Author: Scott Williams
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Alfred Bunn Joyner and Family
Photo: Alfred Bunn Joyner and Family, Haywood County, Tennessee, mid-1890s I love finding a photo of a whole group of my ancestors in front of their house. My aunt, Joline Joyner Williams, originally shared this one with me. Of course, I enjoy seeing what they looked like, but a photo like this one also provides…
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America Firsthand
I just returned from a family camping trip on the Spring River in Hardy, Arkansas. I declared the outing a “no-electronics trip” with no phones, Kindles or iPads. Of course, books were encouraged. Being outdoors on the bank of a river turned out to be the perfect place to read “America Firsthand, Volume One: Readings…
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Home Sweet Home
Photograph that appeared in the Brownsville States Graphic newspaper in an article about my grandmother’s updated kitchen. Growing up, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house in Haywood County, Tennessee. Lloyd “Bo” Williams and Elizabeth Castellaw Williams, whom we called Daddy Bo and Granny, both grew up near the house on Poplar…
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1934 Scrapbook
The casts of the Nickelodeon TV shows “iCarly” and “Victorious” visited my workplace, Graceland, today, and I found it fascinating to watch the kids reactions to celebrities. No doubt many of the photos they took will end up being posted in the current online version of a scrapbook. Cast members from Nickelodeon’s “iCarly” and “Victorious,”…
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Happy Mothers Day
Since it’s Mother’s Day, I thought I would share three stories my mother, Shirley Lovelace Williams, has told me over the years. One of my mom’s earliest memories comes from when she was about eight years old. She had been looking forward to traveling with her family from Brownsville, Tennessee, to Memphis to visit their…
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John Yelverton and Elizabeth Blount Yelverton
Photo: My second great-grandparents Charlie B. Lovelace and Nancy Jane Yelverton Lovelace My Yelverton family line offers a fascinating look at colonial North Carolina. That branch, as I currently understand it, runs from John Yelverton Sr. (ca. 1685-1750) the father of John Yelverton Jr. (by 1716-1795); the father of Hardy Yelverton (ca. 1755-1828); the father…
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The Marbury Line to Prince William
Photo: Back row: my maternal grandfather, Guy Lovelace and my grandmother’s cousin, Hardy B. Marbury, Middle row: my maternal grandmother, Virginia Brantley Lovelace holding my Uncle Bobby Lovelace; My grandmother’s sister, Cordelia Brantley; My grandmother’s maternal grandmother, Lena Booth Marbury; my grandmother’s mother, Allie Marbury Brantley; and her father, Willie BrantleyFront row: my grandmother’s sister,…
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Plant to Prosper
Photo: My grandfather Guy Lovelace holding my Uncle Bill. Seated is my Uncle Bobbly and my mother. My grandmother Virginia Lovelace is seated in the rocking chair. It’s planting time here in Midtown Memphis. My farm measures about 9 feet by 3 feet, and last weekend Alex, Olivia and I filled it with zinnia and…
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Fight for Bell’s Mill
Photo: Molly Pitcher at the Battle of Monmouth by Dennis Malone Carter (1827-1881), 1854, Oil on Canvas With the loss of the Union Avenue Methodist Church building to CVS fresh in my mind, I have been researching another historic site that people tried to save but lost: Bell’s Mill in Randolph County, North Carolina. Bell’s…
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The Rubble of the Union Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church
What Memphis Lost at Union and Cooper In 1924, the congregation at Union Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, South, installed an M.P. Möller pipe organ inside its new sanctuary at 2117 Union Ave. The instrument had 1,457 pipes, enough to fill that corner of Union and Cooper with the sound of hymns, weddings, funerals and Sunday…
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Stitching keeps church neat amid Providence landmarks
This article, published in the Jackson Sun on Friday, Aug. 12, 1983, includes my grandmother, Elizabeth Castellaw Williams. By BETTYE ANDERSONJackson Sun reporter Jane Carr, Doris Naomi “Nonie” Warren, and Elizabeth Williams, far right, work on a cross-stitch quilt to raise money for Providence United Methodist Church. The women, including the pastor’s wife, Faye Howard,…
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Solomon Normon Brantley’s Tennessee Civil War Questionnaire
Photo: Soldiers and spectators watching the Battle of Nashville between the forces of Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood and Union Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, Nashville, Tennessee, Dec. 15, 1864. Photograph attributed to J.F. Coonley. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints Collection. The Tennessee Civil War Veterans…
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Solomon Norman Brantley, Sincerely Yours in Peace
Photo: My third great-grandfather, Henry Day Brantley, (1845-1918) The country is currently marking the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the The Civil War. A few nights ago, I was flipping through channels and stumbled across Ken Burns’ documentary “The Civil War” on PBS. It caught my attention because I recently discovered Solomon Norman Brantley’s…
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Mary Kerr Dougan and the Women Who Held the Line
Image inspired by “Fanning’s Atrocity: Murder of an American Planter,” an undated black-and-white lithograph from Cassell’s History of the United States, published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, c. 1900. Depicted is David Fanning’s March 1782 raid in Randolph County, North Carolina, and the shooting of Patriot officer John Bryan after Fanning ordered Bryan’s house set…
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Davy Crockett at SWSW
I had some really good times while at SXSW last week talking about Elvis.com. One of the best happened because on my way to the airport to return to Tennessee, I couldn’t resist stopping at the Texas State Capitol. I was hundreds of miles from home and did not expect to run into anyone from…
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The Cemetery at Providence
I had just read on my BlackBerry that a couple of escaped convicts were being chased by police through Madison County, Tennessee. The news caught my attention because I had just been researching my grandfather’s maternal line, the Williamsons, who settled in Madison County near the Haywood County line and helped shape the rural community…
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Photos from Cobb Family Cemetery
Whenever I find photographs of the ancestors I have been researching, it feels as if a small window opens and gives me a glimpse of what they looked like at a particular moment in the past. A distant cousin, Joyce Cobb Maness, who was kind enough to spend time talking with me on the phone…
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Alfred Bunn Joyner
The departure of the pioneers of the county deserves more than passing notice. While at the Genealogy Room at the Brownsville Library recently, I ran across an obituary of my third great-grandfather, Alfred Bunn Joyner. It provides some great information on several families in my tree. Alfred’s father, Littleton Bunn Joyner (1782-1852), was born in…
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Thomas Joyner of Bere Regis
I’ve been researching my Joyner family for the last few weeks and am getting close to having enough confidence in the information to upload more of it to my website. One ancestor in particular is making me want to plan a trip to England. My father, Bob Williams, and grandfather Lloyd “Bo” Williams My grandfather…
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1877 Haywood County Map
Today I finished uploading the information I have been able to locate so far on the Watridge family. The 1877 Haywood County map that hangs on the wall in our dining room, currently behind the Christmas tree, was especially helpful while I was working on this branch of the family. In this close-up of District…
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The Texas Castellaws
The internet has changed genealogy in one important way. It allows people who care about their ancestors to find one another and share photographs, documents, stories and small pieces of family history that might otherwise be lost. A recently discovered cousin, Lynn Graves of Texas, shared a great photograph of our mutual ancestors, the family…
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Joseph S. Cobb and Pocahontas
Since this is Thanksgiving, it seems fitting to mention the research I’ve been doing on my possible ninth great-grandfather, Joseph S. Cobb (1588-1654). He arrived in Virginia in 1613 on the Treasurer, seven years before the Pilgrims reached Plymouth in 1620. As I have worked my way through the Cobb family, I have been struck…
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George Phenney Search in Nassau
When I first came across George Phenney, it was because of my research on Penelope Johnston, whom I suspected was my seventh great-grandmother. Penelope’s third husband was George Phenney, who served as colonial governor of the Bahama Islands before marrying her. After digging further, the family connection grew less certain. Still, when I found myself…
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Castellaw Family Reunion
Gathering at Holly Grove Baptist Church A Castellaw Family Reunion was held this past weekend at Holly Grove Baptist Church in Haywood County, Tennessee. It was a fun time as descendants of Thomas Jefferson Castellaw Jr. (1841–1879), and Nancy Marianna Johnson Castellaw (1844-1921) gathered with descendants of their son and daughter-in-law, Robert Edward “Bob” Castellaw…
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John Dawson Castellaw of Bertie County, North Carolina
From Possibility to Proof For a while, I thought I had made a remarkable discovery about the ancestry of my fourth great-grandfather, John Dawson Castellaw of Bertie County, North Carolina, and later Haywood County, Tennessee. Like many amatuer family historians, I had followed a trail that seemed to connect him to a prominent colonial Virginia…
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Looking for George Williams
I have been trying to learn more about George Williams, my fourth great-grandfather, and recently I got a little more help from Lynn, who knows a lot about the old churches of Bertie County, North Carolina. She gave me some additional clues about where George may have come from before he turned up in West…
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Dr. William Beanes and The Star-Spangled Banner
While Dr. William Beanes is not a direct ancestor of mine, he was closely connected to the Marbury family and is now one of those people I will think about every time I hear “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Leonard Marbury was my sixth great-grandfather. He had a brother named Luke Marbury Sr. Luke Sr.’s son, also…
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From Alex and Liv to Alfred the Great
The journey from Scotland to Haywood County, Tennessee The Marbury family is loaded with interesting characters and, if you are willing to hop back and forth between husbands and wives for a few generations, it appears possible to get from my daughters, Alex and Liv, all the way back to Alfred the Great. Along the…
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The Ark and The Dove
The Marbury family has kept me busy the last few weeks. There are a lot of men named Francis and Leonard, and once you get back into Maryland, they begin to multiply in a hurry. Add in old naming patterns, Revolutionary War service and genealogy sites that copy from one another, and it can be…
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John Castellaw and Martha Butler
The story of my fifth great-grandfather and his early mixed-race marriage While researching the Castellaw side of my family, one story that deserves closer attention is that of my fifth great-grandfather, John Castellaw (c. 1726–c. 1813), and the relationship he had before his later marriage. John Castellaw appears in records in Bertie County, North Carolina,…
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Jack Castellaw and the Immortal Ten
A Disaster in Texas My second great-grandfather, Tom Castellaw Jr., spent his entire life in Haywood County, as did most of his children. His brother Fletcher’s family took a different path. Fletcher’s son moved to Ennis, Texas, before the turn of the century. There, Jack Coleman Castellaw became a pharmacist and owned a drugstore. Jack…
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Dr. William “Randy” Lovelace II
A Few Good Women When researching their ancestry, most people are hoping that, at some point, they’ll find they are related to a president, a great general or at least a king or two. Up until now, I have uncovered your basic assortment of early settlers, farmers and the like. But last week, I found…
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Virginia & Guy Lovelace’s Farm
A Haywood County Farm I’ve been working a lot this weekend trying to get the Lovelace family line completed on my website so I would have two complete family lines live. My daughters were at my parents’ house, so it made me think about all the summers I would go to my own grandparents’ houses…
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Will Williams
Trying to get the research posted correctly while figuring out HTML at the same time is proving to be a challenge, to say the least. Tonight I have been working on the Will Williams branch of my genealogy. He was my paternal grandfather’s father. Will experienced a great deal of loss, although that was not…
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Thomas A. and Quincy A. Shirley Lovelace
Photo: Thomas A. Lovelace (1812-1876) and Quincy A. Shirley Lovelace I recently met my distant cousin Joan in Bells, Tennessee, and she connected me with another family member, Diane, who also had some ancestor photos I have not seen. Among the Lovelace photographs I hope to share later, Diane had something I never expected to…