The more I have investigated the intrepid Woodhouse minister, especially in light of genealogical source material now available online, the more remote the possibility of a connection appears. In short, the Robert Hodgson who settled in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and his son Robert, who relocated by degrees to Chester County, Pennsylvania, have no known direct relationship to the George Hodgson who relocated from Chester County by way of today’s Adams County, Pennsylvania, before moving again to what is now Guilford County, North Carolina.

The story of Robert Hodgson is one, all the same, that deserves to be known widely. I hope you find his exploits to be both fascinating and exciting.

Will’s brother, James Garfield (Gardie) Gray died unexpectedly in 1897 at the age of 16.

Summit, NJ
Oct 21, 1897

From: William A Gray
To: Ruth Barrell

My Dearest Ruth:

I am going to devote a few moments before retiring to a nearer conversation with
you than that of this morning, at least twenty two miles nearer, and within surroundings
and circumstances that will permit my talking to you, as I like best to, in letters.

I know you are worrying about me altho I should like that you wouldn’t, so will say
right here that I have felt quite well all day, ate heartily at noon and evening and was able
to accomplish today’s work and what was left undone of yesterday. While tomorrow is my
chilly day, I feel tonight that it isn’t going to be that way, and it is safe to say that I won’t
have any more of the trouble this week, and if I can prevent it, ever.

Ruth, Dear, I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed your last letter. I read it, but all the
pleasure it brought me wasn’t revealed until I read it over again. Ruth, why shouldn’t I love
your letter next to loving you. Aren’t they the written impression of my Ruth’s thoughts,
which I so love to listen to when in her company. 

Of course you would not say all in a breath what your letter contained were we
together, or would we talk of so many subjects in a short space of time.

Well, Ruth, the reading of your letter of Tuesday brought me right over to your side
and I felt as tho I were talking or listening to you rather than reading your words.

Haven’t we often talked about kitchen, soap suds, etc., one minute then soar into
something too deep almost to wade through the next?

Then after all this nice talk with you, you apologize for having spoken, or let it go
with, “I wanted to say something but haven’t time to say it over again.”

No! Ruth No! I never ever, weary of your “weird wild fancies,” as you call them,
altho I have yet to know them as such, and beyond being with you, the only thing that will
give me more pleasure than a letter from you, will be two letters and _______ (I don’t know
the Latin phrase to add here.)

I hope you are having some time to enjoy this weather on your bike and that you are
not spending too long a time in the house on things less important than good health.
Only ten more days of October 1897 Ruth, so make the best of the good weather it
affords.

Procrastination certainly is the thief of time as some old character in the “House
Boat on the Styx,” very truly said. I cannot imagine all the nice things I have missed
through your failure to embrace the opportunity, but lots of these will arise in the future and
I trust you will not fail to take advantage of them.

Gardie

As you say Ruth, I don’t see how anyone who has any appreciation of nature can
look at a sunset such as you describe, and fail to see behind it all something greater and
more beautiful, where resides Him, who causes all things to grow beautiful.

I often think of those who have been taken from us to the place beyond and wonder
too whether they can see us now or whether they, as we, have to wait for a time when we
can meet each other in the same place. If our friends in Heaven see us in our daily lives, I
wonder again what is the limit of their vision. Can they, as God does, know our thoughts,
and all that is in our hearts. I’m afraid these are some of the unanswerable questions, the
solution of which will come to each of us when we leave this life to take up the new.

I feel that Gardie is perfectly happy. It does not take one long to set aside the
awfulness of death. I used to consider it a terrible thing, when inflicted upon others,
strangers almost to me, but since it has entered our home and taken away a brother, I see
the whole matter in a clearer and better light. I have for the first discovered God’s
interpretation of it.

I would like to write you more but, am becoming sleepy and absent minded, so will
close my Dear Ruth, with a kiss, goodnight.

Ever yours,

Will

You’re invited to Crofton Library on 22nd May from 2pm to 3pm to start tracing your family history.

To register your name call the library on 303960.

And I also have the receipt for the certified birth certificate.  It was purchased at the same place you would get a permit for a cess pool or to remove human remains – I was listed under ‘sundry and unclassified’ – not very complimentary.

At 8 months, a diet schedule was prepared for me.  Scraped beef – Ymmmm!

I think they got their money’s worth!

The Poages were of Ulster descent, Scotch-Irish. They settled in Virginia. My 8th great grandfather Robert Poage (approx. 1700-1774) and his wife, my great grandmother, Elizabeth Preston (approx. 1705-1780) came to America with their nine children (the tenth child was believed to have been born in Virginia). Robert Poage was a prominent citizen, one of the first pioneers to settle in Augusta County, Virginia. He was a land surveyor and involved in law enforcement (both in the courtroom with wills, land deeds, lawsuits and in early militias). He was one of several who established Augusta County’s first court, militia, and was one of the vestrymen in the first Presbyterian church built there.

Augusta Stone Presbyterian church, est. 1740, Augusta County, Virginia

The family was involved in the Revolutionary War, with documents supporting their service. Researching has been disheartening for me, as I have come upon the discovery of slave ownership, first cousin marriages, Indian massacres and the stealing of lands, and children by slaves. Needless to say, this side of the family has been keeping me busy.

Estates belonging to the Poage Family, poor quality photo taken from the book “The Descendants of Robert and John Poage.” Robert, who was my 8th great grandfather, had his estate (shown at top) in Augusta County, Virginia.

Here are a few of my findings thus far.

Finding Aid from William L. Clemens Library, University of Michigan, Woods Family Papers

• Details the work and life of my 7th great grand aunt Martha Poage’s husband Andrew Woods in Virginia. Martha was sister to John Poage, my 7th great grandfather.
• Finding aid information: “Andrew Woods (1722-1781), of Scots-Irish descent, settled in the frontier region of Pennsylvania in the early 18th century, but emigrated to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he and his family were soon accepted among the local gentry. Throughout his life, Woods took a deep interest in his ever-growing family and community. He and his wife, Martha Poage (1728-1818), whom he married in 1750, raised six children, and at the same time, he contracted with his siblings Archibald (b. 1716) and Martha (b. 1720), to care for their mother and provide for her until death. In public life, Woods was commissioned by Patrick Henry to serve as sheriff of Botetourt County on October 18, 1777, serving for three years as a collector of taxes and fees and representative of order.”
• Finding aid is not very detailed, and so I am unsure if any Poage family history is contained within the collection. I would assume it is very likely, but I will probably have to travel to Michigan to see the collection for myself.

Finding Aid from Swem Library, the College of William of Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, Archibald Woods Papers

• This has been the most interesting finding aid I have yet found pertaining my Poage ancestors. It includes correspondence of my 6th great grandfather Robert Poage (1752-1810) and his brother (my 6th great grand uncle) John Poage (1757-1827) to Archibald Woods. Many in the Poage family were surveyors and law officials in Virginia, and then in places like Kentucky and Ohio.
• The collection is enormous (around 2,700 items) and the finding aid is superb in its description of individual items. I definitely will have to visit some time to see the documents in person, but for now requesting specific items in PDF may be the way to go.

Finding Aid from Thomas Tredway Library Special Collections, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, Williamson Family Papers

• Includes correspondence regarding the publication of the book The Descendants of Robert and John Poage, which for me has been an invaluable resource on my research into Poage family history. Click through the link to see if there is a copy near you. I was fortunate enough that the library I intern at has a copy, but depending on where you live locating one could be extremely difficult. It’s too bad there isn’t a Google book version available.
• Also includes the genealogical notes of Andrew Woods Williamson, who did a great deal of Poague research. I requested these items from special collections, about 70 items for around $15 in PDF format. Several scans are practically illegible because of the wear and tear of the documents.

Image courtesy of Tanatat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I first considered the question of attempting to solve mysteries as I read after loaning a book to a friend. I raved about it—in fact, I’ve loaned that book at least three times now—but she found it just okay, partly because she figured out the whodunit halfway through. “There was only one suspect!” she said.

And she was right, but I got so wrapped up in the story that I hadn’t been trying to solve the mystery, and moreover, I realized that I never do. I let a story wash over me wave by wave, and I don’t try to jump too far ahead. Where did this tendency originate? Time to explore my mystery-loving roots.

Mysteries Embedded in My Literary-DNA

I was getting ready to brag about reading a handful of Sherlock Holmes stories when I was a kid, but the longer I think on it, I realize that I have to admit that my first mysteries were … Scooby-Doo. Yeah. Three cheers for Saturday morning cartoons. Years later, I heard that every unmasked baddie turned out to be the second non-regular character introduced per epidsode. Formulaic, predictable, easy.

Then came Sherlock, in the form of a Reader’s Digest Condensed book. These mysteries depended wholly on arcane bits of information, 98% of which I didn’t know. I didn’t have a hope of solving a mystery that involved knowing the native home of pet snakes or when and to whom certain military decoration swords were issued.

So there encoded in my early mystery consumption, we find formulas and inability to locate all the pieces. The entertainment value came from watching the sleuths work and not from exercising my own noodle. Or maybe I’m just lazy.

The Difference Between a Constructed Mystery and a Found Mystery

There’s a difference, I think, between the literary mysteries I read and the genealogical mysteries I find. When I pick up a book, I know the author built that story out of a known set of parts. No matter how twisty or shocking the plot points, like a Frankenstein monster all the required components will be joined together: the set-up (including both the question and the stakes involved), clues (both overt and covert), probably at least one red-herring (the lack of which caused my friend disappointment in the book I loaned her), and at last the conclusion (possible startling but inarguably logical). By setting down the story, the author has made a promise to provide both the question and the answer.

A genealogical mystery needs only one of these pieces and comes with no guarantees. Family stories may prompt the questions we would ask, if only we could. Perhaps history provides us with stakes, a Gold Rush or a Black Tuesday. Clues could be that strange old photo or the way Grandpa would never talk about the war. Red herrings appear in our ancestors lies, or our wrong assumptions about why they did things a certain way. And conclusions? Well, we certainly know a lot about how it ended up—after all, here we are—but life doesn’t promise us logic all the time. Sometimes, or even most times, things just are, and that’s it. There may not be a tight-fitting ending to every true-life story.

If It’s Going To Be, It’s Up To Me

That essential difference between fiction and fact fully accounts for my different approaches to fictional mysteries vs. historical ones. In a book, the author has already done the heavy lifting. I can sit back and enjoy. With my family tree, there is no formula, and the work hasn’t been done for me. I know how to find the pieces (usually) if they exist to be found, and the reward is in the search itself. Sometimes, I’ll find the answer.

That’s good enough for me.

Question for You

If you read mysteries, do you try to solve them? Are you usually right? Leave a comment!

(PS-Sorry so late! It’s still Tuesday in a few more time zones, if not my own …)

I won’t mention this one relative by name…I’m sure all my cousins will know exactly who I’m talking about, even before I describe her.  She has caused me a lot of grief over the years without even speaking to me.  Do I hold a grudge???  ABSOLUTELY!  You can do almost anything to me and I’ll probably forgive you.  But hurt my family and I’m the elephant that never forgets.

To call this woman my “aunt” would be an insult to my other aunts…The one’s who’s memories I cherish every day.  So for the purpose of this blog I will refer to her simply as “Frenchie”.

“Frenchie”, at one time, was one of my favorite relatives.  She gave funny, sometimes almost bizarre gifts.  I remember getting a stapler from her for Christmas one year…it had eyes on it and resembled an alligator.  What 7 year old wouldn’t love that as a gift.  There was also the smiley face bank (before the internet made smiley faces popular).  And there were many others.  I think what I cherished the most was when I was 14 years old…not old enough to drive, but still wanting my freedom.  ”Frenchie” was newly divorced and needing attention.  What better person to tag with than your 14 year old niece.  We went everywhere together…to the movies, out for a Saturday lunch…and best of all, TO THE MALL!!!!  But…after a few weeks her phone calls came less and less and I finally realized I was being used.  She didn’t want to hang out with me…she needed a co-pilot.  She wasn’t used to driving and needed someone to help her navigate the roads.  Yep…Thanks a lot “Frenchie”.  And that was just the beginning.

So how do you (or I) handle this person in the family tree?  The same way that the police handle crazed, emotional women in the movies…”Just the facts, ma’am!”.  No matter what I would like to put in the family genealogy about this one person, I won’t.  I’m not going to embellish or even glamorize this individual.  She is biologically family even though she disowned herself from my dad in 1990…and because of the DNA tie, she will be included….Name…rank…and serial number…that’s all she gets!  She deserves nothing more.

I hope someday that she gets to read this blog so she knows that I didn’t take a chainsaw to her branch of the family tree….no matter how much I want to.  To leave her out would not be fair to the others in my tree…those that want an accurate picture of our family. So for my daughter and my “little cousins”, that may not have an interest in this weird stuff right now…someday you will look at this family tree and get just as excited about it as I do.  Just remember…when you see someone in the family tree that just has “Name, rank, and serial number”, they just might have been someone who chose NOT to be a part of the family, not someone who was left out.

For others that have their own “Frenchie” family members, be kind to yourself and to the other members of your family.  You don’t have to glamorize those that don’t want to be a part of the family…but don’t chop down their part of the tree.  Make your history complete…even an infested tree can serve as shade on a hot summer day!

In Winchester, Virginia, Anthony enlisted in the 8th Virginia Regiment of the Virginia Line in April 1776.  The 8th Virginia was authorized in January, 1776 and was composed of 10 companies of men from several northwestern Virginia Counties.  Initially Private Chevalier would have been under the regimental command of the Right Reverend, Colonel Peter Muhlenberg.1

The 8th was first ordered to Charleston, South Carolina to defend the city, but saw no action.  In early 1777, the 8th was ordered to join General George Washington’s main army.  Around this time Colonel Muhlenberg was promoted to Brigadier General and Colonel Abraham Bowman took command of the unit.  The 8th Regiment was assigned to Charles Scott’s 4th Virginia Brigade and was heavily engaged at the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown in the late summer and fall of 1777.  Shortly after these battles, Colonel John Neville2 became the 8th Regiment’s commander.  The Regiment fought at the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778 and shortly afterwards was assigned to the 3rd Virginia Brigade under the command of James Wood.  In September of 1778, the 8th Regiment was merged with the 4th Regiment and went out of existence on 12 May 1779.  The 4th Regiment marched to Charleston, South Carolina again to defend the city arriving on the 8th of April.  Anthony Chevalier was discharged nineteen days later on the 27th of April, but, because of the siege by the British was unable to leave Charleston.  On 12 May he was captured when the city fell to the British.  Unlike most soldiers, possibly because
of his discharge paperwork, Chevalier was not placed on the infamous prison
ships in the harbor, but was paroled to a nearby plantation.

Legend has it that Anthony Chevalier served as a translator for Washington’s officers and the Marquis de Lafayette.  Lafayette was indeed at the Battles of Brandywine and Monmouth, so it is entirely possible that Chevalier, a native speaker of French, had some role as a translator.  This is made even more likely by the fact that Washington spoke and read no French and that Lafayette’s English has been described as poor at best and the English of his companions was generally worse.  It is also likely that Chevalier may have done translations for Lieutenant General (Admiral) Charles Hector comte d’Estaing at Charleston as d’Estaing, who ran the French blockade at
Charleston, spoke and read no English.  Chevalier actually mentions the French, d’Estaing as one of the officers he served under in his pension application.

On June 22, 1779, the Virginia General Assembly passed an Act which established the Virginia Land Office and provided for the reward of bounty land for specific Revolutionary War Service of at least three years of continuous service in the State or Continental Line.  In 1790, the federal government offered grants of land to soldiers who had served three years.  Soldiers submitted affidavits from commanding officers and fellow soldiers and when approved a warrant would be issued for land in present day Kentucky or Ohio.

In about 1783, Anthony Chevalier submitted an undated affidavit by Captain Abraham Hite, 8th Regiment Virginia, certifying his service as soldier.  By the close of 1799 at the latest, Anthony Chevalier was a resident of Miami Township in Montgomery County, Ohio on Warrant land under the 1790 Land Warrant Act.

On 9 August 1818, in Montgomery County, Ohio, Anthony Chevalier applied for a soldier’s pension under the Pension Act of 1818.  His pension was granted and he received the pension until his death.  He was 66 when he applied for his pension and the only family listed on his petition is his wife Rachel Scott3, however this is because his adult children were not listed.  I believe that they had three daughters; Charlotte who married William McGrew, Hannah who married John Cole, Nancy who married Jeremiah Ludlow, and possibly a son, Charles, who by at least one account died as a young adult in and Indian attack.  I’ve thus far been unable to find solid evidence for any of the children except Charlotte, but I can also find no reasonable explanation for Hannah’s origins in Montgomery County, except as part of this family.

Notes:

1. According to a 19th century biography, possibly myth, on Sunday, 21 January 1776, in Woodstock, Virginia, Reverend Muhlenberg, a Lutheran preacher and son of German immigrants preached a sermon based on Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, which begins “[t]o everything there is a season”.  When the Reverend reached the 8th verse “a time of war, and a time of peace” he declared “and this is a time of war” removed his clerical robes which he wore over his militia uniform.  Drums began to roll outside the church and his parishioners, 162 strong, kissed their families goodbye and stepped outside to enlist in the 8th Regiment.  By the next day, he had enlisted at least 300 men.  There is no account of this event prior to the biography.

2.  For relatives on the Barton line, Brigadier General John Neville married Winifred Oldham, sister of Ruth Oldham.  Ruth was the wife of David Barton.

3.  I’ve seen on the internet references to Rachel Scott being a cousin of General Winfield Scott, however, I can find nothing to substantiate any connection.  I wonder if she is connected in some way to the General Charles Scott who was connected to the 8th Virginia.

If you have any information regarding the Lucy Cemetery
located in Torrance County, please email George@WhisperingRange.com

27 burials are identified here:    http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&GScid=38200

Other Internet Links with cemetery information:

http://nmahgp.genealogyvillage.com/torrance/lucy_cemetery.htm

http://nmahgp.genealogyvillage.com/torrance/red_hillscemetery.htm

If you think you might have living relatives and want to attempt contact with them, I would suggest a couple of things.  First of all, I would recommend a letter.  Introduce yourself, give some facts that will prove your identity and relationship to the person.  In my case, my aunt (my father’s sister) knew who I was when I was a child, and I sent her a picture of me and my brother as kids.  I also included my father’s birth date, her birth date, and my vital stats.  As a courtesy, I included a self-addressed, stamped envelope, in case she/they wanted to limit their interaction with me.  Or, as I dreaded unnecessarily, to tell me to take a flying leap.  (Thank God they didn’t do that!)

I gave my email address, snail mail address, phone number, etc., and said that any mode of response was okay by me.  I got very lucky and have been warmly embraced by the entire family (as has my brother), and we are so excited about getting together this summer to reminisce.  I still can’t get over that.  But you may not always be so warmly received, or even acknowledged at all.  Be prepared for that.  I’ve tried writing to a couple of people I believe to be members of my family, but have not heard back from them.  It doesn’t mean they aren’t my family, but they may be skeptical about me, or too busy to care.

One of the things I mentioned earlier was to get connected with a genealogical group of some type.  I’m now volunteering for a site that happens to be located in an area where I believe I may have some family members, or at least my ancestors may have lived in the area.  I wrote a letter to one of the genealogists in the area, and she was kind enough to respond with as much first-hand information as she could.  She was so sweet!  I need to write her back and thank her, because she does not have a computer and does all of her research at the local library.  So, even snail mail can be a way of connecting to people and gathering information about your family.  (Remember your penmanship and make it legible if you’re going to write it by hand!)

I’m still feeling so excited about the impending reunion, but I still have lots to do.  I’m planning my first big research trip–with a couple of stops–and being somewhat of a novice, I want to be as prepared as I can be.  And that, my friends, will be the topic of my next post: Preparing for On-Site Research.

Until then, blessings to you and yours.

ChiGirl

My father was born in Cambuslang in 1919, the youngest child of Henry Strachan and Helen McCrae. Henry died three days before my father’s second birthday, so my father had no memory of him. Several of his older brothers and siblings migrated to Canada in the 1920s, so young Robert went to and fro between Canada and Scotland with his mother a few times.

My father was a keen musician, played the trumpet and trombone, and had a good singing voice. He learnt to play courtesy of the Salvation Army in Cambuslang, was in a dance band and the army band during the war, and once settled in Leeds formed a band that played big band and jazz at dances and pubs in north Leeds, including the Kirkstall Working Men’s Club where my grandfather was president.

My father in 1936 when he was 16

Robert married his first wife just before the war, and almost immediately was called up into the army. By then he had begun a career in the construction industry. In the army, he was promoted to corporal and then sergeant, and became an ammunitions testing expert working at an underground depot near Corsham, Wiltshire. My big sister was born during the war, but her mother came down with tuberculosis and died when my sister was very young.

In the army, here as a corporal

He also played in the army band, and was in the Ralph Stacey dance band playing at forces dances in the south of England. They were even on the radio.

In the army band, at the front second from right

Later on in the the war, Dorothy Fraser from Leeds, in the women’s army, was posted to Corsham and my parents met at an army dance. My mother was already a very good dancer but my father wasn’t, so she taught him and romance blossomed. They married in 1949 and settled in Leeds.

Wedding of Robert Strachan and Dorothy Fraser at St Stephen’s, Kirkstall, Leeds

My father continued to work in construction after the war, eventually becoming a project manager for buildings such as hospitals and shopping centres.

He was always a proud father of both his daughters, as this picture shows.

My sister’s wedding in the 1960s. That’s me as bridesmaid.

You never stop missing your parents.

14 May 1834
Somebody I’ve only got round to researching properly today: John Logan, my ggg uncle, was born in Auchtilair, Old Deer, Aberdeenshire to John Logan and Isabella Booth. In 1851 he’s a farm servant at Tarves, and in 1855 married Jean Marr (aka Jane) at Slains. In 1861 he’s an ag lab at Auchenchries, Cruden with his wife and 3 children. Then he become a crofter/farmer, taking a 6 acre arable property called Muirtack in Cruden parish. He and wife Jane had 6 children, but his wife died sometime between the 1891 and 1901 census, and in 1901 John Logan is at Hillhead of Auchlenchries, a crofter with various relatives and boarders living with him. I think he died in 1904 in St Macher, Aberdeen – the location of the infirmary – but I haven’t checked the death certificate.

14 May 1837
Baptism of Sarah Jane Oxley, daughter of my ggg grandparents Thomas Oxley and Sarah Grist and therefore my gg aunt. Her father died when she was young, and in 1851 she’s in Worsbrough with her pauper mother. In 1860 she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Sarah Ann, and in 1861 is living with her mother in Barnsley, working in a factory. Another illegitimate daughter, Mary Ann (Mary Ellen on the baptism record), was born in 1863. Sarah must have gone to Leeds and had family there, as in 1866 she married George Watson at St Matthius, Burley on 25 December 1866 and the witnesses were Thomas Oxley and Mary Ann Oxley, Thomas being Sarah Jane’s brother. Sarah Jane’s two daughters took the surname Watson, and the family moved around bit, as the census and the birthplaces of children show: Newton, Doncaster, Potter Carr, Bolton and Denby, George working as a farm labourer. In 1891 Sarah Jane is a visitor staying with her daughter in Chesterfield, who lived a few doors away from one of Sarah’s Jane’s sisters. Husband George then died, and Sarah can be found living in Hope Street, Barnsley in 1901 and 1911. She died in Barnsley in 1917 age 80. (Nice coincidence – in 1901 my Barnsley great parents had moved to Leeds and were living in Hope Street, Armley.)

14 May 1879
Birth of William Inglis at Muirkirk, son of Alexander Inglis, coal miner, and Janet Strachan. His mother was the granddaughter of my gggg uncle Peter Strachan. I haven’t researched him myself as the information about the Inglis family was given to me by someone on RootsChat: William Inglis migrated to Australia.

14 May 1920
Birth of Margaret Elizabeth Dow in Aberdeen, my cousin once removed as she was the daughter of my grandfather’s sister Barbara Fraser and William Dow. Margaret married and had two children, and sadly died at only 63.

14 May 1991
Today is the 22nd anniversary of the death of my father Robert Strachan. He’d have loved sharing my research. As he’s special to me, I feel he deserves a post of his own with some photos.

My research includes the itinerants passing through the state, as well as the visiting photographers who were in Georgia briefly but documented its people and places.  I update my database of Georgia photographers and their associates continually, and from it I develop biographical checklists and information for articles. A biographical checklist is indeed a “living document” and it can never be absolutely complete. There will always be more to know and more to find out about these fascinating persons.

Others’ lives truly fascinate me – as well as their deaths (and yes, I read obituaries!).  I found myself keeping various lists of these photographers and their associates – any suicides and “interesting” deaths, crimes in which they were involved, including pornography charges, their second occupations, and where portraits of them and views of their studios are located.

In the coming months I plan to post much of the above trivia, some mystery photos from my collection needing identification, my ‘brick walls’ with which I need help, and biographical data on some of these individuals and on Georgia’s families of photographers.

I want to share the research of other photo and cultural historians as it relates to photo research in Georgia, the South, and beyond – and where our state fits within that history. There will be posts of my interviews with historians, collectors, educators and others who I hope you will find as interesting as do I.

My experience behind the desk as a reference and processing archivist as well as in special libraries is invaluable to me in this research. In addition to that work, I spent some years working part-time helping others do genealogy, and inquiry into these lives requires those genealogical skills in particular. I was born in the Chinese year of the Rabbit, luckiest of all signs, and I consider myself so very lucky to be able to meld my myriad research skills into bringing these persons to light.

Anyone can contact me for further information on any bit of biographical info or trivia posted here. I keep extensive source notes and files. Among the sources I use is the information found on the photographs themselves, information from the photographers’ descendants, historians and other individuals, the U.S. Census, vital records, tax records, newspapers and photographic journals.

I hope my research on Georgia photographers and their associates inspires my readers to delve further.  Now, get on your bike and go do more hunting and gathering!

I only ask to be credited as the source of the information I provide you. Credit lines should read: E. Lee Eltzroth, Georgia Photographers Documentation Project, with the date of the post and/or when we were in touch and you got that information. Photographs posted here are from my own collection unless stated otherwise, but please contact me prior to any image use.

David Mitchell’s novel is probably the best thing I read all year. It was inspired by the interrupted narratives of Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, but completes all its stories in a nested cycle. This arrangement of narrative, like an onion sliced in half, seems to thematize a postmodern collapse of history and boundlessness of space, forcing us to move first from history to the present to the future, and then back again. Far from being a negative quality, however, Mitchell seems to explore this as a means of creating a story so large that even he, the author, cannot make all its pieces match up (vs. Nabokov). This reminds me of Auerbach on Woolf – the characters being beyond Woolf’s authorial scope, and I want to compare this to The Waves & The Golden Notebook as British novels in 6 voices.

The novel’s complex nuanced overlaps of the pages of the atlas Mitchell creates remind me of the opening critique of the hysterical realist novel by James Wood: Several of the main characters have the same distinctive birthmark, like a shooting star. Mitchell has said,

Literally all of the main characters, except one, are reincarnations of the same soul in different bodies throughout the novel identified by a birthmark…that’s just a symbol really of the universality of human nature. The title itself “Cloud Atlas,” the cloud refers to the ever changing manifestations of the Atlas, which is the fixed human nature which is always thus and ever shall be. So the book’s theme is predacity, the way individuals prey on individuals, groups on groups, nations on nations, tribes on tribes. So I just take this theme and in a sense reincarnate that theme in another context..

Genealogy is also present throughout the text. Adam Ewing’s son Jackson edits the journals and is the person for whom Ewing wants to improve the world (he becomes an abolitionist). Luisa del Ray is rescued by her father’s friend. Zachry’s son ends the “Sloosha’s Crossin’” tale. Yet it is never a safe origin point, but rather a Foucauldian arrival point of results – it feels temporally lateral, and many  bonds are of affiliation rather than filiation, as in The Waves.

Another theme is the cloud atlas itself. Zachry ends his tale with “Only Sonmi the east an’ the west an’ the compass an’ the atlas, yay, only the atlas o’ the clouds” 308. Frobisher critiques Ewing’s journal for being too neatly structured (like Benito Cereno, but also Hawthorne’s birthmark theme?), but he doubts his own ‘gimmicky’ “Cloud Atlas Sextet.” Luisa Rey receives the letters, but the novel she appears in is fictional in the world of Timothy Cavendish. His narration, later made into a film, is an actual film when Sonmi sees it. Finally, Zachry believes in Sonmi as a god, but his son watches her on the recovered orison and doesn’t understand her language – she is just “beaut’some, and she ‘mazes the littl’ uns an’ her murmin’s babbybie our babbits. Sit down a beat or two. Hold out your hands” 309. (A ‘babbit’ is an unthinking middle-class man, as in the title of Sinclair Lewis’ 1922 novel, the same year as Ulysses). This central “ending” questions the whole enterprise of narrative – it is both a force so powerful that it leads us to bind all these lives together, and something so fragile that time can erase its legibility completely.

The structure of Cloud Atlas:

1: Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (1849 – American in Pacific Islands) – journal
2: Letters from Zedelghem (1931 – Englishman in Belgium) – epistolary
3: Half Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery (1975- American in LA) – detective novel
4: The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (2000 – Englishman in UK) – film script
5: An Orison of Sonmi-451 (2200? – clone in Korea) – interview
6: Sloosha’s Crossin’ An’ Ev’rythin’ After (post-apocalyptic – islanders in Maui) – oral story
5: An Orison of Sonmi-451 – Zachry’s tribe worships Sonmi; Zachry’s son’s children watch her orison.
4: The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish – Sonmi watches archived film version
3: Half Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery – Timothy Cavendish reads and critiques novel
2: Letters from Zedelghem – Sixsmith keeps them and Luisa Rey finds them
1: Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing – Frobisher finds in Ayrs’ library and figures out Henry’s plan (Melville)

This is England as I wanted it to be. What I dreamed it would be. What I hoped it would be. And it has been living up to everything I could ever imagine.

I’m not about large cities and urban life…I have that at home. I’m not champing at the bit to get to London and see the sights but it’s on the schedule. Mostly I’ve been about the countryside and the green (oh it’s very green!) and the quaintness. The villages and towns and the farm life.

And the sheep. This bunch was especially friendly — and noisy! At first they approached the fence to say hello, to check us out and then they began to chatter and move their young away from the fence. Soon though, they returned and it was a bit of a staring contest to see who would move first. I didn’t want to leave.

This area is where my great-grandfather was born and pretty much all of his ancestors before him. It’s in Hampshire. Tiny, narrow roads more like lanes for driving and huge hedges so that you feel even smaller. My family was farmers and I kept wondering “where did they actually live?” I saw the Church and the stones in the graveyard (though I didn’t find theirs and didn’t have to time to do a proper search) and it wasn’t just the air that was giving me chills.

This area is where the book “Watership Down” was written about. Watership Down as a place does exist and my distant cousin and his family, who still live in the area, go sledging there in winter (when there is snow, obviously).

Going back to my roots has been an incredible experience. One that I am glad to have had and to have been able to share with my children.

America is a passionate idea or it is nothing. America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos. ~Max Lerner, Actions and Passions, 1949

Many of the titles are resources from Western North Carolina,  a region that was poorly represented in our collection.

We were just donated enough books to fill my budget for 15 years.  Well maybe I’m exaggerating a little…14 years.  Debra Turner Tamberelli donated the books in memory of her mother, Grace Williamson Turner.  Mrs.Turner won the North Carolina Society of Historians, Historian of the Year award in 1990 and was a tireless researcher.  She also had a kingly collection of genealogical and and history monographs.  I put as many books into my Camry as could fit and now they are here at the Wilson County Public Library.  We are quite honored to be receiving these books and they will be put to good use by many researchers.

I told you that there were a lot of books.

Passing Strange. By Martha A. Sandweiss

One Drop by Bliss Broyard

I am an avid reader. I like biographies and history books. I can remember when I was in school at the beginning of the new year, taking my history book home and reading it completely within a week. No I didn’t have pocket protectors for my shirt pocket. So please keep that in mind when I tell you I have two books I wish to recommend. These books should be a great read, for any of us that have researched our family history. They both tell a story about who we were and are as a nation. Both books haunted my mind long after reading them. Also you will recognized the many steps in research that the authors executed to get to the fact that were hidden in these families.

The first book I would like to tell you about is Bliss Broyard’s, One Drop. Bliss was to find out just hours before her father’s death that he was black, that he had been passing as white for years. Her father had been able to do this despite his very public image as a columnist and editor of the New York Times Book Review. I can only guess at the shock and confusion that Bliss was trying to sort through. Growing up she had lived in the best neighborhoods in Connecticut and enjoyed an upper middle class life, with little interaction with non-whites. Bliss was to start on a journey to discover her family’s story. She would discover the 250 year history of her family. She would gain an insightful knowledge of her family, father, race relations, but mostly herself. Her experience is one that more of us may have, then would have been believed possible. The DNA testing firm that Bliss, used, found that 5 percent of people who identify themselves as white have testing that comes back showing some African ancestry.

The second book I would like to recommend is Passing Strange, by Martha A. Sandweiss. While this is once again a deathbed revelation, it is at the same time very different and rare, but also a familiar story. When James Todd a black Pullman porter and steel worker was dying he shared a secret with his black wife Ada Copeland. His secret was in two parts. The first being that he was not black, but a white man passing as black. The second was that his name was not James Todd, but instead was Clarence King, who was a very prominent scientist, author, and explorer. In fact for many years he had been living a double life. At a time when African-Americans hid their race and passed as white, King, a white man passed as a black man. He did this so he could be with the women he loved. While escaping the outrage this union would bring. In fact if his secret was exposed, his career would be over. King died in 1901. Ada was to live until 1964. This book tells their remarkable story.

In both these books you will see great genealogy research. The time and effort that it takes to discover a family and its history. You will see sources listed, and facts being checked then rechecked. The secrets these men held were personal, to be very carefully guarded. But in their telling we learn so much about race relations, social history, urban life, and American history. They are also a rich family history and that makes for a wonderful reading experience.