Ella Josephine Baker,  founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was an alumna and former valedictorian (1927) of  Shaw University .  Baker is regarded as the mother of the civil rights movement. In addition to the SNCC, she co founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with Martin Luther King,Jr. After college she moved to Harlem in New York. At that time Harlem was the hub of the black intellectual and creative thinking phenomenon known as the Harlem Renaissance. source A poll conducted by North Carolina Public Radio voted her the favorite to have deserve a monument in North Carolina. Michael Hill of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources recommends honoring Ella Josephine Baker in a statue on the grounds of Shaw University in Raleigh. To learn more about the "unsung hero" Ella Josephine Baker , watch the video,  Ella Josephine Baker - African American Trailblazers Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website  -...

 I received an email from NGS this week: view full email here   This year’s conference will run from 31 May through 3 June and include More than 110 lectures, Luncheons featuring guest speakers, FOCUS for societies, libraries, and archives SLAM! Idea Showcase reception and program, Expo Hall with companies and organizations, Opening Session with Christy Coleman presenting “Diverse from the Beginning” as well as NGS Awards and announcements, NGS Awards Luncheon, Virginia Genealogical Society’s cocktail hour and buffet dinner, Pre-Conference tours, and much more.   Don’t Miss Out on Your Early Bird Discount! Register by 31 March 2023. Join us in Richmond or Sign up for Online at Home ! Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website  -  Homepage  |  WCGS Events  |  Join WCGS  |  Publications  |  Wake Cemetery Survey Images  | Digital Resources ...

Let's salute Elizabeth Reid Murray, if not the Mother of Wake County ( Margaret Wake Tryon ), most definitely the Author of Wake County. Murray was a prolific writer and contributor to the historic writings of Wake and North Carolina at large. Her obituary provides an extensive list of her writings and awards.  From the obituary: " Her major published works are WAKE: Capital County of NC, vol. 1 (1983); WAKE: Capital County of NC, vol. 2 (2008), with co-author K. Todd Johnson; and From Raleigh’s Past (1965).  Other published works include: editor and compiler, North Carolina’s Older Population: Opportunities and Challenges (1960); contributor, Windows of the Way (1964);  editor, Wake County Historical Society newsletter, 1965-1969;  editor/photographer, Wake County history filmstrip; guest editor, “Wake County Bicentennial” edition, Raleigh Magazine (1971);  contributor to a history of the Raleigh Fire Department; contributor, Dictionary of North Carolina Biogr...

Update on McCullers Cemetery: Cemetery Clean Up and Planning session For the Patriot Mathew McCullers Cemetery is scheduled Saturday, March 18, from 1-5:30pm. Optional Meet for lunch at Smithfield Chicken ‘N BBQ near the McCullers Crossroad by 11:30am Cemetery located on Donny Brook Road across 401 South/Fayetteville Road from the South Campus of Wake Tech. This is a Revolutionary War Soldier's grave site in Wake County. If you are interested in attending, please contact Holt Anderson directly. His contact info is in bold below . This is good work being done to save this and an ajoining slave cemetery. Please help if you are able.  Original post:: Holt Anderson, Joel McCullers Hobby, and Tommy Broadwell (all McCullers descendants) are in the early stages of organizing a cleanup project of the McCullers Family Cemetery in southern Wake County. They seek other descendants and interested parties to assist in planning and executing the effort to clear the site located at Donny Brook Rd...

See NCPedia for the full account of  Dorothea Dix , name sake of Wake County's first hospital for the care of the mentally ill.    " Interest in the treatment of mental illness had been expressed in North Carolina in 1825 and 1838 but with no results. Several governors suggested care of the mentally ill to the General Assembly as a legislative priority, but no bill was passed. Then in the autumn of 1848 the champion of the cause of treatment of the mentally ill made North Carolina the focus of her efforts.   Dorothea Lynde Dix   was a New Englander born in 1802.   Shocked by what she saw   of the treatment of mentally ill women in Boston in 1841 she became a determined campaigner for reform and was instrumental in improving care for the mentally ill in state after state. In North Carolina Dix followed her established pattern of gathering information about local conditions which she then incorporated into a "memorial" for the General Assembly. Warned th...

The Spring 2023 Issue (Vol.6 Issue 3) of our award-winning newsletter, Wake Genealogy Watch, is now available online for reading or download. You can download the latest newsletter through this link –   Wake Genealogy Watch, Spring 2023 Features in this issue include: RootsTech Roundup 2023: All the Tools, All the DNA, All the AI, All the Stories A review of our February Meet Up at Johnston County Heritage Center Brenda Carbon has shared a great case study exploring Ancestry’s new ethnicity SideView feature. Several Cemetery queries and cleanup projects in our area looking to make local connections Pointers to two really good blog posts that cover some basic yet fundamental concepts for working with Genetic Genealogy Our handy events calendar will help you save the dates, so you don't miss a single moment of WCGS excitement. Photo Note : If you choose to read a printed version of this newsletter, some of the photos will be difficult to view due to size constraints. Please refe...

Anna "Annie" Julia Cooper nee Haywood was born enslaved in  Raleigh, North Carolina , in 1858. From such humble beginnings she rose to accomplished heights too numerous to account for in a simple blog post. Here are the highlights of her career. source In 1868, when Cooper was nine years old, she received a scholarship and began her education at the newly opened  Saint Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute  in Raleigh eschewing the educational  track reserved for women, Cooper fought for her right to take courses reserved for men, by demonstrating her scholastic ability. Upon graduation, she became an instructor at Saint Augustine in 1883. She went on to attend the college level program (male student track again) and graduate from in 1884 Oberlin College in Ohio. Cooper taught there before moving to Washington DC to teach latin and later become principle of the M Street High School. Cooper advocated for the classical education model for blacks as champio...

RootsTech 2023 was this past weekend. Here is a short recap of highlights. RootsTech is a live an virtual conference held yearly each spring. RootsTech is billed as a "a place to learn, to be inspired, and make connections through family history." The conference is live (this being the first  live instance since Covid) at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. If you are unable to make it to Salt Lake, you can tune into the conference virtually. The most wonderful part about that is that virtual attendance is free and the sessions are available to watch real time or at your convenience. This is a double win for virtual attendees since this weekend in Raleigh was just too beautiful to stay indoors.  If you were outdoors all weekend, you can still join in the fun and learning after the fact. Watch the RootsTech 2023 virtual sessions here.  (You may be required to register or log in. It is free.) I did manage to hit a sampling of the sessions and came away with several rec...