Diving into Genealogy again to write more family stories

As you know, if you are a regular reader of this blog, I have been researching my ancestors for about forty years. Lately, I have been frustrated because my computer program with all my data is obsolete, and I had to move it to a new program, Legacy. I have not had time to study this new program and transfer my files, so I am taking a class with Larry Van Horn, genealogist, who will teach beginners how to use Legacy, the state of the art computer program for genealogists.

See my post on Writers Circle - https://www.glendacouncilbeall.com/2018/08/the-genealogy-behind-our-family-stories.html#.W348P2e0WM8

Monteen Council Hayman and her daughter Beverly

Just recently the oldest member of my father's family died. She was over 100 years old. A lovely woman right up to the end and her brother, who is in his nineties, told me today that she had a peaceful passing. Her name was Monteen Council Hayman.

Like me, she was the historian in her family. She was the only girl with four brothers. In my book Profiles and Pedigrees, the Descendants of Thomas Charles Council (1858 - 1911), Monteen contributed the history of her family who settled in Palmetto, Florida in the 1920s. She explained in detail how her father raised the vegetables he sold. He was my father's oldest brother and Daddy loved him. Uncle Charley gave my father work during the depression when jobs were impossible to find. He rescued his sisters, Oleo and Annie, when they were widowed or left by unfaithful husbands. His home was open to those who needed him. His story is one of my favorites in the book.

It pleases me that I was able to collect the stories of my grandfather's family for future generations to see how they lived, survived actually, when times were very hard in this country. I look forward to going further back and learning more about my ancestors who lived in North Carolina in the 18th and 19th centuries and connecting to the first Council who came to this young country, to Jamestown VA, so long ago.

Stay with me, friends, and learn along with me.

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. 

Are you a Robison? Are you a Cooper or a Jones?

These are some of the lines in my mother's family. Mother was Georgia Lois Robison. Her father was William Henry Robison. His father was John Monroe Robison.

In researching my genealogy which I really enjoy when I have the time, I found my Mother's last name spelled in many, many different ways. Even today, her uncle Oliver's family spells it wrong.

Census records and other records from the past 100 years or more, have Robison spelled wrong:: Robinson, Roberson, Robertson, Robeson, Robson, and on and on.

From my research I find that the Robisons, my family line, come from Ireland. I am sure that today I could find all the names above in Ireland. But I have not gone back that far in research.

Ancestry.com has become a big disappointment to me. I find tons of mistakes because people just simply copy what others put on their family tree. They don't find sources for their names. They seem to believe anything they see.

I have seen an entire family listed for my grandfather John Monroe Robison that is wrong. I know John Monroe had a brother named Larkin and another brother, William. My research shows that Larkin and William lived in Florida not far from my father's family, the Councils. All three Robisons enlisted in the Confederate army in Leon County Florida.

The confusion comes when the tomb stones have the spelling of the last name wrong. Or Find a Grave has the spelling and other information wrong. Family Search says they cannot change an error when I contacted them about some mistakes they have on their site about my own family.

Although it took me ten years to write my Council family history, I corroborated my information. Too many new genealogists are not patient and don't want to do real research. They jump to the information that is close to what they want to believe.

Sometimes our sources can be wrong. The Pelham newspaper had an obit for my father's brother-in-law, Willie Gilreath which said he was buried in the Pelham cemetery but no one can find his grave. We know he had family in Tennessee but seems no one can find his grave there either.

Often in our research, we dig up bones no one wants to know about. Some of my cousins were shocked to find their grandfather's mother was not who they thought. A son was born out of wedlock and he was raised by the married sister in the family, not his biological mother. Today those things are not that unusual but in the early twentieth century, it was hush-hush. In my book, that was one mistake I didn't know about and so a family of descendants are listed incorrectly.

I am not looking for those kinds of things when I am researching. I am more interested in the history of the people. If I am related to the first Robison to enter this country, I want to know who he is and where he came from.

John Monroe Robison in chair surrounded by his children

Cousins and brother looking at graves in Providence Cemetery where
John Monroe Robison is buried

According to my DNA sent in to Ancestry, all my family comes from England, Ireland and that part of Europe. And they came to this country in the 1600s and 1700s. I'd sure like to know who those early guys were and what they did..

Do you, my readers, enjoy genealogy or digging up bones?

Looking for Old Stones in hot south Georgia

On my recent trip down to south Georgia where I was born and lived half my life, my brother Max and I, along with two second cousins, Latrelle and Rob, visited a couple of cemeteries. One was in Pelham, Georgia where my grandfather and grandmother Robison are buried. That is also where my grandfather and grandmother Council are buried, but we were only looking for Robisons on this trip.

We arrived at Pelham Cemetery around noon and it was hot as I expected it to be. What I didn’t expect was my reaction to the heat. After only a short time while Max and my cousins stood out in the hot son discussing family,  I tried to find a place in the shade where I could sit down. There was no place. Inside the car was even warmer. I found a short stone wall and sat down hoping the dizzy feeling I was having would disappear. For a few seconds I felt I might pass out and fall right there on a grave. I leaned over and put my head down as far as I could without tipping off the wall and breathed deeply. Would they ever stop talking? How could I get them to take me out of that heat?

I called out, “Can we go now? I need to find a bathroom.”

That was as good as calling  Fire when you need Help. Everyone turned and headed for the car. The AC saved my life, or at least saved me from keeling over. I just can’t take heat anymore.We found a Hardee’s and went inside. A cold drink helped immensely.

Soon we were back on the road searching for the tiny little town of Whigham, Georgia, the birthplace of my mother and most of her family. There we would search for Providence Cemetery near Providence Baptist Church. My grandparents attended the Tired Creek Methodist Church, I think, but my great grandfather, John Monroe Robison and his wife Idella Cooper Robison are buried in Providence Cemetery. I don’t think John Monroe was a Baptist, but he is there. Between Rob’s memory and my memory of visiting there over twenty years ago, we found the old cemetery, but what a different place.

When last I was there, the graveyard was overgrown and unkempt, as though it had been forgotten.  It was a long way from the church. But on this day we found the place looking peaceful and serene surrounded by farm land and forests. Only the sound of birds broke the silence as we approached the green field with the modest grave stones.  

No one was there but the three of us. I headed to the right side where the oldest stones laid weathered and gray. Rob agreed with me that this was the area where he had seen John Monroe’s grave when he visited with our cousin Peggy many years ago. But we could not find it. We found Ida Jones Robison, the first wife of my grandfather William. We found George Jones, the father of Ida, and some others of the Jones line.

I began to wonder if we were in the right place or if somehow the stone of the one we sought had been removed. I walked down past all the Merritts and the Waldens who were also distant relatives, descendants of our John Robison, their graves newer and shinier than the one I was looking for.

I was hot and ready to give up on my search when Latrelle called out. “Here is a Robison. Is this the one we want?”  

We gathered around the grave and read the words carved into the stone. It was our ancestor, John Monroe Robison, who served in the Confederate Army as a blacksmith. He survived the war and lived a long life.

Beside him lies his wife whose name was not spelled out. I.F. Robison is carved into the stone of Idella Frances Cooper Robison. Women were not as important as the men in the world where she worked hard and bore children, cooked and cleaned and met her husband’s needs.

John Monroe Robison in chair with his five sons and five daughters. Third from left is my grandfather, William Henry Robison

In a letter to the editor of a local newspaper, someone wrote about this large family and how important Mr. and Mrs. John Robison were to the community. The writer said he remembered the family sitting on the porch in the evenings and singing together. I am not surprised that my mother came from a musical family. She loved to sing and listen to music, especially the singing of her four sons.

Latrelle who lives in Franklin, Tennessee and Rob who lives in Arkansas, made pictures of each other at the grave sites. I’m sure they want to share them with their families who have never been to south Georgia.

It was a long day, but one I will not forget. I enjoy Rob so very much. He reminds me of my mother, open and friendly and interested in everything. My day with Latrelle, who is also a writer, could not have been more fun for me. I feel like we are old friends. Maybe there is something to this DNA thing. Perhaps our connection is strong because the same genes run through our blood. Perhaps it is because we all care about our ancestors and their life stories.

We agreed that we would get together next year at my house in North Carolina. I look forward to that time. 

Genealogy and Our Health

In recent weeks, I've gone back to researching family history online. In 1998, I published a family history book based on my father's family. Now I am looking at my mother's side, the Robisons, Jones and Coopers.

John Monroe Robison, seated, and his children, probably taken between 1900 and 1910

Genealogy research becomes a huge puzzle as I look for little pieces that connect people I know are my family to those with the same names or similar names. Besides census records, which are easy to see online now, I looked for  military records, pension papers, etc.

I found an application for a pension by my great grandfather, John Monroe Robison. I read all the forms connected with this request. He was 78 years  old and evidently had to have two doctors examine him and give their opinions about his health.

He applied in 1906. Two doctors said he was feeble, weak and had a mitral valve problem as well as a hernia.  A witness stated that John could not do physical work. John stated he depended on an unmarried daughter to care for him. 

The papers required him to tell his military history during the Civil War. This man served in the Confederate Infantry for three years. I found his war records in Leon County, Florida where he was discharged. On this form he says he enlisted in Bainbridge, Georgia in 1862. He came home in 1865 and continued to farm his acreage in south Georgia. But he was denied his pension because he owned land and had paid taxes on it each year. 

In 1908, he applied again. He had given his land to his children. He could no longer farm and could not pay the taxes. He contributed only $25 a  year to his  upkeep. His doctors said he was feeble, weak and had a large hernia in his right side. He also had congestive heart failure.

This was the part that caught my interest. Congestive Heart Failure. My mother had CHF, my sister had CHF, my brother has CHF. Two other brothers died suddenly from heart attacks. My mother's mother died from a sudden heart attack. Now I learn that my great grandfather had congestive heart failure. 

Will I be like my father who died from pneumonia at the age of 88? Or do I have  the  genes of my mother's family? Will I ultimately deal with heart issues that cripple and cause suffering?

Finding this  health information in my great grandfather's records intrigues me. Now I want to know more about those people I never met but who passed down their genes to  me.

That information is not as easy to find online. I will continue to search for the story of their lives, but I will be acutely interested in their health and  how they died. 

So far, my cardiologist gives me good reports on my heart health. I get checkups every year, but I'm always a little worried each time I take a stress test or even an EKG. 

We  can't change our genetic makeup, but I want to know what I might expect so I can do my best to take proper care of myself. John Robison lived in a time before the many advances in heart care. Still, he lived a  long life for the time. In today's world, with today's medical care, he might have lived much longer. My brother, who has been diagnosed with CHF, now has a pace maker and walks a mile every day. He is in his mid-eighties and says  he is doing well.

From what I can tell by reading those forms, John Robison was denied a pension again in 1908. He died in 1910. 

How Do You Want to be Remembered - Re-visited

A couple of years ago I wrote an article - How Do You Want to be Remembered? - which is one of the most often read page on this blog. Every single day it is in the top three page views.

Can there be that many people wanting to read how someone wants to be remembered? At the time I posted that article, the thought hung heavy over me. I wondered about my legacy.

Looking back to when I was young, I wanted to be a woman with great talent and ability. I wanted people, certain ones in particular, to recognize me as someone special. But I have never felt that I was someone of special qualities, someone who would be remembered for years and years to come. That's why I wanted to write a book. People have always respected books - at least I have. I would often pick up a book in the library and read about the author. I marveled that this person who had been dead for a century or more was still leaving his imprint on the world by the words he had written in the book.

When I decided to write a family history book back in the eighties, I didn't think then of my lasting legacy so much as I did the people I documented in that book, Profiles and Pedigrees, Tom C. Council and his Descendents. My beloved aunts and uncles where passing on and their stories I'd heard all my life would soon be forgotten, I thought. I dedicated the ten years I cared for my mother to collecting those stories for a book. My cousins were happy to help me with research and photographs. The book was well received by family. Even the youngest ones mentioned have asked for their own copy and want to know if I will continue with the next generations.

I didn't have the technology we have today, no Ancestry.com and no access to records on the Internet. But I did have the benefit of oral history passed down to me. My book is a family history with genealogy listings, not a memoir or a biography. Because the stories of Aunt Oleo's house being flooded, and another home being burned to the ground, and her husband being shot by his brother-in-law, were part of the fiber of the family's oral history, I can't swear that every word is true. But my story gives the essence of who Oleo Council was, her perseverance and tenacity during a lifetime that rivaled Job's for patience.

My story of my parents was the story told to me by my mother and father, my sisters and brothers, cousins and from my own experience growing up in a large family. I have always had a curiosity. I asked questions.  I want to continue that story now with the family history including the lives of my siblings. Somehow, I hope that writing their stories and having them printed on paper in a hard cover book, will keep them alive in the minds of the next several generations.

How would they like to be remembered? I don't know for sure. I think I will find that as I write about them. Just as I learn about myself from writing, I will learn how I remember them and how I want them to be remembered.

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. 

Writers Circle - Where writers will feel at home.

April is almost here and my new studio is almost ready for visitors. We will hold the first class on Tuesday, April 6, at 10:00 a.m. New tables and chairs are in place for the students. My carpenter promised me he would be back to exchange an overhead lighting fixture and to replace the pet door panel that has outlived one dog but is about to be dumped into the trash. That pet door is an eyesore in my otherwise lovely room. The old carpet has been torn out and new wood flooring brightens up the place.

Mary Mike is making curtains and a table cover for the studio. I spent yesterday dusting off books and replacing them in categories on my bookshelves. My biggest treasure find while remodeling is the folding screen I have set up to divide my office from the classroom. I'll make a photo of it and share it with you.

"Who are You and Why do You Write" is the title of the first class. I'll teach at least one class per month  throughout the spring and summer. Guest instructors will teach, also. On Saturdays we'll offer poetry classes and self publishing classes as well as Spiritual Writing and creative writing.
Rosemary Royston will teach a class on Humor in Poetry. She writes delightful poems, and I look forward to sitting in on that session.
Mary Mike Keller will teach a three session course including genealogy with writing about ancestors. That's a subject I love, also.
Estelle Rice, author of a poetry chapbook, Quiet Times, will also teach a class for Writers Circle, the name of my studio and the name of the writing program.
Joyfully, I look toward a new beginning - teaching, taking classes with other writers, working with instructors, and meeting many new and interesting people.
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If you live in the area of Ashville, NC, be sure to put June 4 and 5 on your calendar for the Blue Ridge Bookfest. I'll be there and we hope to have our anthology done and on display by then.

Ancestors

I want to share this poem by my 8th cousin, Mary Michelle Keller. She is deeply into genealogy and found we have the same lines in our background. Before we knew we were cousins, we were friends. Barry called her "Cuz."

Ancestors
Census copies strew across my desk
keys that fit rusty locks of remembrance
yield up the flesh of those long dead

I am the keeper of their stories
gathered from dusty history book
records of birth, death and probate

They sailed on ships of cholera
some for adventure, others respite
all for new beginnings, for freedom

The adversity they left followed
some died only to have just begun
others survived to plant their seed

I am here because of them
I will not let them lie in obscurity
I will raise them and remember.

                Mary Michelle Brodine Keller

Genealogy of Mother's family, the Robisons

John Monroe Robison, in chair, and his children by wife Idella Frances Cooper who was disceased.
Left to Right: Sarah Robison Oats,Melissa Robison Walden, Willie Henry Robison (my grandfather)
Ira Robison, Annie Robison Thomas,Oliver Robison,
Jesse Robison, Coy Robison, Eula Robison Mashburn
Leila Robison Nicholson (nickname: Dumpy)

I often write about my father's family, the Councils, but Mother's family also comes from south Georgia. Mother, Lois Robison, was born near the town of Whigham, GA and her father, William Henry Robison, son of John Monroe Robison, farmed in Decatur County, GA. John Monroe is buried in the old Providence Cemetery in Grady County. Linda Wimmer, a cousin I recently met, lives in Florida and has begun tracing our Robison line.

As we began a photo organization project recently, I came across a photo of Willie and Lula Robison and all their children plus a photo of a couple that I believe is John M. Robison and his wife Idella Frances Cooper Robison.

In a later picture of Willie and Lula's children the sisters are seated on the front row and the three brothers stand behind them. Lois dearly loved her brothers and sisters. Mildred was the youngest child, two years younger than Lois and they were as different as night and day. Two other sisters, Edith and Berma, married brothers, Sidney and John Blitch.

Lois and Mildred were small children when the family lived on the farm. Edith often babysat the little kids while Lula helped her husband in the fields.

"She would whip us for the least little thing," Lois said in her later years. But she adored her sister anyway.

The Robisons moved to Pelham Georgia in the early 1900's just as the Council family did, because J.L. Hand, a wealthy northern man who founded the town, opened a business that employed and paid wages to children and adults. The Robisons and the Councils were urged to move there and put all those kids to work in Mr. Hand's plant just as many of the people who lived in rural areas.

William Robison, a good carpenter and a good chimney builder, took the job of caretaker for all of Mr. Hand's buildings, the largest of which was Hand Trading Company. This giant enterprise covered an entire block in the center of the town. The store was a forerunner of the big box stores of today.

My father said, "Hand Trading Company claimed they supplied everything you needed, from the cradle to the grave."

They carried caskets and baby cradles as well as anything else a household might need. Like people today flock to the malls to shop, in Pelham and surrounding area, everyone traded with the big store.

Sometime after December 23, 1904, lines were re-drawn and parts of Decatur County became a new county, Grady. Therefore, my mother's birthplace is presently in Grady County, but her birth is recorded in Decatur county, Bainbridge, GA.

Once while pouring over old books in the Decatur County Courthouse, I uncovered dusty records and felt like I was digging for treasure. The name Robison, also often spelled Robinson, was seen throughout the decades in wills, land transfers, and other papers as well as the name Cooper, my great grandfather's family name.

I've not researched the origin of John Monroe Robison's family, but I believe they came to Georgia from Virginia by way of South Carolina. Samuel Cooper has been traced back to that area.

Another cousin, Norman Cooper, sent me much information on the Cooper family. He has done extensive research.

I hope to go down to the Macon Georgia library in a few months and research the Robison line and the Jones line on my mother's side. My grandmother, Malula Jones, was the daughter of John Jones. I also have more research on that family.

When I have more time I hope to continue with my genealogy research, but for now I have to put those plans on hold.

You asked about Poseys

A woman looking for our connection to the Posey line emailed me today.
Going back through my old records, I find Poseys, Noah and Feraby in 1850 census with six children at Sop Choppy Florida. Noah was 36 years old in 1850. Feraby was 37. In 1870 in Wakulla, Noah and Feraby were listed in censue with only one at home, Noah A who was 20.
In 1880, Noah A was listed with his father, Noah, in home with him. Father was 67. No mention of Feraby in 1880 and no mention of a wife for Noah A.
I have a few other Posey family group sheets. I'll post some of them later.

I did not go to the class for Legacy genealogy program, but my friend Mike went and said this program is wonderful. I will have to find time to get it and learn it. Mike said it is amazing. Sounds like it would be great to compile a book.
Mike also has the Posey line way back in her ancestry.

Cousins, truth, and family history

Recently three cousins came to visit and I enjoyed seeing them and catching up. Sandra Mock was the cousin I first began working with on genealogy. She and her sister-in-law, Winnie, had traveled all over in search of our illusive great great grandfather. She helped collect all the family histories from the John Cecil Council family and sent them to me to put into my computer so we could write a family history.

At the time we were doing our research, there was no quick computer searching as there is today. We all scoured old courthouses, church records, and wrote to government agencies in hopes of getting a copy of death certificates or birth records. I spent some hours in Tallahassee looking for vital records to prove much of the information I'd received.

Chris Gowdy was one of the cousins who came that day and she has kept up with Council family history as well. Betty Jo Council is from the Ruskin Councils and I always enjoy talking with her. I used to see her at the family reunions when I lived in south Georgia and could make the trip down to Crawfordville.

My friend,Nancy Simpson says the word "cousin" has an emotional context when used in a poem. It is a word drenched in emotion just like the word mother. I've been so lucky since I began my study of family history to meet by email cousins I've never met. Most recently I met Linda Wimmer, a cousin my age, who is researching our Robison family. Pat, a cousin in Florida who has become a dear, dear friend as well, is also my age and we have so much in common. She loves delving into our family background and she has turned up some of the most interesting facts that she hasn't told others and she might never tell them. But these facts would make a great story for a novel if she ever decided to write one.

Truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction in many cases.

Can't wait to see what truths my students write in the coming weeks. But what is truth anyway? My truth is not my brother's truth, but I can only tell what I believe is true.

Why Do We Write Our Life Stories

Stories add leaves and flowers to the branches of your family tree.—Gloria Nussbaum, Real to Reel,Beaverton, Oregon

A life story is a gift one generation bestows upon another, a legacy people have been giving from the beginning of time.—Denis Ledoux, Turning Memories Into Memoirs, 1993 Soleil Lifestory Network, Lisbon Falls, Maine
What do you wish you knew about your grandfather or great-grandfather? Shouldn't you preserve that kind of information for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren?—Terry Mullins, Professor of Management, Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Florida

There's something very special in even the most meager details about one's ancestors. This, I believe, is the ultimate purpose of family history, and it is not selfish or egotistical at all. It is a gift to future generations who happen to be connected by blood ties. I remind people that they have lived in a world that is entirely foreign to their grandchildren, and while their memories may seem mundane to them, their descendants will be fascinated by the differences in how they lived. These descendants will also thank them for conveying something about family members who would otherwise remain complete strangers to future generations of the family.—David Harding, Second Story, Omaha, Nebraska

If we don't preserve people's stories, they will disappear after two generations. Every story we preserve is a piece of someone's family history that would otherwise be lost.