Category: Johnson Family
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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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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…
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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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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…