North Carolina Genealogy Forum | North Carolina Genealogy Newsletter
The Outer Banks along the coast of North Carolina are simply amazing. Barrier islands of sand that seem to shift and change with the very winds and seas. If you’ve ever visited the Outer Banks, you know what a feeling it is to know that ocean can lie just a few feet in front of you AND 20 or 50 feet behind you is the sound or protected seawaters. What a challenge this area must have been to settle.
It’s really amazing how many peoples ancestors passed through North Carolina. At one point in this countries history St. Louis was considered the jumping off point for points west. I’ve come to think of Western North Carolina as a similar “jumping off point” a bit earlier in this countries history. This area was frontier from it’s official opening at the end of the Revolution into the early 1800s. The fact that Buncombe county was created to encompass the entire western part of the state is remarkable and at the time had the area called the State of Buncombe, but I think one of the essential factors was that it was so loosely populated and rugged that carving individual counties at the outset would have been pretentious. How many genealogies pass through North Carolina?
Not necessarily a genealogy post, but it’s certainly something newsworthy around here. In the northern part of Buncombe county, NC around Weaverville and North Asheville you need to practice your patience for the next few weeks. The 17 year locusts (more properly called cicadas) are coming and they’re already poking out of the ground. I’ve found about a dozen around the yard this morning. The big bugs (about 1.5-2 inches long) have a black upper torso/red eyes, orange legs and the wings can be yellowish. They mate in the late spring/early summer (May-June-July) then they lay their eggs in the growing twigs of trees (which causes about 6 inches of die-back on the trees) Then as the tree branches die and fall to the ground the eggs do as well, where they lay dormant until the next 17 year cycle. The biggest annoyances….
This is an idea I’ve thought about for quite some time. Our children are a bit young yet to really get interested in the family history (or any history for that matter.) But, it’s a dilemma that some people face even with older children. How can they pass along the information, or even get them interested in those that came before us? I’m reminded of the Andy Griffith episode where the kids decide they don’t need to learn history (in part because of a poorly worded comment from Andy.) He manages to rekindle their interest by teasing them with the story of the gun that fired a shot heard round the world. In essence he took history and turned into a good story. I think that idea could help anyone generate more interest in the family history as well.
The month of April has me thinking about taxes. It was the topic for the just released South Carolina Genealogy newsletter and I thought I’d give some general information here as well. Of course, most of us think first of the Federal Income tax. This dates back to the Civil War, when an income tax was enacted to help fund the war effort. It was later revived in the 1890s and then become a permanent fixture of American life in 1913 after the ratification of the 16th amendment to the US Constitution. That’s not the only tax that Americans have been subject to throughout it’s history. There have been others, property taxes, poll taxes among the most common.
We’ve all seen great interviews, some people are just born questioners. They put their subject at ease, and make getting information look so easy. When you start out researching your family history, one of the first things you’ll need to do is to interview your family members to find out what they know and remember about their family, growing up, the relatives, etc. But, this can be an intimidating step for some because it’s hard to know where to start.
If you’ve got a trip to the Wake County area planned (Raleigh), you might want to include the Olivia Raney Local History Library in your trip. From their site…
“The mission of the Olivia Raney Library Branch of the Wake County Public Libraries (WCPL) is to collect and preserve materials that tell the story of Wake County, North Carolina and surrounding areas. We specialize in local history and genealogy, also providing materials on N. C. History, U.S. History, African-American History, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.”
Although they focus on materials related to Wake County, they have more information on hand…
In August of 1998 Asheville awoke to a sad morning with the news of the burning of the Old Kentucky Home that was the Thomas Wolfe Memorial in downtown. The fire was ruled an arson and extensively damaged the building and furnishings. The arsonist was never caught as I recall, however the building was restored and reopened in the public in 2004. The house has been used as the Thomas Wolfe memorial since 1949. There is a visitors center with audiovisual exhibits on Thomas Wolfe’s life and writings. Guided tours are available.
Okay, out of the box I’ll tell you yes, I’m a big UNC fan. This post is inspired by their upcoming Final Four appearance for the Men’s team and possibly the Women’s team as well. (As I write this, the Women’s team is one game away from the final four.) But this post isn’t as much about March Madness and the Tar Heels basketball team as it is about the monicker Tarheel and it’s history. Most North Carolinians have heard the nickname at home or abroad and few really know the origins of it. Some of the history of the tarheel nickname is vague and uncertain. Like many things that we have handed down from the past it’s hard to know exactly when the name was first used, or if all of the stories we have are true or happened exactly as they did. But, here’s where we start on the history of the nickname tarheels.
How can you find an answer if you don’t know how to phrase the question? Isn’t it amazing that even today with all the worlds information increasingly online and at our literal fingertips…. that sometimes we have a hard time putting into words exactly what we’re looking for? But it’s true, searching for information is an art as is asking questions. I thought I’d spend some time talking about some good practices that can help get good answers when posting queries in forums.