Ummm... I was just taking a look at my dashboard trying to figure how to do something, and I noticed this post, which was written on October 11th, said, "Draft". I have no idea why I never posted this. (I thought I had.) But anyway, here it is, a month later. Perhaps the ancestors knew I'd need to relive the excitement of the moment I experienced this wonderful find!
Just when I was starting to get the feeling that I wasn't going to find anything new in my research, I decided to do a google search using one of the alternate spellings of my Yarborough surname (Yarboro) and adding the word, "teacher" to see if I could come up with anything about my GG grandfather, Calvin Yarborough, and I did!
You may recall that Calvin is listed the 1870 Census (the first post-slavery census) as a "Farmer and Retired Teacher". This has always intrigued me - knowing that my formerly-enslaved ancestor had been a teacher of some type and was already retired from it just a few years after emancipation. Although several of Calvin's children and grandchildren became teachers, there've been no family stories that indicated that this all began with our patriarch. Indeed, if not for the discovery I made in my research, my family would not know of this today!
Doing the google search led me right away to this link: http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/report1869/menu.html This is the 1869-70 Report to the Superintendent of NC Schools. In it there are reports from each NC county, which were completed by a person or persons appointed to a committee. My gg grandfather is mentioned in the report as a teacher of a school two miles outside of Louisburg. So, here I have it - corroborating REAL evidence of my great-grandfather, a former slave, as a SCHOOLTEACHER just after slavery! I'm so excited and proud! You go, Calvin Yarborough, Sr.!
Well, I'm confused because even though I just posted this tonight, it still went under the original date of the post - October 11th! Oh well, it is what it is! :)
ReplyDeletewhat a great story --- shivers my timbers, gives me goose bumps and all of those other quivers of the excitement of a great true story.
ReplyDeleteRenate,
ReplyDeleteGreat find. It's always good when we find little surprises like this. So it's a little late..you know what they say - better late than never.
Sandra
Renate,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great find. It's always exciting when we can find out something about the ancestors outside the census and vital records.
That is a very cool find!
ReplyDelete