1,000 Words

I read a quote yesterday that boggled my mind. According to the now defunct 1000memories website, every two minutes we take as many photos today as all of humanity took during the entire 19th century. 

Photography became popular and accessible to many during the Civil War. Letters to soldiers usually included a request for a portrait which the soldiers usually complied. These photos were treasures, the next best things to having the real person back at home with their loved ones.  

And those photos are even more precious today because they are hard to find. I have been blessed to have some photographs from the late 19th and early 20th century but I want more.  

Yes, I love a good story. I have been fascinated by the written word from the moment my father walked me, a precocious seven year old, to the local library branch to get my first library card. Yet, I must concur that a picture is worth a 1,000 words. Stories of long-gone ancestors are wonderful but a photo is glorious. Looking into the eyes of a past ancestors and relatives, marking their stance and demeanor, observing the details of fashions from another era, takes one's perception of those individuals to a level not obtained by mere vital statistics. For me, old photos are time machines that captures the past where words may fail. 

So I hunt for old photographs, beg relatives who profess to hoard them, take as many photos as I can for future generations. And I share. Because not only do we take more photos now than ever, we have the technology to scan and post our treasures for all to see.

Columbus and Narcissa Alexanders, my paternal great grandparents

Fred and Posie Warren, my maternal grandparents

Solomon Koonce, born 1826, and family. He is my 3 x great-grandfather on my mother's side

Narcissa Wallace Alexander, my paternal great grandmother

Narcissa's mother, Cinderella Wallace

My maternal great grandmother Lizzie Brassfield Koonce and her sister Cora Brassfield.

How Far Back Can I Go?

(Prologue -Tapestry of Tangled Ties)

That is the question everyone interested in genealogy ask. It is my desire to go back as far as Africa. I probably need a genie in a bottle to complete that quest. As a Black American, my ancestry is hidden from me in a way that is not hidden from other Americans. Since my ancestors were slaves, their names were not on the census before 1870. It is not impossible to go back farther if I can identify the slave owners but that is difficult too. Many slaves wanted to distance themselves from their lives as property. They changed their names. They didn’t talk much about that time with their innocent descendants. White descendants of slave owners are also unwilling to share that part of their family history.

However, once the slave owners are identified, it is possible to find records on file because slaves were part of a financial transaction, as heinous as that is. I have the receipt of the purchase of my great-great-great grandfather Solomon Koonce who was sold to Isaac Koonce of Haywood County, Tennessee in January 1840..  I have also deducted that Solomon was owned for a period of time by Francis Nunn who died intestate in Lauderdale County, Tennessee around 1837.

I may be in the minority but I am also interested in my White ancestors. I am the sum of all of my parts. In looking for those ancestors I am learning more about my country’s history and psyche. That is also part of my history—slavery, the Civil War, the American Revolutionary War, the making of a nation. I plan on studying that too, to put my history into the larger context.

I can go back much farther on some of my white ancestors. So far I am able to go back at least 12 generations. I have found the link between me and one of my favorite writers, Jane Austen and even closer, the link between my family and Reba McEntire. This is exciting to me. I am not ashamed at embracing all my of heritage because I do not deny my ancestry regardless of color or nationality.

This is what I attempt to do in updating my family history. The surnames that I will be following are Koonce, Warren, Featherston, Cotten, Alexander, Brassfield,  Tarpley, Elmore, Alexander, Saunders, and Wright. There may be more as I learn more. I will also research the locations where they lived--Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi and maybe others as I learn of them. Hopefully, one of those locations will be somewhere specific on the continent of Africa.

Chasing Ancestors

I read some advice just in the past week that when researching Black ancestors, one should concentrate on one line. This advice was given because of the unique circumstances we face in trying to figure out who our ancestors are. I fundamentally disagree.

I've been researching now for 15 years. Sometimes I get so frustrated with the lack of results that I take a break. I take a break but I never quit and one of the things that keeps me going is that when I end up on a dead-end street for one line, another line still has many avenues I can explore. Finding even the most minute detail that had been hitherto hidden is enough to keep my genealogy juices pumping.

This is what has got me going right now. I always knew that I descended from Brassfields but very little else. My grandmother's mother, whose portrait hangs in my mother's home, is Lizzie Brassfield. Her father was D. Brassfield. Whenever I would try to find more about him I would get stymied by bad transcription. He had an unusual name. Now you would think that would make it easier to find him. Unfortunately not. When  20th century transcribers look at his name written in that archaic handwriting, they come up with modern names and that makes him hard to find in a search. I have looked at the original documents and see Domic or Danic. The transcribers on ancestry.com see David. This is the name picked up by familysearch.com. But I digress.

Since watching Who Do You Think You Are and its episode about Reba McEntire, I have been more curious about Grandpa D. Using information from tngenweb.org I think George Simpson Brassfield of Gibson County, Tennessee was his last slave owner.  Looking at the slave census for 1860, there is a male slave who is the right age for D living on George's farm. I have also found out that George's step-father had a larger farm with three times more slaves during 1850 and 1860 than George.  And the trail doesn't end there. I'm finding a trove of information about George that may eventually lead me to Grandpa D's origin.

So now I am energized once more. I feel like I'm one of those celebrities on WDYTYA except I am the one doing all the hard work and making the wonderful discoveries. And that feels good.

More on the Brassfields

So Reba McEntire and "Who Do You Think You Are" breathed new life into my genealogical research for one of my ancestors I had mostly ignored.

My grandmother Posie Koonce's grandfather was D. Brassfield. In 1865 D. Brassfield and Susan Buck, both of Gibson County, Tennessee, married through the auspices of the Freedmen's Bureau. That license gave me very few although juicy details. D, and I keep saying D because I don't know what the heck his name is, was copper in color while Susan was bright mulatto. All other questions were answered with "unknown."

So I looked for any Brassfields on the 1860 census in Gibson County. I came up with a George Simpson Brassfield in 1850. He is the only Brassfield listed in Gibson County. He owns 10 slaves, one of which is the right age and gender for my ancestor. However, there is no listing for slaves on the 1860 census. George is still alive and according to the census has a land value of $7,500 but I can't find the slave census. This may be a blessing if there were transactions during that time. I'm pressing onward.

Oh, and by the way, George is a direct descendant, according to the Brassfield/Brasfield.net, to Reba's ancestor George of Chester, England.

Me and Reba McEntire

I watch "Who Do You Think You Are" faithfully. Although I am extremely jealous of the research done for the celebrities, I watch because I learn something in every episode. On a few there have even been connections to the research I'm doing.

When the Reba McEntire episode aired, I figured I'd watch just for the genealogy tips, not expecting too much of a connection with the country western star. It was a great surprise then to find that there is a huge connection between our families.

Reba is a descendant of a George Brassfield. I am a descendant of a Brassfield. Her ancestors were slave owners. My ancestor was undoubtedly a slave. Watching the show renewed my interest in learning more about that line.

According to the episode, all Brassfields in America come from that first George who came over as an indentured servant at the age of nine  from England on the ship Loyalty. I have been able to trace my ancestor back to 1865 in Gibson County, Tennessee. So far I have found precious little about him even though his name is very unusual. In fact, I'm not sure what his name is. When I look at the original documents it looks like Danic or Domic. It has also been transcribed as David and Derick. That's part of the problem in finding him. But I do know that he was copper in color because I found the Freedmen's Bureau's marriage license when he married my great great grandmother Susie!

This week has been one of those where I find things that have been there all along, right under my nose. I have searched the Freedmen's Bureau many times looking for ancestors' surnames. I ran across Brasfield early and wanted to claim it but knew I didn't have enough information to do so.

This week I looked at D. and Sue Brasfield up close on ancestry.com. I was determined to figure out what my ggrandfather's name was. Looking at the census for 1880, I'm still unsure. It looks like Domic which is a name I've never heard of. Could it be short for Dominic? Or could it be misspelled?

Next I looked at the marriages at the Freedmen's Bureau site for Tennessee. There is a D. Brassfield and a Susan Buck. Looking again on ancestry at the original document and I observed the same strange spelling of Brassfield's name. Therefore this must be the marriage of my gggrandparents!"Donic Brasfield of Gibson Co., Tenn and Sousie Buck of Gibson Co., Tenn."

At Quincy, TN the two were united in matrimony on Dec. 22,1865. He was said to be a copper color, she a bright mulatto. No other details are given except neither had previous children.