#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

Lies! Lies! Lies!

This is a quick one, but I just let out the loudest laugh and I want SOMEONE to know why!

I just returned to the recently publicized New York City Historical Vital Records Project, to look for the marriage record of one of my said-to-be-passing, relatives, Ruby Green. I knew that she'd married a man by the surname of SEABROOK, and that he was a doctor, but I hadn't known anything else about him or their marriage.

I easily retrieved the digital record by searching for it by the certificate number, which I already had from an index. I searched first for the marriage in Manhattan, but another couple came up. I changed the search to Kings County, which is Brooklyn, and there there were!

There were a few pieces of information provided on this document that were unknown to me. Some are "a-ha's" and others are just interesting. To maintain the quality of the document, I've cropped the first page (of four) to just show the relevant parts.

Partial clipping of Marriage Record of Ruby Green and Dr. William Seabrook

The A-Ha's

Ruby Green was one of the three people in my Green family who had moved to New York, and were said to be there "passing as white." (The three were Ruby, her sister, Bettie, and their uncle, William A. Green.) I'd been told by relatives who knew her that she was a seamstress on Broadway, who worked for all the "rich and famous movie stars." When I saw on this document that her occupation was "Dressmaking" and that she lived on Broadway, I felt that there may have likely been some truth in the oral history that had been shared with me. (However - and it's a long story - it's said that after William's wife found out that he was black, she outted them all and both Betsie (who was supposedly Doris Duke's hairdresser), and Ruby lost their jobs.

Helpful tidbits to update my tree and help in my research:

1. Ruby's husband's name was William Henry Seabrook. He was a doctor, but I don't think anyone realized he was a veterinarian. The additional information about him and his origins is great.

2. Ruby's middle name was Gordon (if this is real). I hadn't known her to have any middle name, and hadn't seen it on previous records. I thought maybe it was indicative of a previous marriage, but the document states that this is her first. I don't know of any family connection to the name Gordon. Perhaps it has something to do with her (white) father's family. I'll have to check into his family tree. 

3. October 14, 1944 - Learning that Ruby didn't marry until 4 years after the death of her uncle, William Adam Green, was helpful to certain aspects of my research. Ruby was the informant on William's death certificate, and I'd wondered why her surname was still Green(e), at that time, because I'd thought by the age Ruby was at that time, she'd have already married. As it is, Ruby was 40 years old when she married William Seabrook.

4. Race - Both Ruby and her husband are noted with "C" for race, indicating that they were colored, or black. According to my now deceased relatives who knew the couple, Dr. Seabrook was dark - or at least brown skinned. He was unmistakably black. New York didn't have any anti-miscegenation laws in place, so if Ruby were passing as white, it wouldn't have been illegal for her to marry a black man; but, being that William Seabrook was from Brooklyn, and likely had family there and was also likely a member of the black elite in the community, it would have been more favorable for Ruby to embrace and enjoy the perks of her blackness in that situation. (It's also likely that the rumors weren't even true. Ruby looked white; she didn't have to try to pass. More likely, she had to work hard to convince people that she was black!)

So, you're probably thinking... "So what was it that had you laughing out loud?"

Well, it was this part of the application. 

This part of the document revealed to me that Ruby had, obviously, learned some of the tricky tricks of the passing trade from her Uncle William, before he died. William had a habit of making up names and places, always using a bit of the truth and mixing it with a little flavor to distract anyone from finding out who he really was. That's exactly what Ruby has done here. 

Ruby names her father as "John Geene." (That should be Greene.) Well, first of all, the family name was spelled "GREEN," however, Ruby seems to have added the e to the end, as her  very accomplished cousin, William Lawrence Greene, had done. That's fine and good. However, John Green, was my great-grandfather, Ruby's uncle - her mother's (and her Uncle William's) oldest sibling. He was not Ruby's father. She is just using his name. From what I've been told, all of Annie Green's (Ruby's mother) children were fathered by Samuel Cannady VANN, a wealthy mill owner, from Franklinton, Franklin County, North Carolina.

Samuel Cannady Vann

(1852-1924)

Next, Ruby takes the liberty of giving her mother, Annie, the surname HAWKINS. This was the last name of Annie's father, Nathaniel, however, he and Annie's mother, Anna, who were my second-great-grandparents, never married. They couldn't have, in North Carolina, even if they'd wanted to. Anna was a mulatto woman and Nathaniel was a white man, from a prominent family in the area. All six of the children they had together carried the surname, GREEN.

So, just to set the record straight for those who are reading this: Ruby's parents were Annie Green and (according to family lore) Samuel C. Vann.

Annie Green (far left) with family members. The two young ladies closest to her are
her daughters. One is Ruby, but I don't know which one.

Okay, that wasn't as quick as I thought it would be; but, thanks for reading and allowing me to share this lil chuckle with you. 

Renate

Permalink to this post: https://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2022/04/lies-lies-lies.html

New York City Historical Vital Records ONLINE! I'm so excited!

Yep, you read that right! The New York City Department of Records and Information Services has finally done the right thing! Not only have they digitized their birth, marriage, and death records from all five boroughs, but they have put them online with FREE access to all! Woo-hoo!

Although I'm not a big-time NYC researcher, I do have reason to be very excited about this, as I had several ancestral relatives from my GREEN line, who left North Carolina to live in New York - and, while they were there, they were (at least part of the time) passing as WHITE. Though I've had some limited information about them, being able to see these vital records in their entirety will fill in some blanks for me and help to move my research on this particular family line forward. 

With that goal in mind, I dug right in and, voila! - I've already struck little nuggets of gold.

One of the most mysterious characters in my NYC-passing Green line is William Adam Green, son of my 2x-great-grandparents, Nathaniel Hawkins and Anna Green and younger brother of my great-grandfather, John Wesley Green - all of Louisburg, NC. I've written a bit about William, here. Though his mother, Anna, is the real mystery person, it's largely been the inconsistencies in the records I've found about William that have impeded my progress in successfully uncovering more details about the life of his mother - my direct ancestor. (You can read a bit about Anna in this 2009 post. Just keep in mind it was written 13 years ago!)

Though I'll need more time to work with this morning's loot, I'll share just a couple of the documents I've already encountered, and tell a little about why they are so helpful to my research.

1904 Marriage Record of William Adam Green and Sally Lou Johnson

First of all, though I've had this this marriage recorded on my tree, for a long time, no one in my family - even relatives who actually knew William Green - knew anything about it. And, although these relatives all lived in the tiny town of Louisburg, none of them had ever heard of a "Sally Lou Johnson" or her family. This documents reveals the names of Sally Lou's parents - Harry Johnson and Judy Eton (Eaton). I have already found Sally's (whose name is actually Sarah) immediate family, and will be able to find out more about her, them, and what happened to this first marriage (stated on document) of my ancestor, William Green. 

This 1904 document also shows that William gave his race as Black, and that he was marrying a black woman, who was from his hometown of Louisburg. That's important because I've hypothesized that he didn't purposefully go to New York to pass as white, but that it's something that happened as his time there went on. (More on that, later.) Additionally, I've always wondered if any children were produced by this first marriage. Perhaps having the additional information about Sally's name and family will lead me to a definitive answer about that.

                 

The biggest deal on this document is the very clearly written name William gave for his mother - Anna PERKINS. It's only been through William's records that I've ever seen this last name for my very elusive second-great-grandmother, who used the surname GREEN, but was rumored to have originally been a Perkins. There are other iterations of P-names on the other documents, but I trust this one more because I know this information would have been given by William, himself. However, I can't/won't allow myself to take it as definitive proof of her original surname because of the fact that, on this very same document, William gives the wrong surname for his father. On the document, the name is written as Nathaniel Green, but his father's name was Nathaniel HAWKINS. Is it possible that William didn't know that; or did the clerk make this error by either making an assumption or at the direction of William? I'll likely never know that answer to that. I am glad, though, that William knew who his father was, enough to get his first name correct. Since Nathaniel died when William was between 4 and 6 years old, it's not likely that he had many (if any) personal memories of him.

The last two "big deal" items from this document are that I can add this address, 48 6th Avenue, to William's timeline and, finally, that I'm able to see William's actual, very confidently written signature, for the very first time. (Of course, I'll be looking into the witnesses and the "Elder" Wm M. Johnston, too.)

                                     

Well, that was a bit longer than I'd planned this post to be. I need to get back to the research and to the things I was supposed to have been doing before this bright, shiny...errr-uh, I mean this wonderful resource was shared this morning. Therefore, I will just share one of the other documents I downloaded from the search site - William Green's death certificate. 

As you can see, William's niece, Ruby Green(e), served as informant for his death certificate. She was also living in New York and passing as white, according to what my older cousins have told me. She gives "Pecker" as the maiden name of William's mother and, curiously enough, she also gives Nathaniel's surname as Green. Since she would have never known Nathaniel, who died in 1879, I wonder even more now if that really is what William thought his father's surname was - and if he'd passed that on to his niece. Significantly, William's race is given on his death certificate as "White" providing supporting evidence that he was living as such at the time of his death. He'd had a second wife, an Irish immigrant, who'd lived with William at the same address shown on his death certificate; but she died in 1929. My thinking is that, perhaps because of that relationship, he had (or chose) to live out his later years on the other side of the color line.

Of course, there is more valuable information on this document, but I'd already had most of it, including William's home address, which I visited (from the outside) several years ago on one of my trips to visit my daughter in New York. Somewhere, I have pictures, but I don't know where they are, so here's a peek at the home from Google Maps. 

There's so much more to come...

Thanks for reading!

Renate

PS... Wanna explore the records at the New York Historical Vital Records Project for yourself? Just click this link and have yourself some fun!

PSS... If you'd like to learn more about the launch of the New York City Historical Vital Records Project, please visit this excellent blog post by "The Legal Genealogist," Judy Russell, by clicking here. 

Permalink to this post: https://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2022/03/new-york-city-historical-vital-records.html

E is for Elizabeth! #AtoZChallenge

E is for ELIZABETH!

I'll have to make this quick, if I'm to get it in before midnight!

E is for Elizabeth, better known as "Bettie" Green.  Bettie was my 1st cousin, 2x removed. She was the daughter of Annie Green and an unknown (to me) white mill owner in Franklin County, NC.  She was the granddaughter of Anna Green (mulatto) and Nathaniel Hawkins (white).  Therefore, Betty was what was referred to at that time as a "quadroon".

Betty was born in August of 1890, in North Carolina (most likely in Franklin County). She died in New York, where she lived passing as WHITE, and is buried in Farmingdale, Suffolk County, in that state.

Bettie worked as a "hairdresser for the rich folk", according to our now 97-year old cousin, Florine, who knew her well. She was, most notably, the personal hairdresser of Doris Duke for some period of time, and is said to have traveled with her "everywhere she went". Bettie married Reginald "Roy" Alonzo Miller, and lived a lavish lifestyle. However, if the story is true, the wife of her uncle William Green (who was also passing) discovered their truth and "outted" Betty, causing her to lose her clients, and most devastatingly, her position with Ms. Duke. (None of this has been proven via research.)

This photo of Bettie, where she appears to be relaxing on the deck of a boat, provides support for the stories of her traveling with Doris Duke.

Bettie and her dog on a NY rooftop

Roy Miller, Bettie's husband

Although all of my elder cousins who knew Bettie insist that she and our other relatives who left Louisburg to live and work in New York were living as white, the one census record I've found her in enumerates her as "negro". That was in 1930, and may have been after William's wife spilled the beans. At that time, 38 year old Elizabeth, her husband, Roy, and her younger sister, Ruby (who worked as a seamstress for the wealthy, until the "reveal") lived on Convenant Avenue in Manhattan. It's easy to see how this couple could have passed for white, isn't it?

This photo shows Bettie (top left) with her mother, Annie (seated left with hat and glasses. I'm not sure enough about the identity of others in the photo to name them.(I believe the younger woman sitting on the curb to probably be Bettie's sister, Jessie.) I would really like to be able to identify the location of this photo. Does anyone recognize that monument?

Thanks for reading!

Renate

                     
Permalink: http://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2017/04/e-is-for-elizabeth-azchallenge.html



The pictures and content in this post are not to be used without the express permission of the poster, Renate Yarborough Sanders. 

Not So Mysterious Monday - William A Green

1/5/2015 - UPDATE!!!!!

I've learned a lot more about the elusive William Green since writing about him in 2009, but today has been a banner day because I've positively identified a PICTURE of William!  Here he is!

Sargent William Adam Green
(October 1874 - February 21, 1940)

 I've actually had a picture of this picture for a few years, and I've long suspected that it could have been William. However, the first time I saw it, and took a shot of it, the military insignia wasn't as clear.  As a matter of fact, the "3" above the crossed rifles, didn't show up on that first picture, at all. So, for a few years, I've had that picture but didn't realize that there was such a clear identifier on it!

Yesterday, I returned to the home of my cousin, H, in Louisburg, NC, where this picture, along with several others of the white-looking ancestral members of my family, hangs in a private room (which few people even know about).  I convinced my aged and ailing cousin to allow me to go back into the room (escorted by his wife) to compare a picture of another mystery ancestor, to a baby picture that I remembered being in there.  He obliged my request, and so, while in there, I quickly took new photos of each of the pictures in the little room. All of the pictures are framed, and most are hanging on the wall.  The ones that aren't are sitting atop an antique piano, which belonged to the home's original owner.

When I returned home from my trip, and looked over my pictures, I immediately noticed that the military-looking insignia was much clearer than it had been in the first shot, and that the was a unmistakable number "3" above the crossing of the two rifles.  I began to get excited, because I knew that I'd found William Green, some years ago, in the THIRD NC Volunteer Infantry, during the Spanish-American War! Could this be him?  But, what was on the little medal under the guns?  I studied it and studied it, trying to determine if it had the letter H on it, since that was William's company.  But, all the blowing up and staring at it couldn't clarify that part of the picture. So, what did I do?  I turned to the genealogy community on Facebook! :)  Posting the picture and query instigated lots of discussion.  In the end, although no one could  make out what was under the rifles, everyone agreed that the rest of the insignia definitely represented the Third NC Battalion.  Because there was no one else in my ancestral family who served in the Spanish-American War, and no one else who would have have been age-eligible and who would fit the physical description of the young man in the picture, I knew I had William!

Close-up of insignia

So, there you have it! I am now able to look into the eyes of the youngest son of my great-great grandparents, Nathaniel Hawkins and Anna Green, whom I've never seen photos of.  Looking at William allows me to look at the two of them - or at least to imagine what they may have looked like. I see William, and I think about what it must have been like for him to have served in this particular military unit - an all black battalion, which was subjected to the worst kind of racism, in and around their camps. I imagine for William, looking WHITE in this segregated regiment must have presented a multitude of additional challenges, both from within, and from outside of the "protective" walls of his encampments. I wonder, for William, what it was like to (presumably) for the first time in his life be immersed in an all-black world, especially since even the officers in this regiment were black?  I wonder if he got bullied? I wonder if he got called, "white-boy" - if he was beat up, or teased for his appearance?  I wonder if he was the only one in his company who was like this? I do know that he mustered in as a Sargent, and that was probably due to the color of his skin. But, why wasn't he one of the "officers"?

In William's eyes, I imagine I see the painfully-gained, growing wisdom of a young man, who has had his first venture into a harsh world, away from his family. I feel as though I see the contemplative wheels a-turning, and he considers his next move(s), knowing that he will never see himself the same way he may have before he enlisted, and understanding in even greater depth than before, the juxtaposition he would face as a white-looking black man in the Jim Crow south.  And, for the first time since I learned of William Adam Green, who moved to New York, not too long after this picture was made, and lived out his life "passing" as white - I understood, and I forgave him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August 9, 2009 (Updated on 1/5/2015)
Last week's mystery was about my gg grandmother, Anna Green. Today I'll introduce her son, William. William Green was born in 1873 1874 in Franklin County, NC. He was the fourth of Anna's mulatto children, whose father was Nathaniel M. Hawkins. (See last week's Mysterious Monday for the back story) I know very little about William, except that he looked white, and that he left NC at an early age and moved to New York, where he lived as a White man. According to my 90 (now 95) year-old cousin, Florine, he married a white woman, who she thinks may have been Jewish. It is unclear as to whether or not this woman ever knew William's ethnicity before his death, but Florine recalls that she actually came to Louisburg at some point afterward, said some choice words and dumped off a bunch of pictures and such - which have since disappeared. William's wife was actually Irish. I don't know anymore about the whole "coming to Louisburg thing, but something seems to have happened once either she (Margaret), or someone else in her family discovered William's ethnicity, because apparently they "outted" other family members who were also passing in NY, causing them to lose their jobs, and more.

Florine tells a story of going with her aunt, William's sister, to New York for his funeral, but not being able to attend because she was "too brown" and would have given away the "secret". (Interesting, because Florine is very light, but not light enough to pass.) So, she stayed at the house - which I'm assuming was her Aunt Betty's (Elizabeth GREEN Miller's) house. Betty was also living in New York and passed for White. This was sometime in the 1930's. (She, along with her sister, Ruby, were the two, mentioned above.)

What I know for sure:... (Not much!)
1. William's middle name was Adam. Now, this is complicated, but I have a Family Group Record from familysearch.org that shows William's 1904 marriage in Manhattan. This marriage was to Sally Lou Johnson, who was also from Louisburg. (Florine says this is not the white woman, but a first wife, and I'm guessing she was Black.) On this document, William lists his parents as Anna Perkins and Nathaniel Green. If this is my William, which I believe it is, this document corroborates the oral history that Anna was originally a Perkins before she came to Louisburg. Nathaniel also matches the first name of the person I was told was Wm's white father, but I have a different surname. I'm assuming that William may have been guessing at this, because his father died when he was six and he was just probably assuming that his mother got her last name (Green) from him, but she didn't. They were never married. The other thing about this document is that I can no longer find it or pull it up on Family Search! Thank goodness I printed it out when I originally saw it, but it's a mystery as to why it no longer seems to be there. The middle name, Adam, was also confirmed on William's WWI Draft Registration (see below), and on his service record from the Spanish-American War.

William's WWI Draft Registration

2. William died in New York. William died on February 21, 1940, in the Bronx, NY. He is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester County, New York.  His niece, Ruby Green, was the informant on his death certificate.  William's wife, Margaret Boyle, had long predeceased him, having passed in 1929.  I have not found evidence of them having any children, but I'm told that they may have had a son.  

3. William's sister, Betty, also lived in New York and was passing for White. She was a "hairdresser to the rich folk", according to Cousin Florine, until William's wife found out that they were Black and went and told everyone. Then she lost all her clients. Florine says she lived in the Riverdale section of NY. Bettie married Roy Miller, a postal worker. According to Florine, my cousin H, and my cousin Virginia, Betty was also Doris Duke's personal stylist, and "traveled with her everywhere she went".  I do have a picture of Betty relaxing on a ship deck, and others of her wearing furs, so perhaps this is true. I tried to verify this a few years ago, but I'd gotten the name wrong, and ended up writing to Doris DAY's people, instead of Doris DUKE's. A followup is on my to-do list. :)

Conflicts:
William names his father as Nathaniel Green on the fs.org document. Our oral history gives the name Hawkins. (What the heck - that's the name. Nathaniel HAWKINS.) Well, this goes to show what a short time it's been since I discovered and uncovered my Hawkins ancestry!  There's no further conflict on this.  William's father was Nathaniel Hawkins.
Questions:

1. Did William ever have any children, either by Sally Lou, or by his white wife? If so, what happened to them, and how can I find them? The whole Sally Lou thing is still a mystery, although I have a few suspicions. However, I don't find her anywhere else, in Louisburg, where it says she was from, or in NY. Florine insists that William had a child, but I'm thinking that if that child was in Louisburg, we'd know about him/her, so I don't know.

2. What was William's wife's name? (the white one) William married Margaret Boyle before 1918, in NY.  I had a source for this, but can't find it, right now.  Margaret was born in Ireland, in 1876, to parents John Boyle and Bridget Nolan.  She immigrated (with her parents) to the United States in 1907.

3. Where is William buried?  William is buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery, Westchester, NY

4. Did William maintain any type of communication with his mother, Anna? (Was she even still living, when he left NC?)

5. Did Anna ever visit William in New York? Could she have gone to live with him? (Perhaps as a servant? Remember, Anna disappears from my census findings after 1880.)


Today's mystery question: How can I find out more about William Green? The work continues...

Renate

*The picture of William A Green is the explicit property of this writer, and should not be copied without my permission.  You may, though, feel free to share this post, in its entirety. :)

Permalink to this post:  http://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2015/01/not-so-mysterious-monday-willilam-green.html

Mysterious Monday

1/5/2015 - UPDATE!!!!!

I've learned a lot more about the illusive William Green since writing about him in 2009, but today has been a banner day because I've positively identified a PICTURE of William!  Here he is!

Sargent William Adam Green
(October 1874 - February 21, 1940)

 I've actually had a picture of this picture for a few years, and I've long suspected that it could have been William. However, the first time I saw it, and took a shot of it, the military insignia wasn't as clear.  As a matter of fact, the "3" above the crossed rifles, didn't show up on that first picture, at all. So, for a few years, I've had that picture but didn't realize that there was such a clear identifier on it!

Yesterday, I returned to the home of my cousin, H, in Louisburg, NC, where this picture, along with several others of the white-looking ancestral members of my family, hangs in a private room, which few people even know about.  I convinced my aged and ailing cousin to allow me to go back into the room (escorted by his wife) to compare a picture of another mystery ancestor, to a baby picture that I remembered being in there.  He obliged my request, and so, while in there, I quickly took new photos of each of the pictures in the little room. All of the pictures are framed, and most are hanging on the wall.  The ones that aren't are sitting atop an antique piano, which belonged to the home's original owner.

When I returned home from my trip, and looked over my pictures, I immediately noticed that the military-looking insignia was much clearer than it had been in the first shot, and that the was a unmistakable number "3" above the crossing of the two rifles.  I began to get excited, because I knew that I'd found William Green, some years ago, in the THIRD NC Volunteer Battalion, during the Spanish-American War! Could this be him?  But, what was on the little medal under the guns?  I studied it and studied it, trying to determine if it had the letter H on it, since that was William's company.  But, all the blowing up and starting at it couldn't clarify that part of the picture. So, what did I do?  I turned to the genealogy community on Facebook! :)  Posting the picture and query instigated lots of discussion.  In the end, although no one could  make out what was under the rifles, everyone agreed that the rest of the insignia definitely represented the Third NC Battalion.  Because there was no one else in my ancestral family who served in the SAW, and no one else who would have have been age-eligible and who would fit the physical description of the young man in the picture, I knew I had William!

Close-up of insignia

So, there you have it! I am now able to look into the eyes of the youngest son of my great-great grandparents, Nathaniel Hawkins and Anna Green, whom I've never seen photos of.  Looking at William allows me to look at the two of them - or at least to imagine what they may have looked like. I see William, and I think about what it must have been like for him to have served in this particular military unit - an all black battalion, which was subjected to the worst kind of racism, in and around their camps. I imagine for William, looking WHITE in this segregated regiment must have presented a multitude of additional challenges, both from within, and from outside of the "protective" walls of his encampments. I wonder, for William, what it was like to (presumably) for the first time in his life be immersed in an all-black world, especially since even the officers in this regiment were black?  I wonder if he got bullied? I wonder if he got called, "white-boy" - if he was beat up, or teased for his appearance?  I wonder if he was the only one in his company who was like this? I do know that he mustered in as a Sargent, and that was probably due to the color of his skin. But, why wasn't he one of the "officers"?

In William's eyes, I imagine I see the painfully-gained, growing wisdom of a young man, who has had his first venture into a harsh world, away from his family. I feel as though I see the contemplative wheels a-turning, and he considers his next move(s), knowing that he will never see himself the same way he may have before he enlisted, and understanding in even greater depth than before, the juxtaposition he would face as a white-looking black man in the Jim Crow south.  And, for the first time since I learned of William Adam Green, who moved to New York, not too long after this picture was made, and lived out his life "passing" as white - I understood, and I forgave him.

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August 9, 2009 (Updated on 1/5/2015)
Last week's mystery was about my gg grandmother, Anna Green. Today I'll introduce her son, William. William Green was born in 1873 1874 in Franklin County, NC. He was the fourth of Anna's mulatto children, whose father was Nathaniel M. Hawkins. (See last week's Mysterious Monday for the back story) I know very little about William, except that he looked white, and that he left NC at an early age and moved to New York, where he lived as a White man. According to my 90 (now 95) year-old cousin, Florine, he married a white woman, who she thinks may have been Jewish. It is unclear as to whether or not this woman ever knew William's ethnicity before his death, but Florine recalls that she actually came to Louisburg at some point afterward, said some choice words and dumped off a bunch of pictures and such - which have since disappeared. William's wife was actually Irish. I don't know anymore about the whole "coming to Louisburg thing, but something seems to have happened once either she (Margaret), or someone else in her family discovered William's ethnicity, because apparently they "outted" other family members who were also passing in NY, causing them to lose their jobs, and more.

Florine tells a story of going with her aunt, William's sister, to New York for his funeral, but not being able to attend because she was "too brown" and would have given away the "secret". (Interesting, because Florine is very light, but not light enough to pass.) So, she stayed at the house - which I'm assuming was her Aunt Betty's (Elizabeth GREEN Miller's) house. Betty was also living in New York and passed for White. This was sometime in the 1930's. (She, along with her sister, Ruby, were the two, mentioned above.)

What I know for sure:... (Not much!)
1. William's middle name was Adam. Now, this is complicated, but I have a Family Group Record from familysearch.org that shows William's 1904 marriage in Manhattan. This marriage was to Sally Lou Johnson, who was also from Louisburg. (Florine says this is not the white woman, but a first wife, and I'm guessing she was Black.) On this document, William lists his parents as Anna Perkins and Nathaniel Green. If this is my William, which I believe it is, this document corroborates the oral history that Anna was originally a Perkins before she came to Louisburg. Nathaniel also matches the first name of the person I was told was Wm's white father, but I have a different surname. I'm assuming that William may have been guessing at this, because his father died when he was six and he was just probably assuming that his mother got her last name (Green) from him, but she didn't. They were never married. The other thing about this document is that I can no longer find it or pull it up on Family Search! Thank goodness I printed it out when I originally saw it, but it's a mystery as to why it no longer seems to be there. The middle name, Adam, was also confirmed on William's WWI Draft Registration (see below), and on his service record from the Spanish-American War.

William's WWI Draft Registration

2. William died in New York. William died on February 21, 1940, in the Bronx, NY. He is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester County, New York.  His niece, Ruby Green, was the informant on his death certificate.  William's wife, Margaret Boyle, had long predeceased him, having passed in 1929.  I have not found evidence of them having any children, but I'm told that they may have had a son.  

3. William's sister, Betty, also lived in New York and was passing for White. She was a "hairdresser to the rich folk", according to Cousin Florine, until William's wife found out that they were Black and went and told everyone. Then she lost all her clients. Florine says she lived in the Riverdale section of NY. Bettie married Roy Miller, a postal worker. According to Florine, my cousin H, and my cousin Virginia, Betty was also Doris Duke's personal stylist, and "traveled with her everywhere she went".  I do have a picture of Betty relaxing on a ship deck, and others of her wearing furs, so perhaps this is true. I tried to verify this a few years ago, but I'd gotten the name wrong, and ended up writing to Doris DAY's people, instead of Doris DUKE's. A followup is on my to-do list. :)

Conflicts:
William names his father as Nathaniel Green on the fs.org document. Our oral history gives the name Hawkins. (What the heck - that's the name. Nathaniel HAWKINS.) Well, this goes to show what a short time it's been since I discovered and uncovered my Hawkins ancestry!  There's no further conflict on this.  William's father was Nathaniel Hawkins.
Questions:

1. Did William ever have any children, either by Sally Lou, or by his white wife? If so, what happened to them, and how can I find them? The whole Sally Lou thing is still a mystery, although I have a few suspicions. However, I don't find her anywhere else, in Louisburg, where it says she was from, or in NY. Florine insists that William had a child, but I'm thinking that if that child was in Louisburg, we'd know about him/her, so I don't know.

2. What was William's wife's name? (the white one) William married Margaret Boyle before 1918, in NY.  I had a source for this, but can't find it, right now.  Margaret was born in Ireland, in 1876, to parents John Boyle and Bridget Nolan.  She immigrated (with her parents) to the United States in 1907.

3. Where is William buried?  William is buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery, Westchester, NY

4. Did William maintain any type of communication with his mother, Anna? (Was she even still living, when he left NC?)

5. Did Anna ever visit William in New York? Could she have gone to live with him? (Perhaps as a servant? Remember, Anna disappears from my census findings after 1880.)


Today's mystery question: How can I find out more about William Green? The work continues...

Renate

*The picture of William A Green is the explicit property of this writer, and should not be copied without my permission.  You may, though, feel free to share this post, in its entirety. :)

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