Mississippi
Black Catholic History Month: Black Catholics in the South
The notion of black Catholics in the South is not often the subject of much discussion by anyone, anywhere. The southern United States is frequently thought of as having been settled largely by Scots-Irish and English people, not exactly fans of the Church of Rome. The South is caricatured as a bastion of Baptists and, if one wants “high church,” …
November 30, 2009 Monday at 6:17 pm
You’ve Broken Down a Brick Wall–Now What?
Hint: You’re Not Going to Disneyland! Next in a multi-part series As with a physical barrier, breaking through a genealogical “brick wall” may expose an entirely new landscape. The new landscape must be explored, analyzed, and documented. In other words, once the barrier is breached, the real work begins. If one realizes this fact early, the new territory can be …
August 17, 2009 Monday at 8:39 am
Breaking Down A Brick Wall–The Problem with Surnames, Part II
Fifth in a multi-part series I had hypothesized that my Gines people were associated with English-speaking people named Gines who came from the West Midlands area. They came to Virginia and North Carolina and from there moved on to South Carolina and other states of the Deep South, eventually winding up in Louisiana and Texas. That hypothesis was based on …
August 12, 2009 Wednesday at 11:58 pm
The Process of Breaking Down a Brick Wall
Second in a multi-part series Here’s a synopsis of how I achieved my #1 research goal: finding the parents of my great-grandfather, Richard Gines of Shreveport, Louisiana. Bear in mind that eahcof these steps took months or even years to complete and some ran concurrently. Step 1: The Neophyte Phase. I was new to genealogical research and had fairly easily …
August 6, 2009 Thursday at 9:36 pm
Way Around the Brick Wall: The Plantations
As we were making our long way around the brick wall of my great-grandfather Richard William Gines (1860-?), the trail led to several plantations in Tensas Parish, Louisiana. The first plantation we found was called Marydale. What attracted us here was a nearly forgotten tax record from Tensas Parish that showed Rebecca Gines and “Don” Gines living on the …
June 4, 2009 Thursday at 1:42 pm
Names, Places & Most Wanted Faces
I started this with a note on Facebook and it was suggested that it would make a good meme for bloggers. The idea is to publicize your surnames and locales to see if anyone elseknows something about them. For me on Facebook, I got several research-helpful replies. So how much better to take it to a wider audience. List the …
February 26, 2009 Thursday at 8:29 pm
Surname Distribution Analyzed
Before we analyze the data to comprehend its meaning, let’s do a bit more research to see if we can validate the existing data. Let’s check in with the United States Census Bureau which has analyzed names by frequency of occurrence from the 1990 census. When we search for Gines and then Guynes, the following values are produced: GINES 0.001 …
February 11, 2009 Wednesday at 9:58 pm
"Open" State Vital Records: The Bad and the Ugly
One of Several Posts about Open Government Laws and Genealogy Previously, we spotlighted several states that are particularly “genealogy-friendly” concerning access to state vital records. Now we wade into the swamp of vital records-access horribles. At the edge of the swamp are states that have unreasonably long (100 years or more for birth records; more than fifty years for death …
March 26, 2008 Wednesday at 10:40 pm
Seems Like Nothin’ Ever Comes to No Good Up on Choctaw Ridge . . . .
Number of “MacAllisters” found in public records in Mississippi from 1790 to 2007: 16 (maybe 17).Number of MacAllisters in Mississippi named “Billie Joe”: None.
June 3, 2007 Sunday at 8:10 pm
Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day ?
Conditions in the Delta today (as observed at Greenwood, Mississippi) : High temp. 91o ; isolated thunderstorms; chance of precip., 30%; rel. hum. 50%. Sunrise: 5:51 am CDT. Sunset: 8:07 pm CDT. A bridge over the Tallahatchie River(Mississippi Hwy 7 between Holly Springs and Oxford)
June 3, 2007 Sunday at 12:56 pm
