Sweeping out the Kitchen

This will simply be a post to introduce a series of posts. Allow me to explain. 

I recently passed a mile post, as far as birthdays go, and can now claim it to officially be a Senior Citizen. Just a nice way to say I'm old. So, while I'm a member of the older generations, I'm not a member of the oldest generations. Alot of folks of my parents generation are still sucking air and pounding pavement, although my own folks have now left the land of the living. 

Most of these folks are sharp as tacks and fit as a fiddle, but many of them can't quite grasp this new-fangled DNA thing. Not that I understand it wholly, but I have an elementary understanding of how it works. 

Again, I've tried to explain to someone how they may be descended from someone on paper, but their DNA may tell a different story. There are many reasons why that can happen, and some of the reasons can be found among old Court files. Of course, not everyone has access to old Court files, or would take the time to search through them page by page. Or would want to, yet, much inscrutable evidence can be had there. 

Yes, you and Joe So and So are DNA matches and yes, you both descend from the same Great Grandparents. Yes, the surname you carry came from Mr. X, but you are not descended from Mr. X. Mr. X was not the father of your Great Grandfather. Mr X served in the Civil War and the records show clearly that he died on this particular place on this particular day of this particular ailment. Your Great Grandfather came along two decades after Mr. X died. 

But, but, he had to have lived until at least 1884 because that's when X Jr. was born. Maybe they got his body mixed up with another person and he snuck home and hid in the woods for twenty years, sleeping with his wife, but not appearing on any records. His wife couldn't have possibly had children out of wedlock. That didn't happen back then. There weren't divorces or sin of any kind back then. The canonization of the ancestors. 

So it's time to sweep out the kitchen, open up the windows and let the fresh air in. I'm about to hang Granny's dirty laundry on the line. It might help you figure out why Grandpa lived in Texas and how Aunt Essie Mae came about when he was there.

I intend to examine a handful of Superior Court Cases from the 1870 - 1900 era, many of which, when considered, can solve mysteries and suggest ancestors. Suggest, because they would need to be verified by DNA. It's time. Stanly County even had it's own "Wild West Town" in the form of the village of Big Lick, West, because it was located in the western part of the county and wild, because its citizens kept showing up in Court in unequaled numbers to the other communities in the County. They were wild and lawless, in other words.

So hang on! Let's get that laundry on the line.