Into the LIGHT

 Last week (Week 2), I revised a post from 2011 for the theme "Origins." I realized, after that fact, that doing it the way I did would not result in that post showing up in order with my other responses to the 52 Ancestors prompts. Therefore, I'm inserting this post so that weeks will all be included and in order - and I'll know to do other reposts a different way!

So, to read my Week 2 post, of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, please click here. If you're one of the 500+ people who've already read it, as of this posting, I appreciate you!

Thanks!

Renate

Yep, you read that right! The New York City Department of Records and Information Services has finally done the right thing! Not only have they digitized their birth, marriage, and death records from all five boroughs, but they have put them online with FREE access to all! Woo-hoo!

Although I'm not a big-time NYC researcher, I do have reason to be very excited about this, as I had several ancestral relatives from my GREEN line, who left North Carolina to live in New York - and, while they were there, they were (at least part of the time) passing as WHITE. Though I've had some limited information about them, being able to see these vital records in their entirety will fill in some blanks for me and help to move my research on this particular family line forward. 

With that goal in mind, I dug right in and, voila! - I've already struck little nuggets of gold.

One of the most mysterious characters in my NYC-passing Green line is William Adam Green, son of my 2x-great-grandparents, Nathaniel Hawkins and Anna Green and younger brother of my great-grandfather, John Wesley Green - all of Louisburg, NC. I've written a bit about William, here. Though his mother, Anna, is the real mystery person, it's largely been the inconsistencies in the records I've found about William that have impeded my progress in successfully uncovering more details about the life of his mother - my direct ancestor. (You can read a bit about Anna in this 2009 post. Just keep in mind it was written 13 years ago!)

Though I'll need more time to work with this morning's loot, I'll share just a couple of the documents I've already encountered, and tell a little about why they are so helpful to my research.

1904 Marriage Record of William Adam Green and Sally Lou Johnson

First of all, though I've had this this marriage recorded on my tree, for a long time, no one in my family - even relatives who actually knew William Green - knew anything about it. And, although these relatives all lived in the tiny town of Louisburg, none of them had ever heard of a "Sally Lou Johnson" or her family. This documents reveals the names of Sally Lou's parents - Harry Johnson and Judy Eton (Eaton). I have already found Sally's (whose name is actually Sarah) immediate family, and will be able to find out more about her, them, and what happened to this first marriage (stated on document) of my ancestor, William Green. 

This 1904 document also shows that William gave his race as Black, and that he was marrying a black woman, who was from his hometown of Louisburg. That's important because I've hypothesized that he didn't purposefully go to New York to pass as white, but that it's something that happened as his time there went on. (More on that, later.) Additionally, I've always wondered if any children were produced by this first marriage. Perhaps having the additional information about Sally's name and family will lead me to a definitive answer about that.

                 

The biggest deal on this document is the very clearly written name William gave for his mother - Anna PERKINS. It's only been through William's records that I've ever seen this last name for my very elusive second-great-grandmother, who used the surname GREEN, but was rumored to have originally been a Perkins. There are other iterations of P-names on the other documents, but I trust this one more because I know this information would have been given by William, himself. However, I can't/won't allow myself to take it as definitive proof of her original surname because of the fact that, on this very same document, William gives the wrong surname for his father. On the document, the name is written as Nathaniel Green, but his father's name was Nathaniel HAWKINS. Is it possible that William didn't know that; or did the clerk make this error by either making an assumption or at the direction of William? I'll likely never know that answer to that. I am glad, though, that William knew who his father was, enough to get his first name correct. Since Nathaniel died when William was between 4 and 6 years old, it's not likely that he had many (if any) personal memories of him.

The last two "big deal" items from this document are that I can add this address, 48 6th Avenue, to William's timeline and, finally, that I'm able to see William's actual, very confidently written signature, for the very first time. (Of course, I'll be looking into the witnesses and the "Elder" Wm M. Johnston, too.)

                                     

Well, that was a bit longer than I'd planned this post to be. I need to get back to the research and to the things I was supposed to have been doing before this bright, shiny...errr-uh, I mean this wonderful resource was shared this morning. Therefore, I will just share one of the other documents I downloaded from the search site - William Green's death certificate. 

That's me, socially distanced, as I talked with the current occupants of the William R. King house, in Louisburg.

Today, I took a quick trip down to Louisburg, NC to check on my family's property. While there, I took my usual ride through the northern part of town, where most of the beautiful historic homes are. For the first time, I met the owner (not pictured) and current inhabitants of the KING family home, which was the original property of William R. King, the one-time enslaver of my great-grandmother, Precilla Shaw Yarborough. The house, which apparently has some paranormal activity going on, will be featured on an upcoming episode of the show, “Ghost Nation,” which airs on The Travel Channel. It turns out that the young lady pictured has been doing research on the King family, so we will be collaborating in the future! (To read about my great-grandmother's connection to the King family, click here.)

The day-long symposium, to which registration was open to the public, was the culminating event for the conclusion of 5 weeks of genealogy classes which had been held at the church, in which upwards of 50 students had been enrolled. The day included a period reenactment by a descendant of a formerly enslaved woman, recap sessions for the members of the two classes (beginner and intermediate), lunch, and two presentations by yours truly - "Finding Calvin: A Case Study" and "Introduction to DNA for Genealogy". Both presentations were extremely well-received and were followed by tons of compliments and expressions of gratitude from audience members. And, guess what? At the end of the day, I received an enthusiastic standing ovation - a first for me in the 7 years I've been giving genealogy talks!
                    
The weekend was made particularly joyful and memorable for several other reasons, the most special of which was the fact that I got to spend time with FAMILY and FRIENDS.  On Friday, my second cousin on my Green-Hawkins line, Kelly, who lives just outside of Charlotte in Mathews, picked me up and, after we got a quick bite to eat, rode me around to a couple of places I wanted to see - Johnson C. Smith University, where my aunt, Susie Yarborough, was a dorm matron in the 1940's and 50's; and Barber Scotia College, a school I recently discovered that my ancestor, Jessie Green, attended sometime between around 1916 -1920. (You can read about that, here.) Kelly and I had a lovely few hours together, and I'm ever-so-grateful that he so generously took the time to spend with me and to ride me around in the rain. After my afternoon with Kelly, I met up with a dear friend of 40 years and college sorority sister, Debbie, who lives right there in Charlotte. We had a great time catching up over a yummy dinner at the Rock Bottom restaurant.

With my cousin, Kelly

With my Soror Debbie

With my cousin, Eunice

Here are a few additional photos from my trip. I do hope to return to the "Queen City", someday, for a longer (drier) visit. I had a great time! :)

Barber Scotia College

Graves Hall at Barber Scotia

Corner entry and sign for Johnson C. Smith University

Source: Ancestry.com U.S., Pardons Under Amnesty Proclamations, 1865-1869 (Click to enlarge.)

Governor William Hawkins - 17th Governor of North Carolina

And, this is the article I found about Henrietta's death. The copy is a bit light, but it tells of her being "one of the largest and most successful planters" in the area and identifies her as a slave owner. (A quick check of the 1860 Slave Schedule for Louisiana's Madison Parish shows her owning 191 slaves on one of her properties.


Death of Henrietta Amis - Daughter of Gov. Hawkins Thu, Sep 19, 1889 – Page 2 · The Roanoke News (Weldon, Halifax, North Carolina) · Newspapers.com

🌟

By 1880, Anna had given birth to all six of her and Nathaniel's children. (There are 3 other children in the home. Their relationship to the family remains unknown.

I really want to show the full context of this census page, because I’ve been questioning it for two decades. It appears to me that this may have been some type of work farm, or something, because of the way the enslaved people are enumerated as having different owners, none of whom seem to live on the same property, or, in many cases even in the same county. (Click on image to enlarge.)

Enumerated just after the 15 year old female is a 46 year-old woman, owned by Martha YOUNG. For years, I’ve wondered if this unnamed woman could be Anna’s (the 15 year-old?) mother, but there’s never been anything for me to use to move forward on that hunch – nothing until tonight. Tonight, out of boredom, I decided to go through some of my old documents to see if I might notice anything new. My focus was on looking at the clusters of people enumerated on the census pages with my ancestors (and nearby). I decided to give another look at what I had for Anna Green, and, in doing so, I pulled up the 1870 Census for her.³

1870 Census from Louisburg, Franklin County, NC showing Anna Green and Sophia Young3

Well, lo and behold, look at that! The 46 year old woman, enumerated just after the 15 year old, was owned by a Martha YOUNG. Even though the age is a few years off from the woman owned by Martha Young in 1860, I believe this could be the same woman! Ages of enslaved individuals were often estimated, and we don’t know who was providing the information at either of these enumerations.

Before writing this post, I did some preliminary (really quick) research to see what I could find on Sophia Young. This 1870 census was the only one I found her in, but further research will be conducted to look for her family connections, death/burial information, and anything else I may be able to find. The fact that this black woman was living alone, five years after the war ended, was right next door to Anna, and that my quick look doesn't find her with any other family attachments in the area really strengthens my suspicion that she could be the woman who "ran away from somewhere" to Franklin County, having left any other (possible) family behind. I'll be searching all the ads for a "Martha", to see if I get any leads, either in Virginia (where Anna says she and her parents were born on the 1880 Census, or in Tennessee, where one of the cousins told me she thought Anna may have come from. I’ll also do a little work on Martha Young to see what was going on with her. A quick look shows me that there were at least three Martha Youngs in the county at the time, so it will take some work.


Endnotes

This photo stirs up memories of one of only a few family weddings I've ever attended; and I'm pretty sure this was the first. There I am, front and center, the "star" of the photo, if you ask me (lol), although not necessarily for all the right reasons.

My guess is that this photo was taken at the end of a long day, after the other guests had gone.

The occasion was the wedding of my aunt, Susie Beatrice Yarborough, of Louisburg, NC to Mr. Bennett Hawkins, of Littleton, NC. The wedding took place in April, 1968, in my grandmother's home. I was the flower girl, and my brother, Arthur, the ring bearer. I'm not sure why the service didn't take place in the church (St. Paul's Presbyterian), which is directly across the street from the house, because my aunt was a faithful and committed member.

I remember this day pretty well, but what I don't remember is being the showboating brat that I appear to be in most of the pictures. Here, it seems that many eyes are on me, and that the bride looks like this is not a happy moment. I can just hear her saying, "Just take the picture", while mentally preparing to discipline me, once it was all said and done. My mother, in the green dress, is giving me a "look", which I'm sure she was willing me to feel coming through the back of my head. My grandmother (who loved me more than just about anything or anyone else in the world) is trying to smile - all the while thinking about how she'll be getting my Uncle Calvin (standing behind her) to accompany me out front to get a switch from the tree, when this is all over. My brother, Arthur, just 15 months older than I, is rolling his eyes (as though he's sick of my antics),stretching tall, and pretending to be the "perfect child". (He had a little Eddie Haskell in him. Umm-hmmm). Somebody probably promised him that if he was good, he could go into my grandma's candy cabinet, so he's just yet holding on. (They probably promised me the same, but I've never been one to go for a bribe, and plus, I'd have known that either my dad or my grandma would have let me sneak in there, anyway.) My dad, standing in the back, smiling, just seems "tickled" by the whole thing (or perhaps he saying a prayer?); and my oldest brother (on the left), Edgar, seems to be exchanging a knowing glance with the photographer - most likely my second oldest brother, Henry, who'd been posed in another photo when Ed (presumably) handled the camera. My new Uncle Bennett is just standing there flashing that cool, handsome smile of his. Seriously, I remember him as one of the most debonaire men I've ever met.) I'm sure he was thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?" After all, at the time of this wedding, he was 61 years old, and my aunt was 48. There would be no children.

Marriage License and Certificate for Susie Yarborough and Bennett Hawkins The two Witnesses are my father, Arthur, and his brother, Calvin.

I will always wonder why this wedding didn't take place at the church, but there probably aren't many people still here who could answer that. After the nuptials, my aunt took off for NYC with her new husband, and lived there with him, on 145th Street, for the few years the marriage lasted. I remember visiting them, at least once, and (unfortunately) getting in trouble for having a really bad attitude about something I didn't get my way about on that visit. At that time, I was 12 years old, but not too long after that, my aunt was back in Louisburg, taking care of my ailing grandmother, and soon to be divorced from the only man she ever married.

Based on the fact that there are still guests present, and that we are all smiling, happy, and apparently unstressed, I'd say this photo was probably taken immediately after the ceremony, while everyone was still on our best behavior! 🌝 Thanks for reading! Renate Photos in this post are the property of Renate Yarborough Sanders, and should not be duplicated without the express permission of the author. Source: Register of Deeds Office, Franklin County, NC. Franklin County Marriages, Book 1968, p. 1377, License no. 118620, Permalink to this post: https://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2018/02/memory-monday-aunt-sues-wedding.html

I'm writing this post because I posted a newspaper obituary for one of my HAWKINS ancestors in one of my Facebook groups, this evening, and I mentioned that I was doing so, despite my disdain for this person. Of course, that led to a reader asking me to explain why I felt that way, so rather than give a long answer on FB, I decided to write this post.

When I began to research my GREEN line, many years ago, I heard about my 2x great-grandmother, Anna Green, for the first time. Most of what I initially learned of her came by way of interviews with my older cousins, Florine Green Edgerton and the late Harold Bruce Green, who were first cousins and had been told a few tidbits about Anna by their (shared) grandmother, Mary Helen "Pidgie" Green.  There weren't many stories, but the one they both insisted upon, which was corroborated by another cousin, Dr. Virginia Green Edwards, was that Anna, a woman of mixed blood, had been in a long term relationship with a white man, whose name they thought was HAWKINS (it was), and that this man "loved" and took care of Anna and their 6 children, putting them up in nice home on his property. However, they also relayed to me that, when the Hawkins man died, "his father came and put Anna and the children off of the property", leaving them with nothing.

Well, my early research led me to discover that the father of Anna's children was Nathaniel Hawkins (my 2x great-grandfather), and that he died in 1879, the same year that the last of Anna's children was born. What I also discovered, though, was that Nathaniel's father, Philemon, had actually died in 1856, twenty-three years before Nathaniel's death. So, that meant there was no way he could have put Anna and the children off of the property. I informed my older cousins of this truth, and though they were disappointed to learn that the story they thought they'd been told couldn't have possibly been true, they accepted this as fact.

As most of us know, there is almost always at least a grain of truth to every instance of family lore, so I tucked this story away in my mind, but never completely forgot it. My research continued, and as the years went on I uncovered more and more details about the lives of my ancestral Hawkins family, as well as the descendants of Nathaniel and Anna, who all carried the surname, "Green" (since Anna and Nathaniel could not marry).

Eventually, my work led me to the estate records for Nathaniel, who'd died intestate. The Administrator for his estate was his first cousin, Philemon Benjamin Hawkins, a prominent attorney and legislative representative, who was married to his first cousin (Nathaniel's sister), Fannie Martin Hawkins. During years of researching the Hawkins family, I'd read several newspaper accounts about this scoundrel Philemon B., some of which revealed him to be of less than admirable character. (To be fair, there were a few that were more positive, too.) From these articles, I developed a sense that he vehemently disliked blacks, but would use them, in a heartbeat, if it were advantageous to him in some way. Here's an example of one such article:

As I read through the many pages of Nathaniel's estate files, and saw the rogue way he seemed to be handling some of the affairs, it suddenly hit me, one day. THIS is probably the man who put Anna and the children out of their home! It had to be Philemon B.! So, the family story was true, there'd just been a mix-up of the relationship (cousin/brother-in-law, not father) and which Philemon it was, given that Administrator of Nathaniel's estate, had the same name as his father! It all made total sense, now!

This is said to be a photo of Philemon B. Hawkins. (1823-1891)

Philemon and his cousin/wife had two children, Bettie Lane and William J. William also died in 1891, shortly after his father. Bettie, married Walter Blair Boyd, and lived in Warren County, NC. It doesn't appear that the couple had any children; therefore, Bettie's death in 1926 brought to an end the lineage of Philemon Benjamin Hawkins.