Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)
Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)
My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Suzanne Holland!!!
Suzanne Holland (#828) has received a certificate of achievement in Each Other for earning a Beginner Level Know Your Roots Merit Badge!
“I have been working on the family tree with the information left to me by my mother and her sisters. I have used online resources, and through those resources, have been fortunate enough to discover distant cousins trying to fit the pieces together also. The cousins are on my mother’s side and we are working slowly together, digging through court records and archives, to put the family tree together accurately.
I am also working, on my own, on my father’s side of the family. As it turns out, my 5th great-grandfather had two land grants … one right here in St. Francisville, Louisiana, where I moved five years ago, and one in Natchez, Mississippi. The house he built, “Coyle House,” still stands in Natchez. I have had the privilege to meet the current owner, and she even had photographs of my 4th great-grandparents that she gave me copies of. Also, I found out that my 5th great-grandfather came from Ireland, County Donegal, but had land and family in County Sligo. I live right off Sligo Road, in St. Francisville, where his land grant is described as being located. I have plans to go pull court records this summer when I have more time to dig to discover the exact location and who he sold it to before moving to Cotton Valley, Louisiana.”
So interesting Suzanne! I love that you had a chance to meet the current owners of a family home and see Coyle House in person. Enjoy your new planned research this summer. Sounds like the perfect project for the hot and humid days just around the corner.
Wow, that is so amazing! I am trying to piece together my family tree and it is not helped by the fact that my “grandmother” was married 5 times, very unusual for that time period. Turns out she is actually my great grandmother as I recently discovered that the family “whisper” was true . My mother was actually the illegitimate child of her half sister. In those days it was common for a mother to claim that the so called ” late in life” baby was hers, when it was actually her grandchild. Cover ups like this were quite common in those days. So geneology is very full of surprises indeed. ( by the way all of these relatives are now deceased carrying this secret to their graves)