Tyrrell County - The Ancestors Have Done It, AGAIN!

I need to make this short (ha ha), but I just HAVE to share something that just happened. But, first, a little background. 

This past Sunday, September 24, 2017, I was the speaker at the monthly meeting of the Tyrrell County Genealogical and Historical Society. This was my second time addressing this group, this year, and I was excited to be there, and honored to have been asked back.

After my presentation, I spent quite a bit of time conversing and fellowshipping with members of the audience. Of course, the subject of my HILL and BRYANT ancestors and family came up, given that I'd shared examples from my research during my talk. While talking with one gentleman, it was confirmed that many of the Hills live in the Albemarle Church Rd. area of the county, which is something I'd been previously told by another Tyrrell County resident, who is a minister at the church many of my family members (still) attend. This is the same road on which I'd located the Hill Family Cemetery, using Google Earth, shortly after my last visit to the county. At that time, I wrote this heartfelt blog post about my discovery. (You'll want to read that first post to get the full meaning of this one.) I decided that, despite the fact that I had a long drive to Raleigh ahead of me, I just had to visit Albemarle Church Rd., with hopes of finding the cemetery, and, perhaps some family, too.

Once I'd said my goodbyes, I headed out to my car, put the street name into my GPS, and started out on what was about a 7 minute drive from the Columbia Senior Center, where the meeting had taken place, to my destination. In no time at all, there I was, taking the Travis Rd. exit (which I know well), and turning into an area that I immediately recognized, because on each of my (now 3) visits to Tyrrell County, something has made me turn down this street in my explorations. I followed the directions down the barely-inhabited county road, and, very shortly, found myself on Albemarle Church Rd. As I took in my surroundings - mostly flat fields with the occasional house - I could sense that I was getting closer and closer to my people. (But, the only thing about it was that there were no people in sight.) Eventually, I came upon the intersection of Albemarle Church Rd. and Albemarle Shore Rd., which is where (I remembered) the cemetery was supposed to be. But, there was no cemetery in site. I turned around and looked again, on both sides of the road, but still saw nothing of a burial ground.  However, as I backtracked a bit, I couldn't help but notice the oddity of four moss-covered structures - three side-by-side, and the other spaced a little apart - to my left, sitting strangely alone in an overgrown field. I stopped right in the middle of the road, and just stared for at least a minute, trying to contemplate how these (what looked like homes) had come to be left to just give way to Mother Nature like this. I sat there, immovable for a time, wondering if anyone in the homestead to my right was watching me, but not worried about cars because I was absolutely the only car on this road. And then I did it - I snapped two pictures of these overgrown buildings, partly because of how sad and bothersome it was, but also because something kept nudging me. Something kept saying..."Your ancestors lived here." I kid you not.

I was much farther from the structures than this photo indicates. I cropped the pictures when I got home, so that I could get  closer look.

Okay, so now, I can tell this isn't going to be short. So much for that.

Well, at this point I was really baffled and confused. I decided to turn right onto Albemarle Shore Rd., still looking for the cemetery, and also really wishing that someone, anyone would happen to come out of one of the sparsely scattered homes or at least drive by, so I could flag them down. I knew, for sure, that I was near my people. I just knew it.

I continued down the lonely road, still hopeful, when suddenly, I saw the most fabulous site - water! Omg, Albemarle Shore Rd. was showing me how it got its name! It runs right into (and along) the shore of the beautiful Albemarle Sound! I couldn't believe my eyes! It was so beautiful, and I was ready to pick up and move onto one of the vacant lots (For Sale!), right then and there. (But, I digress.) I rode down the short waterfront lane, wondering if the owners of these more modern, waterfront homes might also be my people. Again, there were no signs of life, so I just made my way back out to Albemarle Church Rd., back past the four houses (pausing, again, to look), and away from the little section of Scuppernong, Tyrrell County, where I was now sure my ancestors once lived.

Can't you just see ME living on this plot of land, right on the Albemarle Sound? :)

Fast forward to tonight... September 28th (going into 29th), 2017.

I got a private message from another Tyrrell County descendant, Deborah Fries, asking how my talk had gone on Sunday, and if I'd met any of my relatives. After responding that the talk went very well, but, no, I hadn't met any Hills or Bryants (sigh), our conversation turned to my failed attempt to the find the Hill Family Cemetery. I made reference to the blog post I'd written after my last talk, where I'd shared the Google Earth view of the cemetery, and I decided to put a link to it in our conversation, so she could refer to it. And.that's.when.it.happened....

As soon as I opened the March 23, 2017 blog post (which, coincidentally would have been my mother's birthday, and this is her family line...hmmm), I saw it.... and I knew, right away why I'd felt so connected when I sat in the middle of Albemarle Church Rd. on Sunday. You see, there in the Google Earth image were the four structures, as perfectly lined up as there were in my photos, right where they should be - almost exactly across from the turn on to Albemarle Shore Rd., just to the left and forward of where I'd sat in the middle of the road. And, that space between the three houses and the one that sat apart? Well, that space is where the HILL FAMILY CEMETERY is.

Take a look.

The black arrow is pointing to the cemetery, which is in the space between the 3 houses and the 1.  

The red dot shows where I was sitting in the middle of the road. You can see that there was someone's home to my right.

The green arrow is pointing down Albemarle Shore Rd. Just about a quarter mile down is the water!
(Click to enlarge.)

And, here's my best effort at a side by side. (No street view is available.)

So, there you have it! I'm so excited! I know for sure, now, that I've found my Hill family! This is where they lived, and in between those houses is where some of them are buried. I've also checked whitepages.com, and I've confirmed that there are still many, many HILL families on Albemarle Church Rd., and they will soon be hearing from their cousin, Renate!

Well, it's taken almost 2 hours to write this post, so I've calmed down, a bit, but I'm still excited, and can't wait to meet my Hill relatives, when I next visit Albemarle Church Road; and to my gen-friend, Deborah Fries, thanks for making me look!

Renate

The photos included in this post are the property of it's author, Renate Yarborough Sanders, and should not be used without my permission.

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Sentimental Sunday - The ANCESTORS At Work in Tyrrell County!

I am posting this under the "Sentimental Sunday" prompt because today has been a very emotional one for me (for reasons I don't wish to discuss), and I needed something good to happen. And so it has, with a little (or a lot) of help from the Ancestors!

I haven't before written on this blog about my mother's paternal line, which hails from Tyrrell County, NC. This is a line I wasn't even aware of, until just a few years ago, due to the fact that my mother never knew her father, nor any of his family members, save a distant cousin of his who (apparently) lived in the Norfolk, Virginia community she grew up in. According to what I've been told, my grandfather, Daniel Webster HILL, abandoned my grandmother and their two children in 1938, when my mother was but 4 years old, and her brother, Howell, 7. My mother, who passed in 2013, had no memory of Daniel, at all; and my uncle's few memories of him are not pleasant. Once their father left, the family didn't hear from him, again, and it's only because of my research that I was able to inform my mother before she passed, that her father had actually died in Peterburg, Virginia in 1940 - just a couple of years after he'd left them.

My grandmother remarried in the same year of Daniel Hill's death, so I have to believe she did know of his circumstances; however, my mother maintained throughout her life that she didn't know anything about what happened to him, so I have to believe that. She would have only been 6 years old when her father passed, and she already had a new step-father, whom she loved dearly, and came to refer to as her father. I'll write more about that when I more fully introduce this line, but for now, here's a shot of my descent from Charn HILL and Grace BRYANT of Tyrrell County, North Carolina. Charn and Grace were Daniel Hill's great-grandparents.

Now, let me get to the point of this post:

Last month, I had the honor of presenting my talk, "Researching Ancestors of Color: It Takes a Village" to the Tyrrell County Genealogical and Historical Society. That visit was only my second to Tyrrell County, an area of North Carolina with which I had no familiarity before learning that I have ancestry from there. So, I went down early and did some exploring before my presentation, and when I returned home, I blogged about my visit. As a result of this post, I've received many messages from folks in Tyrrell County, offering support and encouragement with my research. One of the most exciting was a private message from Reverend Laurel Melton, Associate Minister of Chapel Hill Missionary Baptist Church, who reached out to me via Facebook. Rev. Melton took my number and agreed to call me soon since she'd read that many of my Hill (and Bryant) family members attended Chapel Hill, and are buried in the cemetery there.

Meanwhile, I posted, a few days ago, on the Tyrrell County Genealogy page on Facebook, a query about the location of my Hill ancestors' land, and a family cemetery that is named in some of their death certificates. There've been many comments, but in one, the poster asked if I'd read the "cemetery books" by Camille Everton. I had not, so the commenter suggested that I contact one Jimmy Fleming, who was said to be working to update the listings. So, I reached out to Jimmy, and he graciously offered to look for my Hills, and email me his findings. That he did, and upon receiving his email, today, I was happily surprised to see a listing for a HILL FAMILY CEMETERY in the Scuppernong district of the county, where much of my Hill family lived! Here's the listing:

Cemetery Name:		Hill Family Cemetery
Town/Community:		Albemarle Church Road
County & State:		Tyrrell County, NC
Location:		Family cemetery located about .2 miles in a field south of SR 1200 (Albemarle Church Rd) almost
		directly across from the intersection of SR 1200 (Albemarle Church Rd) and SR 1203 (Albemarle Shore
		Rd) in the Scuppernong community of Tyrrell County.
GPS Location:		N35 55.626 W76 20.514

When I saw this, a Genealogy Happy Dance happened that I didn't even know I had in me!

Still dancing, I plugged the location of the cemetery into Google Earth, to see if I might get lucky enough to see the graves. I did narrow down the image and identified some potential graves, but it wasn't clear enough to be sure. I took a snapshot and made a mental note to get back to Tyrrell County as soon as possible. But ....
....the Ancestors weren't through with me yet! Guess what happened next? A private message popped up on my Facebook wall, and guess who it was????  Reverend Melton!!! Can you believe it? She was just letting me know that she hadn't forgotten me, and would be calling soon, but you KNOW I asked her about this cemetery, and guess what her response was? Well, just look for yourself!

It's. right. down. the. road. from. her!!!!!!!

Oh, my goodness!!!! I was in here dancing and screaming! Not only did Reverend Melton divulge that she knows and lives near the cemetery, but she went on to tell me that she knows the Hill family that maintains it, and that one of them is a high school classmate of hers (who she also mentioned I reminded her of). She is giving that person (my cousin?) my contact info and will encourage her to call me.  So, I'm going to "meet" one of my Tyrrell County HILL cousins!!!!

This is the area of the Hill Family Cemetery. I see something I think might be graves, but I'm not sure enough to claim them (yet). 

Oh, my gosh, I needed this today!!!!! It's been an emotional week, and a challenging day but what  I'm feeling right now on this Sentimental Sunday is pure GRATITUDE. So, thanks to the Ancestors, to God, and to all of the people who fell into place in the ultimate plan to lead me to this place at this time.

Thanks for reading!

Renate

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