Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Silence must not fall

It is my endeavor to write an updated version of my family history in 2012. To help get started,  I have decided to interview to my mom and her brothers as well as my aunt Hortense and get some of their experiences down in print.

So this morning I started with my mom. I think I may have to polish my interviewing skills some more. My mom was extremely defensive. I tried to explain that if she didn't know the answer it was okay but she seemed to feel I was judging her lack of knowledge. It made the interview very long on excuses and explanations and very short on interesting tidbits. Or is that a tidbit in itself?

My mother doesn't share my curiosity about our ancestors. It may be a generational thing. She was taught not to question her elders and that may also be why she is uncomfortable with me questioning her about our past. That is unfortunate, genealogically speaking. She knows very little about her father's people. She wasn't told much and she didn't ask. That definitely does not describe me. I will keep on digging and asking until I am satisfied no matter how long that takes.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Back to work

I was contacted by two people this week that has stirred me out of my hiatus. One was a relative of Isaac Koonce's ward. And another was one of my cousins with contradictory information on Mosella Koonce Dodson.

It will take a little while to get my research muscles going again but I have a break from real life coming up. I will use that time to give those muscles some exercise.

It was very interesting talking to the descendant of Isaac's ward. She told me that the original farm belonged to President Andrew Jackson. She told me of seeing two beautiful antique quilts made by one of the slaves. Unfortunately she didn't know which slave quilted the piece. I wonder if it was Amy.

Since I have done little research since August, the mystery remains. I did look over my blog where I detailed the different ages and gender of Isaac's slaves. I think in my zeal to find Amy, I committed a genealogy sin. I assumed. I haven't been able to gather any more oral stories but I know they're out there. I just have to look under every rock and tree until I find it.

And I think the info on Mosella is just a little confused. Once it is unraveled it will prove to be as we always believed. She is definitely Solomon's daughter.