Category: Bertie County, North Carolina
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Following my Williams Line Back to Bertie County, North Carolina
Photo of four generations: From left: Will, Scott, Bo and Bob Williams For years, I have been able to trace many of my ancestral lines back 10 or more generations. But my Williams line, the one that gave me my last name, has stopped at my fourth great-grandfather, George S. “Brother George” Williams (1797–1852). George…
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John Williford of Bertie County, North Carolina
I am trying to determine the identity of the parents of my 4th great-grandfather, Rev. George S. Williams of Madison County, Tenn. but it has proven difficult. I decided to see what I could discover by working with the line of his wife, Nancy. I still have work to do on the mystery of George’s…
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Brantley DNA Results
And the father is… ‘Thanks to my cousin Betsy and her genealogical detective work, we recently participated in a DNA project that provided strong evidence connecting our branch of the Brantley family to the paternal line associated with Edward Brantly (about 1615-1688), who was living in colonial Virginia by 1638. It appears Edward Brantley is…
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Westward from Bertie to Haywood
Photo: A section of “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way” by Emanuel Leutze / As I continue to research my family tree, one question keept coming up: Why did so many of my Bertie County, North Carolina, ancestors load their wagons in the early 1830s and head west to Haywood County, Tennessee? The…
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Penelope Johnston Dawson’s letters from Eden House
During last month’s research trip to North Carolina, I hoped a search through letters written by Penelope Johnston Dawson (c. 1740-1797) of Eden House would result in proof of a connection between her and my fifth great-grandmother, Margaret Dawson Castellaw (c. 1755-after 1813). I have seen claims that John Castellaw (c. 1723-1813), my 5th great-grandfather…
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Letter from John Hill Jacocks of Haywood County to Jonathan Joseph Jacocks of Bertie County
Photo: Possibly John Hill Jacocks and Emily Naker Nicholls A letter I found in the Jonathan Jacocks Papers in the Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is especially meaningful considering so many of my ancestors migrated from Bertie to Haywood County. Of course, many of those…
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Salmon Creek and Eden House: Seedbed of the Colony
As I recently blogged, my family and I went a genealogy road trip in celebration of my 50th birthday. One of the stops with the historic marker close to Eden House. Erected in June 2001, the large marker replaced four older markers, all of which were scrapped when construction commenced on the new US 17…
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50th Birthday Genealogy Road Trip
My 50th birthday last week was a great excuse to visit a few places I’ve read about for years but had never seen in person. I gathered content I’ll be posting on my blog for months, but for now I wanted to share a quick overview and some photos. Wilson Library at the University of…
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Eden House
Photo: Eden House historical marker located along the Westshore Chowan River, 1952. Charles Brantley ‘Aycock’ Brown (1904-1984), State Archives of North Carolina Source / As the North Carolina Department of Transportation began preparing for work on the U.S. 17 bridge over the Chowan River in the late 1990s, the department knew it was working near…
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Know Your County: James Castallaw
Photo: Hoggard’s Mill was located in an area established in 1736 by James Castellaw. The site was the first Bertie County seat (circa 1722 to 1769) and is known as the “Lost Town of Cashy.” The first courthouse, public warehouses, jail and other various commercial buildings were also located there, making it a historically significant…
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Sister C. A. Williams Is Gone
Photo: D. G. Beers Co. of Philadelphia 1877 map of Haywood County, Tennessee showing the location of Catherine A. Williams homeSource / “Sister C. A. Williams is Gone.” That was the first sentence of my third great-grandmother’s obituary, written by John Charles Warren Cobb (1830-1914) and W.T. Morris (1842-1924) as it appeared in the Zion…
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George Williams Brick Wall
Holly Grove Baptist Church, pictured around 1913 is located in Bertie County about seven miles south of Powellsville on the east side of US Highway 13. It was organized in 1804 as Outlaw’s Chapel and was named for Ralph Outlaw. During the early 1820s the name was changed to Holly Grove. / While I have…
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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,…