Throughout my years of Great Dismal Swamp research, one of my greatest goals has been to find my ancestor William Bass’ (b. 1755, a free man of color) homestead in Camden...
The Lurry family (also spelled Leary and Lowry) has been an underlying influence in many of the stories I have shared on this site. William Lurry and his wife Miriam Caron (also...
Throughout my research journey, maps have always been my favorite information source. I have collected more maps than I can count to develop this website, and I have created simple maps...
This is my photo collection from Olde Towne Portsmouth on the first day of summer—June 20, 2020. Ten days earlier, the Confederate Monument at the town square was overthrown amid nationwide...
As a Bass, I was born with one of the most recognizable “Nansemond names.” However, the Bass name was not associated with Nansemond ancestry until John Bass(e) (b. 1616), an English...
I am a Trafton descendant through my third great grandmother Eliza Trafton (b. 1820). Eliza was born free which is evident through her presence in the 1850 Federal Census (as the wife...
Recently I stumbled upon a newspaper article so valuable I had to share it here (as an image and with full transcription). I have written extensively about several of the references...
Alchemy has a specific meaning in chemistry but, in a more general sense, it is the “process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.”...
When I first started researching my Camden County, NC ancestors it was clear that they had connections to the Nansemond community in Norfolk County, VA but it seemed like an impossible...
The mid 1600s was a transformational period for the Nansemond people. After a series of violent conflicts between the Powhatan Chiefdom and English colonists, the Nansemond community was divided between those...
Descendants of the Great Dismal 