I had to head out to a conference in New York and decided to extend our family tradition of driving there and back. We've done it twice before when my oldest daughter was 6 months old and 1.5 years old. This time around we had both girls with us and we had a blast.
While I didn't have any plans to stop along the way and conduct any research, we did find out some interesting family facts. On the way north we drove through Spartanburg, SC where the Bishops and Brannons are from. It's good to know the drive up there is not that long and when I get my act together I will get out there again to try to figure out what happened to Calvin Rufus Bishop, who he married and what her maiden name was (my guess is Margaret Timmons). Then maybe I can figure out who her parents were and open up that branch in the tree.
We drove through Virginia from west to east on our way to DC and stopped at Luray Caverns. If you have never been, I highly recommend it. The line was not too long to get in and once inside, the caverns are just fantastic. But there was nothing of genealogical significance there so let's move on.
We didn't get a chance to see any of DC on the way up because we were already running late and just drove around in the rain. We decided to stop on the way back and visit the White House (which to my surprise is open to visitors only by appointment which can be made through your congressman up to 6 months in advance), the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and maybe one of the museums at the mall. It was a blazing hot day on the way back and we barely walked around the White House and made our way to the Natural History Museum. We then high-tailed it out of DC right smack into afternoon traffic. Lucky for us we were able to hit the HOV lane and zoom right out of the city.
We stopped to visit friends in Richmond and on our way out the following day we drove down Monument Avenue. When drove by the massive statue of General Lee, I commented to my wife and daughters that he was their cousin and then made a mental note to find the exact connection. I knew that one of my wife's great-grandmothers was Dorothy Lee who was married to Lodowick Tuggle but I wasn't sure how they were linked to the famous general. My father-in-law had scribbled something on an old family tree about being related to him but I have never made the connection.
We then stopped at Berkeley Plantation on the banks of the James River. Originally settled in 1619, where the first official Thanksgiving was celebrated, it is rich with American history. Benjamin Harrison who signed the declaration of independence lived there and his son William Henry Harrison, the 9th president of the USA was born there. Berkeley is one of several famous plantations in the area.
We then made our way along the east coast back to Atlanta. We drove through Greene County where Lodowick and Dorothy settled after moving south from Virginia. Lodowick sold his Middlesex County, VA plantation in 1769, where his family had lived for 100 years. There are a couple of Tuggle cemeteries in Greene County today that I need to visit at some point in the future.
So last night I did a little bit of research and found that Dorothy Lee, my wife's fifth great-grandmother, was the third cousin of Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III, who was Robert E. Lee's father. So that makes General Lee my wife's fourth cousin, 6 times removed.
But there is another family connection there that I need to investigate further. Robert's mother was Anne Hill Carter Lee and was part of the Carter family of Virginia. Her father actually owned Shirley Plantation which is located right next to Berkeley Plantation. I've known that my wife's Carter branch is pretty big and in fact her 3rd great-grandmother was Sarah Whitehead Battle Carter Tuggle. She descends from more Virginia Carters.
So that's it for our trip report. I'll try to add some photos in a later post.
I got Salena (Selena) Brannon's (my wife's great-grandmother) death certificate from the State Office of Vital Records, Georgia Department of Human Resources. I frantically searched for her parents names and this is what I found:
13. FATHER'S NAME
(Unknown) Bishop
14. MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME
Unknown
You've got to be kidding me! I was sure this will unlock the mystery of Margret Bishop/McElrath, her mother, who's maiden name and husband's name I have yet to verify or even learn. Well, this being my first ever encounter with actual vital records I guess I may have been a tad naive. I just assumed all the information would be there. I'm not sure how I reached this delusional state.
There is a whole lot of new information that I have now, though:
1) I know that Selena's middle name is Victoria. Before I laid my eyes on this document she has always had a middle initial L, not V. I am going to go over everything else I have about her to see if this has been the case all along. I can understand an error if they just had her middle initial as V but they actually spell out her entire middle name. Not only that but it looks like originally her first name was given as Victoria and then it was scratched out with a pen and Salena was typed in its place. Very strange.
2) I have her actual date of birth which is Oct. I2 I877. Until now I thought it was Nov. 1876 for some reason. But I can't even find the source for that right now. I think I may have calculated it based on some other source. This is very troubling to me and I am planning to go over all my sources and verify important dates and places. The other interesting thing is that throughout the entire certificate whenever the number 1 was supposed to be used an 'I' or 'l' were used in its place. Oct. I2 I877 - Did anyone notice that in the first line of this paragraph? Sneaky, sneaky. I wonder why that happened. Was the typewriter broken? Again, very strange.
3) I now know that she lived at the "Lusk Nursing Home" and it's address. I did a preliminary check and it doesn't look like it exists today. I will have to dig deeper and see if there any records left from this home that I can get a look at.
4) I can now verify that she was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, that she was indeed married to William T. Brannon and that her maiden name was Bishop. But the biggest find is that the informant listed in the certificate is Mrs. E. B. Pendergras, her daughter. This would be her oldest daughter who I know as Leila E. Brannon. I found her living with her second husband Styles A. Pendergrass as renters at Selena's house in the 1930 census. So that is a big confirmation that she was indeed her daughter and was married to Styles. This opens up a new avenue of research. If I can locate her descendants on that branch I might learn something new.
5) I also know the Leila's address in 1964. She lived 2.5 miles from the nursing home where her mother lived. That's another clue.
6) I now know where Selena is buried. I will go to the cemetery and search for her grave site and honor her memory at some point in the near future. There might also be more information on the tombstone as well.
7) I now know that she died of ASHD w/ CHF, which I found out was atherosclerotic heart disease with congestive heart failure and she had previous hypertension (high blood pressure) for years. This was not typed in but added in handwriting.
Salena Victoria (Bishop) Brannon died at the ripe old age of 86 in Atlanta, Georgia. May she rest in peace.
Margaret Bishop, later Margaret McElrath (maiden name unknown), was my wife's 2nd-great-grandmother. Click the McElrath tab on the right to read more about my search for her.
On my first trip to the Georgia Room at the Cobb County Central Library I found a book that listed marriages in Spartanburg County, South Carolina 1785-1911. The line that immediately caught my eye was the following:
Man - Bishop, _____
Woman - Margaret A. Wolf
File - 2165
Lived - 1870
At first I was pretty stunned that I completely forgot to take a picture of the page. I also forgot to read about all the other Bishop's mentioned on the page. And I totally forgot to properly cite my source. All I could think about was "Hey! I just found Margaret Bishop's maiden name!"
Eventually I came around and looked at the rest of the page:
I actually took this photo on my next visit to the library. This is so much easier than photocopying.
Anyway, let me point out a couple of things that caught my attention. The first is an entry for Calvin Rufus Bishop's (who I suspect married Margaret around 1870) parents a few rows above:
Man - Bishop, ____
Woman - Elizabeth Ann Collins
File - 443
Lived - 1849
And another line right above Margaret Wolf's entry of another Wolf on the same file:
Man - Bishop, ____
Woman - Adaline L. Wolf
File - 2165
Lived - 1870
The 'File' number is from the Probate Court record and the 'Lived' indicates that this is when the file was recorded and implies these people were alive at the time. The reason I thought this was my match was the year. My assumption is that Calvin and Margaret were married in 1870 and had their first child in 1871. In 1870 Calvin would have been 18 years old.
I started research the Wolf family members in Spartanburg County and the first thing I saw was that in the 1870 Census, Margaret Wolf lived next door to Calvin with another Bishop family. Turns out she lived there with her sister Adeline, who married a Bishop:
This made me think I was obviously on the right track. In researching the Wolf Family I came across a PDF file written by Dan W. Olds who lives in Spartanburg. I read the file with interest, but since it was published in the year 2000 I decided to contact Dan and see if he had any new information.
My theory was that Margaret and Adeline married Bishop men of different generations since it seems that Margaret was much younger. I thought that while Margaret married Calvin, Adeline married his uncle James. Dan got back to me and sent a much newer file as well as suggesting that he hit the library and try to help me out. That was very nice of him to do and I thought I would finally get my answer.
One of the problems I had with my theory is the birth year for Margaret Wolfe not matching the one of Margaret Bishop. Dan confirmed my fears in his e-mail:
"I did go to the library today and convinced myself that the Margaret A. Bishop I want is not the same as yours.And guess what, when I looked at my database I found Ann Wolf married to George Columbus Bishop. He was the brother of James A. Bishop who married Adelina A. Wolfe. So two brothers married two sisters and that makes sense. And both these guys are the brothers of Andrew Berryman Bishop, Calvin's father. So these two Wolfe women were Calvin's aunts. I got close, but not close enough.
I did look at the McDowell estate papers. One set of heirs were the children of Jane Wolf. At first, the administrator could not remember their names but in the Feb. 1870 distribution, the five of them signed as A. L. Bishop, Margaret A. Bishop, Elizabeth Cantrell, Harriet Seay and Wm. P. D. Wolf. None of the husbands were mentioned.
Second, I found the SC Death record for Mrs. Margaret Ann Bishop, age 81, d. 28 March 1927, daughter of Noah Wolfe and "DK" [don't know] as mother.
Also the Spartanburg Herald of March 29, 1927, carried the obituary of Mrs. Margaret A. Bishop, 81, wife of G. C. Bishop who survived and mother of five sons and four daughters who were survivors. Her parents were not named but she was survived by one brother, W. P. D. Wolfe of Charlotte."
On my trip to the Fulton Library I looked through the Atlanta City Directories and found another piece of information. When Margaret McElreath (not McElrath or McIlrath) shows up in 1897 she is listed as widow of Ira:
And there is no Ira McElreath anywhere. I tried every possible database and every spelling. I even tried to figure out who Emmett and Walter McElreath were and they are too young to be siblings of Ira. But guess what? Their grandfather is from Spartanburg, SC. So there might be something there.
I did uncover Margaret's Obituary in the Atlanta Constitution from Jan 14th, 1912:
(This was a lucky break because it doesn't show up in Ancestry's new search. The only reason I found it is that the computers at the library still use the old search and it was the first hit I got.)
I know I will figure this out, but it's just taking forever and I am running out of clues. I tried to find burials in Cobb County and Marietta, but no luck there. I need to find out where Greenberg and Bond's Chapel was and where their records are today. I am going to try to find her other descendants and see if any of them know who she was, but that is not going to be an easy task either.
Nobody said genealogy is easy, right?
