My Immigrant Ancestors

While talking with a friend today we discovered our ancestors came to this country in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds from England, Ireland and Scotland. So many of us in the deep south descend from those pioneers who migrated down through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. Just as in present day, people migrated in groups or families. Besides the Councils who came down from NC, the Poseys and Pelts, the Boyettes and my mother's Robison, Jones and Coopers also migrated south.

Around 1850, after the native Americans were pushed out of north Florida, the land which now belonged to the Federal Government, sold for as little as $1.25 an acre. Now I understand how my great grandfather, John Cecil Council came to own so much land.

I find members of the Robison (Robinson) family in Wakulla County, Florida. Larkin Robison, believed to be brother to John Monroe Robison, is buried in   
Woodville Cemetery in Leon County, Florida.

I am digging bones again now that I have downloaded Legacy 9, supposed to be the most popular genealogy program out there today. I plan to take a couple of classes with Larry Van Horn who writes a column for our local paper and who is the predominant family historian in this area. His expertise extends to all the digital records and histories found online.

When I began exploring family roots in the seventies and eighties, I traveled around south Georgia perusing old records, files, and cemeteries. I bought books about early families in North Carolina and Virginia where the first John Council stepped off a ship.

Seventeenth Century Isle of Wight County Virginia by John Bennett Boddie is filled with information including names like John Council, his son Hardy Council and their descendants. Many of the residents here came before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth.

Boddie explains the difference in his use of Puritan and Pilgrim. "The Brownist Movement (Separatist Movement)was an original defection from the English Church and favored separation from that body. There is a definite parallel between two of its offspring, viz: The Ancient Church formed in London in 1592, removed to Holland in 1597, whose remnants in 1618 migrated to Virginia - though most of them died enroute; and the Separatist or Pilgrim Church which in 1607-8 escaped to Holland and in 1620 embarked for Virginia but landed in Plymouth....the two groups then had much in common and history shows that the Rev. John Robinson, at different times served both of them."

Could that John Robinson be an ancestor of mine?  Robinson and Robison seem to be interchangeable on many records of that time.

Before Isle of Wight county became such, it was home to several tribes of native born groups including the Warascoyak and the Nansemonds. This was the James River region. The first white settlers who came were the Puritans, who came over from Holland after breaking from the church in England.

Boddie gives a couple of chapters to explaining the forces of the church and how they played out in forming Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Of  course many fights with the local Indians caused death to those early settlers. Boddie uses written records of the time to tell this story of the history of Isle of Wight County.

Boddie offers proof that men from Isle of Wight County were among the first settlers in North Carolina. So the migration began to move south.

In a chapter on Land Grants 1674-1705 I find other names in my family lines: Council, Jones and Robinson. In Land Grants 1628-1674, I see a Justinian Cooper. Could he be an ancestor to my Samuel Cooper line which I traced back to South Carolina?

John Council is named in a Deed Book in 1697. In May of 1775, Joshua Council was name to a County Committee of Safety. Was this man related to John Cecil Council born in 1833 in Alabama?

As a genealogy enthusiast, finding these surnames and the dates when they lived in Virginia  is like finding pieces of a jig saw puzzle and trying to find their place among all the other pieces. It is addictive and keeps me up at night. What intrigues me is how many of the names in Boddie's book are also found in the 1800 census records in Georgia, Alabama and Florida where my known ancestors lived.

We are a land of immigrants.
All the Councils, Joneses and Coopers as well as the Robisons, Robinsons and Poseys and Bealls came here from England, France, Holland, Ireland and Scotland in the days when white people fought the Indians for the land. With all the talk of immigration today, it is hard to think of my family as immigrants because they came so long ago, but still they came here to find a better life for themselves and their families just as do the people who come today.

I know we must be careful to monitor everyone in order to protect us from terrorists, but we are still the land of the free and that is what drives people to try to live here. Freedom which we all cherish is what many now want to deny anyone who is brown or black or comes from Africa. We have what we want here and we want to turn others away from sharing our land of the free.

Immigrants who come here from impoverished regions will take any job, usually, just to be able to live in this great country. Many wealthy people work undocumented people and pay them small wages, and those workers don't complain. They sometimes do the work no one else will do just so they can be here. Some are treated like slaves. Those same wealthy people pretend to be angered about illegal immigration when they are fostering the process.

In recent years I have met Americans who are first and second generation descendants of immigrants. They are so glad their grandparents came to this country, worked very hard to raise and educate their families. I feel that I have been ignorant of the whole matter of immigration most of my life because my family and people I knew growing up were descendants of those who fought in the war for our independence from England.

I assumed that most people in this country, other than Native Americans, had the same family backgrounds. Now I realize that our country is full of recent immigrants who are making a huge difference in our culture, a difference that many don't like and don't want. People with my kind of  ancestry are often afraid that darker skinned people will prevail and change us in a way they won't like. Well, it has already happened. Our popular music today is not what I grew up listening to and the food we eat is not what I grew up eating. The traditions we followed a few generations ago have changed in many households and in many communities, but is that so bad?  

Most young people embrace the changes and accept people for who they are and not the color of their skin. However, there are always those who hate anyone who is different. I have hope that as time passes we can all accept the changes in our culture and look for the good it brings us, not the bad.

If my ancestors had not wanted a better life for themselves and their families and if they had not braved the hardships to get here back in the seventeenth century,  what would my life have been like? They broke all kinds of laws to  build a country where freedom of religion and freedom of speech could be guaranteed. And now we have Americans who want to curb freedom of religion if it is not what they believe.

I hope the immigration laws can soon be worked out so that those who have been here most of their lives can be given a path to stay and work. I hope they can also be made so that those who want to come here don't have to wait for ten years to gain citizenship. Surely compassionate men and women in our government can put themselves in the places of the people affected by our laws and make the right decision. 

A Post from the Past

Today I am going back to 2008 and the post I wrote on my great grandfather John Cecil Council. If you weren't one of my readers back then you might enjoy reading about my ancestors.

John Cecil Council, born in Barbour County, Alabama in 1833, was my great grandfather. He was the son of Temperance Weaver Council. John, in 1845, was one of the first settlers in Wakulla County Florida. He, along with his mother, his sister Susan Council and her husband, Boyet or Lott, either traveled with the Pelts and Poseys or arrived about the same time and they all settled in Crawfordville, Florida. John Cecil acquired a good bit of land around the county. He married Frances DeLaura Posey who birthed a large family before she died.

John then married Missouri Redd. She was referred to as Miss Missouri. The two of them raised a second large family.

At the age of 28, and with children at home, John joined the Florida Militia during the Civil War. He was captured off the coast near his home while fishing to provide food for his unit. The Union ships took him and others captured with him to Shipp Island, off the coast of Louisiana.

When the southern prisoners first arrived on Shipp Island, there were no barracks, only tents, no protection from the wind, rain and large mosquitoes that carried disease. John Council took a leadership role among the prisoners as they set about building their own huts and shelters.

Back home Fanny, his wife, along with a black woman helper kept the farm going and raised the crops and hogs and cattle. She picked the cotton and had it bailed. Fanny's first born was a daughter, Georgianne Council. (1857-1957) Like her mother, Georgianne was strong and resilient. She knew how to use a gun and tramped through the thick woods to kill game for the family.

Georgianne lived a long life. A one hundredth birthday party was held for her and written about in the Wakulla County newspaper, but I hear from cousin Sandra that her birth date might be in question. No matter. Aunt Georgianne was a real pioneer woman who could do the work of any man and actually the work of more than one man from what I've heard. More about her later.

John Cecil Council was highly respected in his community. He was one of the founders of a church in Wakulla County, and was a leader of that church. He lived a long life and fathered his last child when he was in his early seventies.

Over the years I've researched this great grandfather of mine, and I met his youngest daughter as well as hundreds of his descendants. I have copies of his military records, his pension papers, his last will and testament. I've collected stories I've heard about him and hope to one day put them together for my family members.

John Cecil's oldest son, Tom, was my grandfather. Tom and his wife Sarah (Sallie) head the family I write about in Profiles and Pedigrees, Thomas Charles Council and his Descendants.

In this marriage, Tom died young and left Sallie to carry on without him. Tom and Sallie raised ten children, Mae, Charlie, Maude, Oleo, Horace and Hortense (twins), Lillian, Annie, and Coy (my father). Their first born son, John Henry, died at the age of fourteen from malaria. He is buried in the Council Family Cemetery outside of Crawfordville, FL.

Since this was first posted in 2008, my brother Hal Council and his wife, Yvonne, moved down to Wakulla County and in 2010 both of them passed away within three months of each other. They are buried, also, in the Council Family Cemetery where John Cecil and both of his wives are interred. They rest near John Henry's grave. When Tom's family moved up to Georgia in the early 1900s, John Henry's brothers built a one foot wall made of sea shells surrounding his grave. That wall, showing their love for their brother, still stands today.



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A Trip to Palmetto, Florida and family history

You know it is Florida when begonias are blooming in February

Monteen, 99 years old, in a lobster bib, and Beverly, her lovely daughter

Cousins, two resilient Council family women, took me on a tour of their home town, Palmetto, FL.  Monteen celebrated her 99th birthday in January, 2014. I enjoy talking family history with her. I asked that I be invited to the 100th birthday party next year. She asked me for a copy of Profiles and Pedigrees, Tom Council and His Descendants, to give to her son. I was glad I had one with me.

Beverly lives at Shady Acres, her mother's peaceful and beautiful home, where the moss drips off the old oak trees and a swing awaits her to sit and watch the sunset. She recently lost her beloved husband Tom. My heart aches for her pain on this grief journey. I'm happy she still has her mother. I remember how much I wanted my own mother when Barry died, but she was no longer with us. I wonder if we ever get too old to want our mothers when we hurt.

Charlie, Tiger's first person, treated me and others to a delicious meal at the Crab Trap in Palmetto. I kind of like his new beard. He is now a great grandfather of twins, Cash and Cabot! Charlie always picks up the tab. He won't let anyone else pay a cent. He has a kind and generous spirit. Quiet and soft spoken, he makes me smile with his dry humor. He is with his family where he wanted to be for a long time and they are seeing that he has the best of care. 

Second cousin, Diane, recently lost her mother who was 92. Diane was a devoted caregiver for her parents. She lives on the land that her grandfather, my uncle Charlie Council, bought many years ago in Manatee County. Charlie and other Council family members settled in the area in the early 1920s.

Diane is Monteen's niece. They are a close and loving family much like my own in south Georgia. 

Pelicans rest along the Manatee River

The mossy trees, the quiet river and the stillness of a winter day

Any angle of the Skyway Bridge is an artist's delight. This was a foggy day, no sun.

GENEALOGY - WE LOVE THE PUZZLE

Many of us are involved in researching our genealogy, finding our ancestors and learning about their lives. At Writers Circle next Wednesday, Mary Mike Keller will begin a series of classes called Bones to Flesh. She takes the dead ancestor and fleshes him/her out with all she learns about this person through research. She is very good at this, and I want to find some of my Council and Robison ancestors in her classes. 

I have traced my family back to my great, great grandparents who lived in the eighteen hundreds. 

Great, great grandpa John Cecil Council lived a long life, two wives and two families, in north Florida. But no one I  know has a clue to his father's name. His mother was Temperance Council, no maiden name. 

On my mother's side, I know the name and some other information about her grandfather, John Monroe Robison. He served in the Confederate military and I have papers showing his records. But who was his father? 

These are some of the questions I hope to answer in the class Bones to Flesh.