In my second batch of Fathers in my family tree, I covered the surnames of:
Helms
Davis
Starnes
Wilson
Broadway
Tatum
Culpepper
Abshire
Fincher
and another Davis.
I tried to vary the Johns, but still had two, and James, William, Joseph, Josiah, Nathaniel, Nicholas, Horton and Tillman.
I feel like covering my family tree is like giving a course in American history, and in the place I live, it kind of is.
Among these last ten was an older one-legged Civil War vet who married a younger Civil War orphan, who had been taken advantage of by the family she had been placed with.
- A famous Jamestown Sea Captain who helped found multiple colonies
-A traveling minister with deep Quaker roots.
-A tobacco farmer from lower Norfolk, Virginia, who brought the family from there, through Edgecomb and Bertie Counties in North Carolina to the Rocky River area.
-An old soldier who served in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, but did so as a free person of color, who somehow turned white later in life.
-An orphaned boy from London, who beat the odds and survived indenture, disease and starvation to become a Gentleman and found a dynasty.
-A Virginia tobacco farmer who appears twice in my family tree.
-An acclaimed Presbyterian minister and teacher, who first went west to preach to the mountaineers and then returned home and started a school.
-A Revolutionary War Captain with German roots, who fought in the Battle of Kings Mountain and was accused of murdering a Tory Loyalist.
And a man who has so many descendants, he started a village and has tens of thousands of us descendants.
Who will the next ten turn out to be?!
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