My Family Tree
I want to start work on my family tree. I ordered some software last weekend. It hasn’t come in the mail yet. I know, this is an old person thing to do. I don’t care. I don’t feel like anyone in the family that’s my age knows this stuff. As I mentioned before, I am pretty sure I am the only one with a written record of my dad’s family. I also kick myself for not recording some of my Aunt Brice’s stories. I don’t really have time to deal with it, but I want to do it anyway.
I spent some time this morning looking online at what has already been recorded. Someone by the name Janice Shinn from St. Robert, MO has the Johnson lineage from William Johnson (my Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather who came from Whales) down to my Great Grandfather, John Hiram Johnson. I think I had seen this once before. I don’t think there’s any record of my Grandfather’s generation on down. Since Aunt Brice is already gone and some of my mom’s cousins are already up in years, I want to get some of this written down while I can get more than just birth and death dates.
According to Janice Shinn’s entry…
“William Johnson came from Wales, Great Britain. He purchased one square mile of land along the Yadkin River in 1757. The valley north of this monument was near the middle of this land. A fort which he erected to protect his family from the Indians stood about three quarters of a mile from this monument North 15 degrees west. His wife’s name was Elizabeth, son James, daughter Sarah.” - From a granite marker erected by descendants of William Johnson in 1954. The Mt. Pleasant Graveyard at Tanglewood is the old Johnson Family Cemetery. Most of the stones are old soapstone. Reference: William Johnson 1732-1765 and some descendants by W. J. Hall 1943. Tradition in the Johnson and Ellis families is that these two families came from Wales to Charlestown, South Carolina, thence to Georgetown, South Carolina, thence up the Pee Dee and Yadkin River, where they purchased adjoining farms in what was then Rowan County, North Carolina, now the S. W. corner of Forsyth County, along the Yadkin near Clemmons. A Johnson family story has it that Elizabeth was a sister of Evan and John Ellis. This is not known for sure, but possible. The Ellises claim to have come from Wales via the Pee Dee River and in Salisbury their deeds are closely dated to Johnson’s land. Evan owned land east of Johnson. They went on Elizabeth’s bond, and when John died, Elizabeth and William Johnson took in John’s son, William Ellis, to raise. Reference: Forsyth County Genealogical Society Journal, Vol XIII, No. 3, Spring 1995, Page 2.
Tanglewood is about 30 mins from my house in NC. I’ve been there several times. There’s a family reunion there every summer. I think William bought the land from Lord Linville. I’ve never heard why William Johnson wanted to move to the Americas. I mean, this would have been during the French and Indian War. What would make you want to put your family on a ship for 2 months? It wasn’t really life of luxury (not to mention safety) here.
I wonder what I want my Great Great Great Great Great Grandchildren to know about me. Will they even live on this planet?
I am quite sure William didn’t think there’d be a Gomez in his family.
April 30th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
The internet is a great thing with genealogy research. I’m a genealogy nerd, too. No one else in mine or Gus’ family seems to have an interest in it. Why would you not want to know your roots? My family is a little harder, but with a last name like Gephardt and knowing that they stuck in the Baltimore area, I’ve been able to successfully find his family members, copies of census records, etc. back to the 1860s so far. From there, it’s harder because I need to find ship records and there are many German variations of the name Gephardt. Anyway, with all that said, good luck. It’s very empowering to learn all the info and I hope someone in the future appreciates your hard work. Are you still accepting comments on here, by the way??