Update to Funeral Programs Database

It's been a while since I posted the link to my (Mostly) African American Funeral Programs Database. This seems like a good time to share it, since I've just added two more programs, one of which is for a public figure - who was also a dear friend.

Calvin W. Pearson, Sr.

Front cover of Calvin Pearson's funeral program

Calvin was a noted historian and researcher, who was known, first and foremost, as the founder and president of Project 1619, a nonprofit that has played a crucial role in teaching and correcting the narrative about the arrival of enslaved Africans in English-speaking North America, for over 20 years. We became friends through our involvement with the Hampton Roads Chapter of the Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS); and, we subsequently discovered, through DNA testing, that we were also family - although we hadn't yet discovered who our common ancestors were.

Calvin's final arrangements were entrusted to Perkins Funeral Home, in Hampton, Virginia. To sign his guestbook and/or to view his obituary, click here. If you are interested in his funeral program, please visit my database and contact me via the link provided there. 

Here is the permalink to my database: https://tinyurl.com/SandersFuneralPrograms

Frances Lee Alton Hill

Front cover of Frances Hill's funeral program

I mentioned that I've just added two funeral programs to my database: the second was for my beloved Aunt Frances, wife of my mother's late brother, Howell Webster Hill, Sr. My aunt was a very special person, who God blessed to see almost 93 years, here on Earth. She had a quiet spirit (but she loved to talk!) and she loved and was loyal to all of her family and friends. I will likely write more about her on my family-focused blog, Into the LIGHT, so I won't say much more here. Her services were handled by Riddick Funeral Service, of Norfolk, Virginia. You can visit her memorial page, here; and, if you're interested in her funeral program, please reach out to me via my database, which (again) you can access by clicking on this link: https://tinyurl.com/SandersFuneralPrograms

Screenshot of a snippet of my database

As a reminder, my (Mostly) African American Funeral Programs Database is just that - a database. When you visit the link, you will find an excel spreadsheet that gives vital information about persons for whom I hold a physical (hard copy) of their funeral program. The information in the database will include names, birth/death dates and locations, names of spouses, and sometimes additional information such as nicknames or titles. When you see information for a person of interest, simply email me at yarsan@aol.com, to request a scan of the actual funeral program, which I will send to your email address. In some cases, if I have multiple copies of the program, I will gladly send a hard copy via U.S. mail. Also, if you have funeral programs that you would like to contribute or add to the database, please reach out to me at the same email - yarsan@aol.com. Those contributed to me are added to my page of the database; however, you will see that I allow others to add theirs, just as my friend, Adrienne Johnson, has done on Sheet 2 of the database, where she has added 198 (to date) additional programs! Be sure to check hers out, also!

Thank you for reading! Don't forget to check out the database!

Renate

Permalink to this post: https://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2024/09/update-to-funeral-programs-database.html

Happy Juneteenth: Calling My Ancestors' Names

Do you (or did you) know your great-grandparents? We each have 8 biological great-grandparents; they are our parents' grandparents, and they existed whether we knew them or not. I never had the pleasure of meeting any of mine, but thanks to 31 years of genealogical research, I at least know and can call all of their names - and I can tell you a little something about each of them and their families of origin. Unfortunately, I don't have photos of any of my formerly enslaved ancestors, so I must only imagine what they looked like. However, my research has led me to many documents that allow me to tell parts of my ancestors' stories. This Cohabitation Record for my great-grandparents, Calvin and Precilla Yarborough, was one of the first I found that confirmed their status as persons who had been formerly enslaved.

On this special day - this JUNETEENTH* holiday - I pause to call the names of my known formerly enslaved direct ancestors who were alive to see freedom, in 1865. Three of those were my parents' grandparents, but they were deceased before my parents were born, so they never met them, either. ALL of these Ancestors were of an age to have known their status as enslaved and to have been already providing unpaid labor to their enslavers at the time of Emancipation. Many, as you'll see below, had lived long lives as chattel, and were blessed to live out their final years as free people. Again, these are only my direct ancestors, but of course they had siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins who shared their status as enslaved, and who may have been able to join the jubilee shout - "We'z FREE now!"

Great-Grandparents:

Calvin Yarborough - 25 years enslaved

Precilla (Shaw) Yarborough - 23 years enslaved

Pinky Tredwell- King Howell - 9 years enslaved

Great-Great-Grandparents:

Louis Neal - 50 years enslaved

Mary Neal - 55 years enslaved

Mack Tredwell - 52 years enslaved

Amy Littlejohn - 50 years enslaved

Lewis Davis -16 years enslaved

Dolly Ann Crutchfield -10 years enslaved

Asa (Asy) Brown - 22 years enslaved

Louvenia Ross Brown -10 years enslaved

Third-Great-Grandparents:

Elsy Littlejohn - 69 years enslaved

Everett Ross - 35 years enslaved

Minervia Dobbins - 35 years enslaved

Fourth-Great-Grandparents:

Essex Ross - 69 years enslaved

Chaney Ross Thornton - 70 years enslaved

------------------------------

 And, these are the known names of my direct ancestors, who were enslaved, but either didn't live to see "freedom" or whose death date is currently unknown. They are all my third-great-grandparents.

Peter Littlejohn (1782-1855) - husband of Elsy

Lewis - father of Lewis Davis

Lavinia - mother of Lewis Davis

It has become my life's work to research my ancestry and to share what I've learned with my family and with the larger community. I pay homage, every day, to my ancestors - those who were "free" before 1865 and those who were enslaved. Let no one tell you that you can't find your ancestors before 1865 - or before 1870, when formerly enslaved persons appear, by name, on Federal Census records. That's a LIE; and, every name you see above is proof of it! I knew nothing about my ancestry, before I started asking questions and doing the work, in 1993. If you're reading this, and you want to explore your own family history, let this post be incentive to you. There are more resources available to you than ever before, and you can get started with this research right from the comfort of your own home. YOU CAN DO IT! By Juneteenth 2025, you can be calling your own ancestors' names!

Thanks for reading - and happy Juneteenth!                                                                                        Renate

* "Juneteenth," officially Juneteenth National Independence Day, is a federal holiday in the United States. It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. The holiday's name is a portmanteau of the words "June" and "nineteenth," as it was on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Grandger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, in Galveston, TX, following the end of the Civil War. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth)

Black History Month 2024 - Renate on the Mic!

For the past few years, I've done posts at the beginning of February to announce my upcoming Black History Month speaking engagements - and while I was at it, I went on and included talks for the few months that followed. I'd told myself I wasn't going to do it, this year, but as February approaches (tomorrow!) I'm realizing that sharing in one place is actually easier than trying to remember to post each event as it approaches. I'll still try to do that, for some, but anyway... here it is. (I'm only doing one month, this time.)

Black History Month 2024 - Here's where you'll find me! 

(Registration links are included if/where the talks are open to the public and I have them. All talks are virtual, unless otherwise stated and all times are given in Eastern time.)

February 2024

7th - (1:00 p.m.) Comite' des Archives de la Louisiane, Inc. (Baton Rouge)                                     https://www.lecomite.org/announcements.html

8th - (6:00 p.m.) Virginia Beach Genealogical Society  https://www.vbgsva.net/                

10th - (12:00 p.m.) Black Family Genealogy and History Society (Phoenix, AZ)                                bit.ly/BFGHS-zoom

10th - (2:00 p.m.) Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society - Jean Sampson Scott            Greater New York Chapter (Invite only)

13th - (7:00 p.m.) Virginia Beach Genealogical Society/How-To Group (VBGS members               only)

15th - (7:00 p.m.) Family Tree University (Webinar) http://tinyurl.com/FTU-Sanders

16th - (2:00 p.m.) Buffalo and Erie County Library                                                                             https://buffalolib.libcal.com/event/11665869

17th - (2:00 p.m.) Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society(CA)                                       http://tinyurl.com/SBCGS-Sanders                

29th - (11:30 a.m.) ROOTSTECH (Salt Lake City, UT) - In person and Virtual (See below for link.)

March 1 - (6:30 p.m.) ROOTSTECH (Salt Lake City, UT) - Virtual (See below for link.)

As you can see, I am giving two presentations at RootsTech, in Salt Lake City. I will be presenting in person, but only one of the talks will be hybrid. Registration for the virtual conference is FREE. Click here to learn more about RootsTech and to register to attend!

Well, there you have it. These are my scheduled presentations for the coming month. I do hope you'll join me for as many of these as you can. Don't forget to register at the links, above, and to add the events to your calendar. And, if you're looking for a speaker for your genealogy event, feel free to reach out to me at yarsan@aol.com to request a list of my current topics or to discuss your organization's needs.

I'll see you around - and thanks, in advance, for your support!

Renate

Permalink to this post: https://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2024/01/black-history-month-2024-renate-on-mic.html

52 Ancestors - Week 4: "Witness to History"

 This will be short and quick:

The prompt for Week 4 of "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" is "Witness to History. 

I'm pleased to be able to say that I, personally, witnessed the election of our nation's first black President, Barack Hussein Obama, in 2008 and that my vote went towards putting him in office, not once, but twice! However, it is even more meaningful to me that members of my family, who lived through and personally experienced all the years of the Civil Rights movement (during which I was a child) were also able to vote for and see President Obama take the highest office in the land.

Photo source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/barack-obama/

In that light, I am featuring photos of two of my family members who lived to proudly see our first black President and his beautiful family take residence in the White House.

This is my "aunt," Ruby Powell Greene, wife of my late cousin, Judge George Royster Greene,

at an event prior to Mr. Obama becoming President.

And, this is my late mother, Mary Anne Hill Yarborough,  just after she had cast her vote (for the second time) for President Barack Hussein Obama.

There've been so many witnesses to history in my family, and even a few history makers, themselves. Stay tuned for upcoming posts - and feel free to read back over previous posts - to learn more!

Thanks for reading!

Renate

Permalink to this post: https://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2024/01/52-ancestors-week-4-witness-to-history.html

                                            

#52Ancestors - Week 3 - Favorite Photo!

Well, so far so good. It's Week 3 and I'm still on track with the #52Ancestors Challenge! This week's prompt is "favorite photo." That's kind of a tough one, for me, because I have so many beloved photos! However, I've decided to narrow it down to two that always make me smile; and that, despite the fact that I don't have an actual personal memory of when they were taken, both photos hold a special and very endearing place in my heart. 

My Favorite Photos

Both of these photos were taken at the same location - at my grandmother's home in Louisburg, NC. It's my understanding that I lived there with my paternal grandmother, Anna Green, from sometime in my infancy, until I was a toddler - around two years old. If that's true, I'm guessing that perhaps the first photo, showing me with my brother, Arthur, may have been taken when my parents brought me to Louisburg, from Ohio; but, I really don't know. Arthur and I are on my grandmother's bed, where I always slept (with her) in later years, when I would spend part of my summers there. I remember that bed very well. (It was actually one of two in the room, because my Aunt Sue slept in there also, before she married and moved to New York.)

This is me (right) with my brother, Arthur, on our grandmother's bed in Louisburg. We were 17 months apart, and the best of friends. Sadly, Arthur died (of liver cancer) when he was 23 and I was 22. 

This second photo was also taken at the Louisburg house, but this time in the "front room," most certainly on one of our Sunday trips to Grandma's house, with all 6 of us (parents, 3 brothers, and me) packed into our blue and brown station wagon for what is now a 2 hour and 45 minute drive, but was most certainly closer to 4 hours in the 60s and 70s. I do have very vague memory of my maternal grandmother, Mary Thomas, traveling with us a time or two - and here I have photographic proof that it actually happened! Grandma Thomas lived just "across the water" from us, in Norfolk, and she eventually ended up moving in with us in the late 1970s.

My two grandmothers: On the left, my maternal grandmother, Mary Davis Thomas, who lived in Norfolk, VA (but was born in Warren County, NC). On the right, my paternal grandmother, Anna Beatrice Green Yarborough, who lived in Louisburg, Franklin County, NC. 

(Photo colorized on MyHeritage.com)

Family Time!

In an effort to get my family more involved in sharing our history, I've invited all of my kin to contribute, as they may desire, to the #52Ancestors posts. Many of my connected family lines don't know each other; and, I believe that this way of sharing our stories and photos could really benefit all of us. I do hope for more participation, but (for now) I am pleased  to introduce my second-cousin, Willa-Jo Greene, to my readers. Willa-Jo is the first relative to contribute to these posts, and I'm so excited and grateful! Willa-Jo is sharing this photo, taken in 2015 on the steps of her back deck, at the conclusion of her 50th birthday celebration. Willa-Jo describes this photo as follows: "This photo of my immediate family, 3 nieces, one nephew and three cousins was taken in September 2015 on the back steps of my house in Beltsville MD on the occasion of my 50th birthday."

In this photo:  Karen Greene Braithwaite, Diana T Bedden, Georgia M Braithwaite, Avanna D Davenport, Tiberius C Braithwaite, Natalia Sanders Parker, Willa-Jo M Greene, Ava D Greene, William Greene, Renate Yarborough Sanders, George R Greene, Jr.

I will add that the MRCA (most recent common ancestors) for all of us in the photo are our (William, Willa-Jo, Ava, George, Karen, and Renate) great-grandparents, John Wesley Green and Susan Georgiana Dunston. My daughter, Natalia, I descend from their daughter, Anna Beatrice Green; and, the rest of these siblings and first-cousins (and their children) descend from their son, William Lawrence Greene (who added an e to the end of his name). 

Thanks, Cousin Willa-Jo, for your contribution! Bravo!

(I have told my family members that they can still send photos after the post has been done, so more may be added after the original posting date.) 😊

Thanks for reading!

Renate

Permalink to this post: https://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2024/01/52ancestors-week-3-favorite-photo.html

52 Ancestors - Week 2 - Origins

 Last week (Week 2), I revised a post from 2011 for the theme "Origins." I realized, after that fact, that doing it the way I did would not result in that post showing up in order with my other responses to the 52 Ancestors prompts. Therefore, I'm inserting this post so that weeks will all be included and in order - and I'll know to do other reposts a different way!

So, to read my Week 2 post, of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, please click here. If you're one of the 500+ people who've already read it, as of this posting, I appreciate you!

Thanks!

Renate

#52Ancestors: Week 1 - "Family Lore"

 2024! Happy New Year!

I have not been a good blogger, but I'm hoping to recommit to this platform by participating (once again) in Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" blogging initiative! Thankfully, Amy gives participants grace - there is no pressure to post every single week. As a matter of fact, we are free to change it to 12 Ancestors in 12 Months - or whatever suits our lives and schedules. I love (and share) Amy's perspective that anything we do is more than we had before! 

The prompt for the first week is "Family Lore," also known as "oral history" or "oral tradition.
No matter what you call it, this is something that I don't have a lot of in my family - especially not in my immediate lines. What I've discovered, through the past 30 years of interviewing relatives, is that even where my family members did have stories, most of of them only contained that tiny "grain of truth" that we all know is usually there. My research has uncovered realities that don't match what has been passed down; and that hasn't made me very popular with some of my family members, most of whom were new to me - discovered as a result of my research and/or dna testing.

Here are just a few of the stories that have been fine-tuned by my work:

1. Oral history:  My second-great-grandmother, Anna Green, was at least 1/2 Native American. Her mother was "full-blooded Indian."

Truth: As uncovered by MtDNA testing done by a cousin who is a confirmed direct female descendant of Anna Green: The MtDNA is from Africa.

2. Oral History: There are three distinct, unrelated groups of black HILL families in Tyrrell County, NC. 

Truth: All of the black Hills in Tyrrell County, NC trace back to one couple, my third-great-grandparents, Charn/Charlton/Charnton/Charleston Hill and Grace/Gracy Bryant, free people of color, born in 1794 and 1800, respectively. The couple had at least 9 known children, from whom all of the resulting Hills in Tyrrell County descend.

3. Several of my GREEN ancestors moved to New York and were living/passing as white and all had white spouses. Another was said to have been doing the same in Florida.

Truth: Although these ancestors certainly looked white, most of the records I've found them in record them as black, mulatto, or Negro. Only one, my second-great-grand-uncle, William A. Green, had consistently ambiguous racial categories, and more often than not, was noted to be white. William was also the only one who actually married white.

               

              This is either Bettie or Ruby Green.

William Adam Green, who served 
in a black regiment during the
Spanish American War, but tried 
to obscure his race in New York.

By the way, the cousin in Florida married a black doctor, who worked in a black hospital, and they had a home in the historical black American Beach. 

4. Oral History: My mother's father abandoned their family before my mother turned four, and they never heard from him again.

Truth: Well, this one is kind of juicy, but I won't go into all the details on this post. My grandfather, Daniel W. Hill, did abandon my mom and their family before my mother turned four, but it turns out he rented a room in the boarding house next to theirs, at least for a while, because my mom's older brother recalled him sitting in an upstairs window "glaring" at them, all the time, and I have a 1937 document (SSA) giving that house as his address. However, he didn't stay there long. My mother lived her entire life believing that her father had just disappeared, never to be heard from, again. But the truth of the matter is that he got involved with another (also married) woman, impregnated her, and then died in June of 1940, one month before my mother's half-sister (who my mother never knew or knew about) was born. My mom was 6 years old at that time.

SS Application of my grandfather, Daniel Hill, showing him living next door to his family in 1937.

5. Oral history: This one is a little different, because the "family lore" actually evolves around the name my father's family has carried, since my great-grandfather, Calvin Yarborough, was emancipated in 1865. Whenever I questioned my late aunt, Susie Yarborough Hawkins, about our family history, she always told me that all she knew was that we "had some connection to the Neals" or that "we were supposed to be Neals." But that was all she would say. She couldn't explain the how or the why of it. 

The TRUTH, in this case, is that we were supposed to be (and are genetically) Neals.  My great-grandfather, Calvin, chose the surname of his last owner; but the rest of his family, from whom he'd been separated, took the name NEAL, which was the name of the family Calvin was born enslaved to. 

                    

If you have a Legacy Family Tree Webinars subscription, you can learn more about this here. 

Well, those are just a few examples of "family lore" that has been been shared with me and debunked, since I started doing this work. Remember that these stories will usually have some bit of truth in them, somewhere, but it's up to us - the researchers - to uncover the truth of each matter, as best we can, using all of the tools we have at our disposal to dig into the past. :)

Thanks for reading!

Renate

Permalink to this post: https://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2024/01/happy-new-year-i-have-not-been-good.html