HenrysHistories

 My grandfather came from a very large family and some of them did not stay very still (in one place for very long).  Particularly difficult though was the fact that his mother Sarah Jane Lewis was orphaned young. She was placed in Oxford Orphanage in 1881 here in North Carolina and adopted out of the orphanage in 1883. The couple she ended up with did not treat her very well. She married my great grandfather George Gilliam Parrish in 1887.  FINDING INFORMATION But it was her mother's family that was an enigma. Over the years I found bits and pieces of information and slowly started building this side of the family tree.  Her mother was called Westduck Lewis and her father was Henry Boss King. Her parents were not married to each other as far as I can tell. Westduck's parents were named Norfleet and Julia Lewis. They lived in Halifax County, North Carolina. They had several other children besides Westduck.  One of these siblings of Westduck, I have chased behind...

 Portsmouth Island, NC is located 6 miles SW of Ocracoke village and is separated from Ocracoke Island by Ocracoke Inlet. At one time this island was a thriving sea port and shipping center.  In the year 1753, the General Assembly of North Carolina, passed legislation on March 27 to lay out a town on Core banks in Carteret County. The town was to be named Portsmouth and it would be fifty acres and divided into half acre lots. The cost for one of these lots was 20 shillings and you had to build a house or warehouse of at least 20 by 16 feet.  By 1758 the town had been laid out and was inhabited. For the next 102 years this island was home to many people. At its height, just before the Civil War, the population was almost 600.  Then the decline started due to the war, storms that ravaged the island over the next century and the inlet closing and a new one forming that offered better shipping lanes. By 1960, three people were left on the island. One man and two women....

 As you recall from yesterday's post, my dear friend Sameerah asked me to help her with her family tree. So I told her what information I needed from her , which she gave to me, and I dug in.  As i explored the branches of her family tree, I became more interested in one particular line, on her maternal side. It was the most fascinating to me. The reason being, because she had a connection to North Carolina.  African American genealogy is generally difficult to do because we run into slavery.  Before the 1870 census, African Americans were not counted by name. Another problem is once freed from slavery, African Americans had to choose a last name (surname). In my research I have seen surnames changed once or twice before settling on a surname. This is what I noticed with this branch of her maternal line. Family members even spelled the name differently, but it is the same family. Also, other freed slaves from the area also took the last name as their surname.  W...

 Hey Everyone! I am back after many years of forgetting how to get into this blog! So much has happened since I started this blog. I have been divorced. I also had my paternal grandmother pass away in 2014. I have had cancer twice, with two surgeries and radiation. My Mama passed away in 2020 as well. I have also taken up coaching cheerleading. But through it all I have never stopped doing my family research. I had friends ask me to help them, as well as co-workers. I have traced one line or several lines of their family trees. I have now done research in Canada, Mexico, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France and The Netherlands.  I did publish a book for my dad about our direct Parrish line.  Now that I know how to get into this blog again, I will keep posting. I am now working on a project with a dear friend of mine named Sameerah.  She contacted me not too long ago asking me to help her with her family history. She gave me what I needed to start with a...

Hello again everyone. Sorry I have been away for so long but you know how life can be, you get tugged in a thousand different directions. Anyways, I am writing today about some experiences I have had lately. First, I have met two people through the Pitt County Historical Society who were doing research on my Nobles line and found out one of them has also done research on the Davenport line as well. I have enjoyed sharing information with these two people very much. I also managed to get over to Nash County NC and get pictures of the gravestones and the house of the Nobles Family. In so doing, I found the grandparents of my grandmother Julia Page Parrish. That was exciting. Attached are pictures of their graves. Also I was able to make a breakthrough with my Rawls line(maternal line) thanks to one of the researchers I was put into touch with by the Pitt County Historical Society.

In my previous post I mentioned how the flood of 1999 from Hurricane Dennis and Floyd destroyed records that were in the courthouse in Edgecombe County. It turns out that the state archives does have records for Edgecombe County during the period I am looking for. However, I will have to sit through a lot of microfilm/microfische until I find what I need. So needless to say I may be sitting there for a few hours. There are many other courthouses not only in North Carolina but across the country, especially here in the South, where courthouse records have been lost to floods and fires. Do not let this get you down. Look for other avenues to explore. Locate church records, graveyards, school records, check and see if your local libraries have any records. I know NC State University Library has many old books that record wills and census information and other important documents concerning the state of NC and its citizens. So keep trekking on.

So I went to Tarboro, Edgecombe County, NC today to see family and to get a copy of my grandma's death certificate. I also stopped by the cemetery to see grandma's grave. the grass has started to creep over the grave and in a few weeks I imagine it will be covered in grass and you won't even be able to tell that it's a fairly recent grave, well except by seeing the funeral home metal plaque that says her name and birth and death year. So the death certificate lists the causes of death as Immediate cause: End Stage Dementia with contributing factors of cerebrovascular disease, failure to thrive and hypertension. but the time of death is not recorded on it. While at the courthouse I decided to look into my grandma's first marriage. But I was told all of those records were destroyed in the flood of 1999, so I was told to check the archives. So I am going to do that tomorrow or sometime next week.