  I'd love to have the chance to do it again soon.

Expanding My Research Comfort Zone: Visiting A County Courthouse

     Today I stepped outside of my comfort zone and tried something new: I visited a County Courthouse.

     I have been doing genealogy research for about 10 years now, but have never visited a courthouse.  In part, this is because much of the historic documents housed there have been microfilmed and are available at the Georgia Archive.  On the other hand, I haven't done it because I get nervous about trying new things.  But I decided to take the plunge and today I visited the Lincoln County Courthouse.

     The courthouse visit was actually stop two in a three part trip that also included a cemetery and a library.  I headed out with my partner in genealogy (hi Mom!) and after a two hour drive we arrived at the cemetery.  Only a short while later we were at the courthouse.

     Lincoln County, Georgia is extremely rural and their website did not provide much information regarding their records.  Add to the fact that I didn't plan to go until 6pm the previous day and could thus not call for information, I was going in blind.

     Mom and I arrived and entered the lobby, which consisted of four doors.  Two closed doors were marked Probate Judge and Clerk of Courts.  I wasn't sure which office held the records, so I stuck my head into an open office and asked the lady there were the genealogy records were.  She directed us to the Probate Judge. Inside the Judge's office, the very friendly staff showed us into a vault - a literal vault with thick metal door! - and found this:

     Que magical music.  There were also another 50 or so volumes stored under the counter in the middle of the room, as well a numerous file cabinets that we did not have access to.

     The room itself was pretty tight.  You can judge the width of the bookcase by comparing it to the ladder.  Add about two feet to the right, and that was the width of the room.  The room was only about 12 feet long with a counter in the middle.  To say it was cramped was putting it mildly.  There was just enough space in the room to reach all most of the records and review them while standing at the counter.  But really, what genealogist wouldn't give up comfort for more records?

     My goal for the day was to research Mary Glaze, my 5x Great Grandmother.  I don't know much about her, including her maiden name, and hoped to connect her to another relative.  I didn't have too much luck, but I did find out some folks who were not her parents.  I did get a copy of her will, inventory and appraisements, and notes in minute books.

     I made copies two ways: with my camera and my FlipPal Scanner (when I first arrived I asked the lady at the desk if I could use it and received permission).  I didn't ask, but I got the feeling that if I wanted copies of the books I would need to ask for the pages to be scanned, which would have been a hassle.  Instead, I was able to scan them myself.  The volumes varied in size, but for the most part it took 8 to 10 scans to fully capture the page.  It did take a few minutes to scan each page, but the results was worth it:

     Pretty darn good!  I need to work on making sure that I get all of my edges, but I didn't miss any of the text with my scans.  One thing that is important though: after an hour and a half of almost straight scanning, I started getting a low battery warning.  I need to remember to take extra batteries next time.

     I also really enjoyed looking through the books, as opposed to scanning microfilm.  First off, I'm holding a book that someone wrote in 200 years ago!  They are letting me touch this! History in my hands! Exclamation marks cannot explain the happy! 

     Secondly: although some microfilm readers have computer scanners attached which is very helpful, it is about a million times faster to look through a book than it is to scan through a microfilm.  Is your record on page 400?  Wouldn't you rather grab a handful of pages and skip right to it rather than scroll through 400 frames of microfilm (especially on a hand-crank machine?).  

     All things considered, I didn't learn anything new from this tip, though I did get some nifty scans and some supporting documents.  The most important part of today was the experience itself.  I now feel more confident about visiting county courthouses and have quite a few that I want to visit sooner rather than later. 

Sometimes You Just Have To Do It Yourself

     I had requested photos of the graves of my 5x Great-Grandparents, Thomas and Rachel Albea, some time ago on FindAGrave.com. I very quickly received a photo of what was left of Rachel's stone. It consisted of the top portion of her stone, which contained only her name, encased in cement. There was no response regarding Thomas' grave. After more than a year, I deleted the initial request and re-posted it, which sent out new emails to volunteers.  I was very excited to receive an email announcing that the stone had been photographed, only to be disappointed when the photo was of another Thomas Albea (a hundred years too young!). It seemed that my Thomas Albea did not have a headstone. But I wanted to find out for sure.

     So what's a genealogist to do? Plan a vacation around visiting the cemetery of course.

     With my mom, I drove 268 miles to the Bethel United Methodist Church Cemetery in Harmony, Iredell, North Carolina.  There I found this picturesque church and cemetery:

     The cemetery wasn't large, but of course the stone for Rachel Albea was in the last corner of the cemetery that I looked in.  The photo that I had previously received on FindAGrave.com made it much easier to find the correct grave.  I was then able to take my own photo of Rachel's grave:

     I then looked around for Thomas' grave, which apparently two volunteers had already been unable to find. Don't know why... it was the stone to the left of Rachel.  It was hard to read, but it was the most likely choice. It took a minute to decipher, but there he was. And it had a strange yellow moss on it which, when gently brushed away, made the stone easy to read (maybe not as much in this photo, but in the closeup photo it's great).

     Sometimes you just have to do it yourself. And to commemorate the effort: a photo of me and my ancestor's grave.

Prepping for My Trip

     I'm on vacation, starting Monday.  I only have one genealogy themed activity planned, but most activities are history related.  I just got my new iPhone on Thursday and have been prepping it for my trip. A friend showed me how to create folders for my apps, so I created a 'Genealogy' folder, as well as a 'Navigation' folder.

My Navigation apps include: Maps  Maps Default TeleNav GPS Plus MapQuest Destinations Travel NC (my destination) iExit Parks Guide Roadside Oh Ranger! ParkFinder

My Genealogy apps include: BillionGraves Ancestry 23andMe Evernote Blogger iTalk GA Marker

   
     Does anyone have any suggestions for helpful apps for either category? For navigation apps, I'm especially interested in apps like 'Roadside' that help me find spur-of-the-moment attractions. For genealogy apps, anything that would help with recording visits to places or with family. I haven't had a chance to try all of these out yet, so any advice is welcome.

Visiting the South Carolina Department of Archives and History

     This second stop on my recent genealogy trip with the South Carolina Department of Archives and History (aka the SC Archive). My mom and I woke up bright and early to get there just after they opened. The Archive is located in Columbia, just off of Highway 277. When we arrived it was raining a bit and there were only two other cars in the parking lot.

     Making our way up to the building, the windows were dark and I was a bit worried that I'd gotten their hours wrong. Never fear! The automatic doors swung open we stepped up the the reception desk. Like visiting other archives, we were asked to fill out a form and agree to the rules (no bags, pens, etc). Unlike other archives, we didn't get a researcher card. Instead, our information was put into the computer and they would look us up during future visits. We put our bags into the free lockers and took our notebook, pencils, laptop and camera into the Research Room.

     The first thing I did was approach the desk and ask about the room's layout and available records (I'd looked up available county records on their online index, but finding them at the location is a different thing) The very helpful archivist showed us the microfilm index drawer and explained about some of the available materials. Unfortunately, South Carolina records are very spotty, due to a lack of record creation and massive record destruction. For example, government marriage records aren't available until 1911.

     We grabbed some indexes for deeds in Lexington and Edgefield Counties and headed to the microfilm readers. There were perhaps as many as 40 of the older hand-cranked microfilm readers available and three of the more modern electronic readers with printers attached. Researchers are asked to take only one film at a time, which will prevent folks from hogging the printers.  Mom and I sat down at the manual readers and started hunting for ancestors. I used my laptop and genealogy software to keep track of names and the free wifi to tweet about my experience.

    Mom at the machines:



    After we had found a number of records in the indexes, I would pull the films with the actual documents and have mom print them. I was surprised to see that the print capable microfilm readers had coin slots on them that required you to pay 50¢ per copy in advance. We weren't prepared for this and had to get some change from the information desk. Due to this, I decided to only print copies of records for direct line ancestors and take photos of records for collateral line ancestors (I'd expected to save records to a flashdrive).
     Going back to pulling the microfim records: a list of all available microfilms were placed in binders. I used the information I'd found in the index and look up the corresponding film in the binders. This wasn't hard, but it wasn't super easy either. The binders were a mess! There were also additional records that did not have a separate film index, so we used the binder to locate them as well.
     We took an hour break for lunch, but otherwise spent six hours researching at the archive. I didn't break down any walls or find any new relatives. Instead, I concentrated on finding supporting documents for the ancestors I already knew. Records included: marriage licenses, wills of three multi-great grandparents, deeds of two multi-great grandparents, mortgage of GG-granfather Witt and the knowledge of what records didn't exist. 

     Next stop: Elmwood Cemetery

_______________

  Also in this series:

1. Tweeting My Trip
2. Visiting the OEDGS at the Tompkins Library
3. [This Post]
4. Visiting Elmwood Cemetery / RestingSpot Review
5. Visiting the Lexington County Museum
6. Visiting the Franklin Memorial Library (Emanuel County, GA)

Visiting the OEDGS at the Tompkins Library

     I started out at 8:30 am Monday morning, driving 200 miles with my mom to South Carolina. Our first stop was Edgefield, South Carolina and the Old Edgefield District Genealogical Society (OEDGS).  The society is located in the Tompkins Memorial Library, which is next door to the Edgefield County Library.

     I have previously been an OEDGS, but neglected to renew my membership (a bad habit of mine). Regardless, the materials are available to all. I browsed their books and indexes, but what I really found helpful were the surname files. The Quattlebaum, Dorn and Ouzts families are pretty prolific in the area and each family had a good sized file.

     I was probably most excited to find photos of the homes of two of my ancestors. First, I found a newspaper clipping of the home of John Dorn Jr, my 5x Great Grandfather. The house was dated 1819 and the photo was dated c 1902.

     Next, I found a photo of my 6x Great Grandfather Peter Ouzts / Utz's family home. This one was built in 1873 and rebuilt in 1810 and the photo was from 1928.

     After leaving the OEDGS Library we headed to our next destination: Columbia, SC.






_______________  Also in this series:

1. Tweeting My Trip
2. [this post]
3. Visiting the South Carolina Department of Archives and History
4. Visiting Elmwood Cemetery / RestingSpot Review
5. Visiting the Lexington County Museum
6. Visiting the Franklin Memorial Library (Emanuel County, GA)

Tweeting My Trip

     I just got home from a three day (two night) trip to South Carolina for genealogy research. Most of my mom's family is from South Carolina and I wanted to go find original records. I plan to write a few posts about my trip. To start, here are my tweets from my journey:

 Day 1:

#Genealogy trip starts today: 1) Edgefield County Gen Soc Library, 2) GG-Grandparents' graves, 3) @SCArchives, 4) the zoo! 

No one else on this road knows how to drive #roadtrip

#wafflehouse in Augusta, Ga #roadtrip twitpic.com/6nerlr

Welcome to South Carolina! #roadtrip http://twitpic.com/6nfby1

Mom (@rubyacraft) doing #genealogy research at the Edgefield gen society http://twitpic.com/6ngt4t

At hotel now-Didn't really learn much new at Edgefield #genealogy soc library, but did get pic of 5x G-Grandad Dorn's house c1819 #roadtrip

As in, house was built in 1819 #genealogy

Day 2:

Things to remember: load the film rightside up! #genealogy #roadtrip http://twitpic.com/6nt01w

Did expext 2 pay4 copies on microfilm like they are bubblegum #genealogy http://twitpic.com/6ntpmj

@ACoffin Guess i didn't need to bring my flashdrive!

@Smitty327 I'm being overcharged! Didn't expect it, keep having to get change. Which is a good thing!

Found originals of docs I had info on (ie marriage licenses) & some records on index, time for lunch then back to @SCArchives #genealogy

Yay, #genealogy happy dance at the @SCArchives - finding lots of stuff, including my Grandparents' marriage license and wills

I'm supposed to use this to find microfilms @scarchives #genealogy #fail http://twitpic.com/6nx6cu

Day 3:

Went to the zoo, now at the Lexington Co History Museum #genealogy #roadtrip

   
________________
  Also in this series:

1. [This Post]
2. Visiting the OEDGS at the Tompkins Library
3. Visiting the South Carolina Department of Archives and History
4. Visiting Elmwood Cemetery / RestingSpot Review
5. Visiting the Lexington County Museum
6. Visiting the Franklin Memorial Library (Emanuel County, GA)