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.

Cemeteries in Tennessee

I'm finding little tidbits of information, adding more flesh to the skeletons. Ironically, the information I am finding is from cemeteries which can be a wealth of data.

I found the burial place of Charles R. Featherston, my great-great grandfather. The cemetery is listed on the Dyer County page of the tngenweb site. Charles is buried in Shaw Cemetery in Dyer County. The vital information is also listed there. He was born Aug 6 1824 and died Jan 12 1873. His father, William Featherston, which would be my great-great-great grandfather, is buried there too. He died Jan 21 1870 at age 76. The cemetery is in danger of being abandoned. I can't find where or when Matilda, the mother of Charles' children, died and was buried although by sleuthing on the same website I found out she married Henry Hall in 1883 and was dead by 1900.

There was a sad notation about one of the abandoned cemeteries in Crockett County. According to Jonathan K. Smith, who compiled the cemetery inventory for the county, the African-American Nunn cemetery began as a slave burial ground. There are many graves here, some marked with cedar trees, but only one tombstone. The tombstone is for the daughter of my great-great aunt Mosella Koonce Dodson. It reads:

Fannie L. Dodson
30 Apr 1883 - Nov 11 1885
Daughter of J.D. & M. Dodson.

That means that the unmarked graves could very well be for other relatives of mine and I will never know who they are. It is also another piece of information that connects my family to the Nunns in some way.

My family maintains the New Cemetery (that's its name) in Crockett County. It was formerly known as Nunn Cemetery. This is where Solomon and his wife Cherry Koonce, my great-great grandparents James and Mary Jane Koonce, great-grandparents Willie and Lizzie Koonce are buried as well as several other relatives. I am very proud of the fact that the cemetery is still being used for family. I love the continuity. Mosella, mother of little Fannie is buried here and is the oldest grave. There are also graves as recent as 2005.

I must make a note to speak with my cousins who maintain the cemetery to see if they know anything about the old Nunn cemetery.