Category: Castellaw Family
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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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Finding Castellaws and Cobbs at the National Archives
Since moving to Washington, D.C., a research trip to the National Archives has been near the top of my list. A recent Saturday morning with nothing planned gave me the chance to check it out. I had time that day for only a few quick searches in the Civil War database, but in a matter…
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Auntie Mame, Memphis Style
In June, I posted some family photos and new information I received from Peggy Anderson, a distant relative I connected with online. Peggy’s great-grandmother, Nora Castellaw Hilburn (1878-1941), shown at top left in the photo, was the sister of my great-grandfather, Robert Edward “Bob” Castellaw (1868-1954). Peggy later emailed another family photo, taken in Baton…
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Blues, Barbecue and Memorial Day in Haywood County
Yesterday, we took a road trip to Haywood County, Tennessee, to check out the 2012 Exit 56 Blues Fest and celebrate Memorial Day a little early. We needed some mood music for the drive from Memphis, so we pulled out an old CD that came from a past music issue of The Oxford American. I…
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Bob and Zula Castellaw Siblings
You assume the families of your siblings will stay connected for at least a few generations, but genealogy research prooves that is usually not the case. Thanks to social networks like Facebook and genealogy sites like Ancestry.com, at least we can now reconnect with distant cousins who drifted away long ago. In this photo, the…
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The Seeds of my Fascination with Genealogy
I recently found more really old family photos, thanks to my 12-year-old self and my grandmother, Elizabeth Castellaw Williams (1915-1998). I got my first taste of genealogy from “Granny,” as we called her, one summer when I was about 12. I was spending a week with my grandparents near the Holly Grove community in Haywood…
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Castellaw Cemetery in Johnson’s Grove
I recently wrote a blog post about my third-great-grandfather, Charles Randall Johnson (1802-1864). During the recent Christmas, my dad and I set out for the Johnson Grove area of Crockett County, near Alamo, Tennessee, to find the graves of Charles and his wife, Margaret Louisa “Louisa” Wood Johnson (1808-1862). A cemetery transcription for Castellaw Cemetery…
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An Ancestry Clue Hidden in a Congressional Record
I was searching for the parents of my third great-grandfather, Charles Randall Johnson (1802-1864). I still have not found them. But genealogy has a way of rewarding one search with an entirely different discovery. In the “United States Statutes at Large,” I found an 1882 act authorizing a $250 payment to David Whittaker (1827-1889), administrator…
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The Man Named Vivian Married to the Woman Named Joseph
I recently attended a family reunion of my maternal grandmother’s family, the Brantleys. Joining us this year was a branch of the Brantley family we had never met. That particular branch descended from a couple who has always stood out for me because of their names. Vivian, the husband was married to a woman named…
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An Old Photo and the Story of Holly Grove Baptist Church
I found this photo of a group of children and adults at Holly Grove Baptist Church in Haywood County, Tennessee, a few weeks ago at my parents’ house. It appears to date to the early 1940s. The people in the photo are hard to identify, but I am fairly certain my grandmother, Elizabeth Castellaw Williams…