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I would like to wish all of you a Happy Independence Day. May you enjoy this day to reflect on the liberty that our forefathers (and foremothers) have fought to protect and pass down through the generations. I have posted a longer essay at my North Carolina Genealogy site with a deeper question: Where is the 4th of July.
Most people still think of cameras just in the context of taking pictures of people to label and document the family history. But with the flexibility of digital cameras (and the ability to cram hundreds if not thousands of shots on a digital memory card), it’s a shame that many people overlook digital cameras (and camcorders) as a great means for documenting other interesting things about the family history. One example is this…
On the North Carolina Genealogy site I’ve done a writeup about interviewing your relatives. I’d like to work into a slightly different angle here. So many of our older relatives have wonderful old snapshots of family, family Bibles with handwritten information, yet copying it down to paper in our own hand seems a disservice. This doesn’t even consider the family letters or other papers which might have been saved in clipping boxes along with old obituary notices, or marriage notices from newspapers. That’s one thing about the electronic age that’s so good, it’s easy to scan such things. But would your relatives let you borrow their clipping boxes, photos and or family Bibles? They don’t really have to.
Family History, Genealogy, Ancestry… all of these terms usually bring to mind older retirees studiously working their way through library books. At least that’s the way it seemed back when I started around 1990. I was (at 18) the youngest person in the local Genealogy Society, usually the youngest in the libraries genealogy and history area. I think things have changed somewhat since then though that many younger people are getting into the hobby in the last 15 years or so. But, maybe a part of it is that we just don’t have the time to devote until we’re a little older and feel a need to have something else to pass on to our children and grandchildren. But how do you start out if you have absolute NO information but your name?
When I launched the new forums for queries here at South Carolina Genealogy.org I asked myself why should there be another South Carolina Genealogy Query forum. Aren’t there enough? Then I remembered the MANY forums I’ve posted on over the years about this family and that family. I also remember the many mailing lists and paper query posts I’ve read through and answered. That’s when it hit me…
Historic Brattonsville boasts one of the largest living history and restoration sites in the southeast which is fairly remarkable. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places and will be recognized as a filming location for “The Patriot”. In total it’s a 775 acre living history site and Revolutionary War battlefield. There are 29 buildings on the premises that give examples of different periods of Piedmont history from the 1750’s through the 1840’s. There are interpreters showing what life was like for African Americans on an ante-bellum plantation. Among other things, they also have a rare breed program which is maintaining rare breeds of farm animals. There are walking, biking, horse-riding trails too.
I remember when I first started working on our family history, my trips to the library we’re exciting. I never knew what I was looking for and never knew what I would find. I went in with my notebook and a print or sketch of what we knew for as many generations as possible. Of course, I’d have names, birth and death dates going back to my 2nd great grandparents across the line, but I had no plan for research. I liked to think of this as the shotgun approach. I’d go and see what resources were available. If there was a census in a year that looked “target rich” then I’d pick it off the shelf and try to look for each family in the list.
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The Kershaw-Cornwallis House was originally built in 1777 by an early settler of Camden. (Camden, in fact, is the oldest inland town in South Carolina.) Joseph Kershaw had established a store in Camden for a Charleston mercantile company and did quite well. In fact, Camden had become an inland trade hub of sorts by 1768. The House was confiscated or seized by the British in 1780 when Lord Cornwallis setup a headquarters in the house. The British occupied it until 1781. Joseph Kershaw lived there until his death in 1791. The family sold the house by 1805 and it served as home for the Camden Orphan Society until 1822. In the Civil War, Camden House was a confederate storehouse and was destroyed in 1865. The house was rebuilt in 1877 at the Camden Revolutionary War Site.
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