Doing family history research can be both enlightening and frustrating. This post describes what I’ve done in learning my family history.
Several decades age I started doing some research on my father’s family. I was fairly active at first. It was much like a very active hobby. However, over time, life got in the way with things like family and a career.
The outcome, in short, was that I found out a few things while doing that family research. However, I still have a number of unanswered questions.
So, now that I’m retired I will get back to that research when I’m not so busy!
Getting Started
I started with a few scattered bits of information. But, there was no hard factual data to back up what I had in hand.
One early breakthrough was locating a copy of a two-page family history. It was created for a family meeting in the mid-1940’s. The two-pager was compiled by Willie Pauline Young. She had done some significant research on the wills and estate settlements in Abbeville County, S.C. That’s where my family had lived since before the American Revolution.
That two-pager was important. Why? Because the adults alive at that time would have been children when the generation of my great grandfather, S.O. Young, was alive. Thus, those mid-1940’s adults would have heard stories of family members who were Civil War participants.
I used that two-page history to start my census record search. I was able to confirm the accuracy of that written history, to a point. How so? Unfortunately, I don’t have a landing record, hence I have confirmed relationships only back to the early 1800’s.
Some Often Repeated Stories
As expected, I had access to stories from my father, and from aunts and uncles. They were repeating what they had heard as children. The stories are interesting. But, they don’t provide the hard proof that birth records, a family Bible, or census records do.
My dad, Sam Young, and Uncle Cullen Sears did drive me around the area where the family settled. As a result, I got to walk around many of the sites of interest in that immediate area where our family has lived for generations.
Unfortunately, I continue to hear stories from other extended family members where the “facts” are questionable at best. Hence, the importance of finding official records to back up what I am hearing.
It’s one thing to repeat a story about the log house being moved from down by the creek to its present location. Conversely, it’s something very different to be told that someone is an ancestor when their name doesn’t match any of the genealogy on that two-page history or official records like a census.
Census Records
My census record research was mostly on microfilm that was accessible in multiple locations. Because we lived in Tampa, Florida at the time of doing the research I was able to use the microfilm at the Tampa Public Library to identify family members who were living close to each other on the Young Estate during the mid-1800’s.
The census records confirmed ages, thus birth dates, for many family members.
Prior to the Civil War, several of the family generations in Alabama and South Carolina were slave owners.
As it turned out, the public library in Tampa had open stacks with family research from others who had donated their materials to the library. There, I found a collection of typed letters someone had written to the South Carolina archives looking for information about Young family ancestors.
Although no breakthrough, that collection did provide added support for the family history I was piecing together.
Research Trips
The two-page history mentioned that part of the family went to Alabama prior to the Civil War. I was able to track down the location in Oak Hill, Alabama and drive there.
What I found was the burial site of my great-great-great grandfather who was a veteran of the American Revolution. Extended family members there in Alabama had gotten into the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) as a result of his service.
During that trip I met some very distant relatives. They allowed me to take some of their written materials to a town nearby and make copies to add to my collection.
A second trip was to the search state records in Columbia, South Carolina. It was early in the process so I gathered some information, but didn’t have the background data needed to make best use of my time there.
Of note, that trip to Columbia produced a copy of the Muster Roll record for Company G of the 14th S.C. Regiment in the Civil War. Photos of those muster roll records are now available on line.
My great-grandfather S.O. Young and his brothers were in that regiment. Two of his brothers died in combat. One died at Second Manassas and the other at Gaines Mill. The 14th S.C. lost approximately 42% of its men at Gaines Mill. From the counts others were added to the Regiment. Later, the Regiment lost half of those remaining at Gettysburg.
A third brother was a prisoner of war. My great-grandfather returned home on sick leave for a short time. At least one of the brothers is listed on the Appomattox Roster, a publication that lists those Confederates who were pardoned after the Civil War.
Abbeville Courthouse
Estate settlement records are an important source of information about family history. Sometimes, having access to that paperwork can be a challenge.
Years ago, in Abbeville, South Carolina it was possible to go into the vault at the court house where the estate settlements were kept. I had access to the same raw materials that the author of the two-pager had when she wrote that family history in the 1940’s.
I was able to open and photocopy records of estate settlements from the early 1800’s. Again, no big breakthroughs but you do get to see copies of signatures of ancestors. Also, you get to read details of who was present and the property that changed hands during those settlements.
My ancestors and their neighbors were early members of the Cedar Springs and Long Cane Associated Reformed Presbyterian churches in that area where the family settled. Many of the Ulster-Scots who migrated from Ireland were also Presbyterians.
During one of those courthouse visits I was directed to the attic. Up there I found ledger books of various activities such as property sales. I found some late 1800’s records of business transactions that involved my great-grandfather. That said, without some added confirmation, those records are isolated incidents that would be part of a story with nothing else to provide context to the reader.
The enclosed photo is a recent shot of the Abbeville Courthouse on the main square in Abbeville, South Carolina. The prior photo is the clock in front of that Courthouse.
What I Don’t Know
I don’t know that I have enough information on my family line to establish a record for my grandchildren who might be interested in joining the DAR.
I know the family was originally from Scotland, perhaps from the lowlands. They then lived in Ireland for some undetermined time period. Hence, the term Ulster Scots to describe that migration.
I don’t have a landing record of the family’s immigration to the colonies from Ireland, but I do have a suggested entry point into what became the U.S. The limited searching I have done on those likely ports-of-entry hasn’t produced anything substantive.
All that said, I don’t have a way at this point to track the family movement from Scotland to Ireland. I have some supposition about where the family was from in Scotland, but nothing to confirm that.
I do have histories that identify towns in Northern Ireland where families like the Youngs were from who eventually settled in what became Abbeville County, South Carolina.
The Youngs were likely part of a Scots-Irish migration from Pennsylvania into South Carolina during the mid-1700’s. The two-page family history supports this pattern of settlement.