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...
Pharoah and Joel Sawyer have been a part of my Camden County, NC research for years. They were adjoining landowners to my ancestor William Bass and they ultimately bought all of...
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...
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...
On my first research trip to North Carolina, I went to the Camden County Register of Deeds and searched for one surname—Bass. I am a Bass and I had a list of verified...
In my early research, the life of Joel Newsom (b. 1818) was on the periphery. As the suspected brother of my third great grandfather, Henry Newsom (b. 1812), he was always a...
In genealogy, the last will and testament is a fundamental record. It generally names an individual’s spouse, children, and sometimes other relatives and friends. Unfortunately, many more people die intestate (without...
Although Joel Newsom is documented as a son of Moses Newsom, information about his life is relatively sparse. In the 1810 Federal Census, Joel was the head of a household of 7...
Descendants of the Great Dismal 