2024 Wake County Genealogical Society Virtual Meetings - next - August 27

Tuesday, Sept. 24 @ 6:30pm - Virtual

Topic:  Tracing Land Ownership Over Time: Forwards, Backwards, and from the Middle 

Speaker: David McCorkle, NC Historical Records Online, GenWebinars   

Reconstruct historical communities by following land ownership over time. Records can be traced backwards from today, forwards from the original owner, and points in between.

 

Join us!  Free and virtual!

*Please register by 4pm day of meeting.

*Please save your passcode and link for ease of entry at start time. 

*Presentation starts promptly at 6:30 pm.

Link to register at the Wakecogen website events page.  

Registration is now open!

Upcoming Events - view events page for details

Tuesday, Oct 22 @ 6:30pm - Virtual

Topic:  Using Genealogy Research Plans (recorded video) 
Speaker: Connie Knox, Knox Genealogical Services, Genealogy TV & NC Ancestry

Tuesday, Dec 3  @ 6:30pm - Virtual

Topic:  Civil War Prisoner of War Records 
Speaker: Craig R.Scott, MA, CG, FUGA

Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 @ 6:30pm - Virtual

Topic: Be a Super Sleuth! Accessing and Using Images on Family Search  

Speaker: Jill Morelli, CG, CGL

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Wake Wednesday - Fourth Ward, a Wake County Neighborhood That Disappeared

In post Civil War Raleigh, a community grew out of the land that that had once been the Cannon Plantation. Simple homes were built and rented to freedmen and became the Fourth Ward Neighborhood. 

The Fourth Ward is long gone.  The community was razed in 1971 to build roads that provided a faster access out of town taking out homes, churches, and local commerce in the process. The plight of the community and efforts to permanently protect and honor its memory is recreated in this recent article by Josh Shaffer in the N&O. The story is told by the reminisences of former residents. The haunting black and white photos speak volumes themselves. I refer you here to the article. 

In addition, this week is a week of celebration in recognition and remembrance of the Fourth Ward.  The week-long schedule of events has been arranged by Octavia Rainey, a Raleigh Historian and leader of the effort for permanent recognition. Full details of the events and instructions to RSVP are included at this link-    https://livableraleigh.com/event/the-fourth-ward-cookout/

Here is a summary of the event schedule: 

Monday, August 26, 6p.m. – 7p.m.: A Celebration of Mount Hope Cemetery Fourth Ward, Mount Hope Cemetery, 120 Prospect Avenue

Wednesday, August 28, 6p.m. – 8p.m.: Kickoff of the Fourth Ward Exhibit at the City of Raleigh Museum, 220 Fayetteville Street (Exhibits will run through Sunday, Sept. 21 2024)

Thursday, August 29, 6p.m. – 8p.m.: The Fourth Ward Meet and Greet, at the Raleigh Pathways Center, 900 S. Wilmington Street (Additional parking is available at the Memorial Auditorium, 2 E. South Street)

Friday, August 30, 6p.m. – 8p.m.: A session on Restrictive Covenants, the African Enslaved Project, and Black Land Loss, Dorothea Dix Chapel, 1030 Richardson Drive

Saturday, August 31, 1p.m. – 5p.m.: The Fourth Ward Cookout, Roberts Park, 1300 E. Martin Street

 Sunday, September 1, 4p.m. – 6p.m.: Gospel Extravaganza – The Five Black Churches of The Fourth Ward – Black Neighborhood Expo, Fletcher Hall, 2 E. South Street

View Fourth Ward images at the NC State Archives Flickr page. In addition to the image, there is a detailed summary of who is in the photo and locations where available. Be sure to click each thumbnail and scroll down to get the written details. 

Wedding Party Fourth Ward 1958, NC Archives Flickr

See also:

https://www.wral.com/story/activists-urge-raleigh-to-honor-city-s-urbanized-fourth-ward/21095999/

Raleigh residents remember downtown's 'Fourth Ward'

Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website - 

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Wake Wednesday - Major General Calvin Jones, M. D. of Wake Forest

Did you miss the Summer 2024 feature about Major General Calvin Jones, M. D. of Wake Forest in the Wake Genealogy Watch newsletter?

If so, here is your reminder to seek out the feature to correct that mistake! Ed Morris, the former executive director of the Wake Forest Historical Museum shares his vast knowledge on Jones and illustrates why he can truly be called an early Wake County renaissance man. Jones was a soldier, medical man, entrepreneur, educator, politician and founder of a school that would eventually become Wake Forest University. This is not guilding the lilly. There is much more to know. I don't want to spoil Ed's masterful telling of the story, so I will direct you to it with the encouragement to keep a sharp eye. You don't want to miss how Major General Calvin cleverly saved North Carolina from being a battleground state in the War of  1812. He was truly a masterful strategist!

Dr. Calvin Jones  of Wake Forest. Portrait
 photo by Ken Bennett, Wake Forest University

This featured article can be accessed in this issue of the WGW on pages 3-7.

You can browse all the past issues of The Wake Genealogy Watch at this link.

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NCGS Fall Conference - Oct 25-26, 2024

Mark your calendars now!

NCGS will offer its conference live this year. Come mingle with your fellow genealogists at McKimmon Center in Raleigh. There will also be a livestream option for portions of the lectures. All the lectures will be available to all registrants as view-on-demand content after the conference through Dec. 31, 2024.

Visit this link for registration details and fees. 

Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website - 

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FREE to registered members - MEMBER APPRECIATION DAY And Annual Meeting. November 7, 2020 at 10 am EST. Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL, "The Legal Genealogist", will be presenting 4 virtual lectures. Click the event title link above for more details.

Upchurch and Allied Families Association Newsletter - August 2024

For those of you following UAFA, here is the latest news. 

Click on the link below to open the latest Footprints, the Upchurch and Allied Families newsletter. 

August 2024

View past UAFA newsletters here

Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website - 
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Reminder: Next WCGS Virtual Meeting - Tuesday, August 27 at 6:30pm

There is still time to register for this event.

Tuesday, Aug 27 @ 6:30pm - Virtual

Topic:  An Adoptee Searches for Roots

Speaker: Monika Fleming

Raised as an only child, I was born in Germany and adopted by an American family. Once my adoption was revealed, I began searching for connections to another family. This program is about a 30+ year journey through documents, historical records, and finally DNA to uncover family that now includes a step-sister, half brothers and sisters, and dozens of nieces and nephews and even a great generation spread over three countries.

 

Join us!  Free and virtual!

*Please register by 4pm day of meeting.

*Please save your passcode and link for ease of entry at start time.
*Check in between 6:00 and 6:30 for chat, social time and questions!

Link to register at the Wakecogen website events page.  

Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website - 

Homepage | WCGS Events | Join WCGS | Journal | Wake Cemetery Survey Images | Society Surnames | Digital Resources | History Resources | More Links and Resources | Research Guides | Newsletter | Blog | Contact

Wake Wednesday - Branson's North Carolina Business Directory

Find the back story on your ancestors' daily lives in NC (c.1830-1900). The Branson's guides exist digitally in several places across the internet as well as physical copies in libraries and archives. This is a great resource for historical context.

Branson's North Carolina Business Directory - These guides exist at least from the 1830s to the early 1900's based on my search. The guides include alphabetized lists of North Carolina post offices and their location, railroad stops, voting stats and others. You may find valuable pictures of era in each publication.

Search Google for "Branson's NC directory" and you will find links multiple links to Digital NC, Internet Archive, DocSouth at UNC as well as old copies available for sale on Amazon. Plenty to get you started.

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Wake Wednesday - NC Historic Tax Lists at NC Digital includes a list for Wake c. 1815

There is a list of early North Carolina Tax Records online at NCDigital. These records cover the Colonial and Revolutionary timeframe and include 34 files from fifteen early counties. The description of the list reads as follows: 

“"The Tax Lists and Records digital collection features tax records from the holdings of the State Archives of North Carolina drawn from General Assembly, Treasurer & Comptroller, and Secretary of State records. The bulk of the records are from the Colonial and Revolutionary War eras, but some lists date from as late as 1809. Each set of tax records includes slightly different information. References to “polls” below relate to poll taxes, a tax of a fixed amount levied on adult males, female heads of households, and enslaved people.”  

The Tax List for 1815 Wake County is included and makes for a fascinating browse if you are researching the county in the early days. I confess to losing more than a couple afternoons to this list as I tried to find early denizens and get an idea of how the list is laid out.

Click to view larger

On the above extract from the 1815 Wake County report for Swift Creek district, you will see an Isaac Hunter and Theophilus Hunter paying their taxes as well as several Jones householders. Notice that Theophilus pays for several other properties as well.

The details from the list may include district, head of household, polls in household - white and black, land acreage, valuation polls, notes, horses, cattle, livestock, other luxury goods such as carriages and coaches. Each list is handled slightly differently.

There were 13 districts in Wake in 1815, including Buckhorn, Buffalow, City of Raleigh (COR), Crabtree, Cross Road, Forest, Lick Creek, Little River, Marks Creek, Middle Creek, St Mark, St Marie, Swift Creek. Some of these districts you will recognize as township names today. I expect the borders have shifted a bit in the intervening 110 years.

Others, like Cross Road you might be able to guess since there is a large shopping complex named Crossroads in Cary. St. Marie's has become St. Mary and approximates the area in and near Garner. Forest has become Wake Forest. Crabtree is certainly in midtown near 540 and Crabtree Creek area, the original location of the home of Nathaniel "Crabtree" Jones. Lick Creek is a portion of Wake County that is now in Durham County. Look at a present day map and you will see references to Lick Creek north of RDU Airport and Umstead Park and west of NC50. Buffalow is in the eastern part of the county and likely has a connection to Buffalo Creek that originally flowed east into Johnston County.

All of the entries will require some map work to place the householders in their appropriate locations relative to today. In addition to maps, consulting NCLandGrants could help identify landmark references,  shared borders and neighbors to pin down ancestral locations. 

Use this link to search for tax lists in other early NC counties, too. Thirty-four tax lists from the Secretary of State records list households subject to taxation in fifteen counties.  The other counties include in  Beaufort, Bertie, Bladen, Brunswick, Camden, Carteret, Caswell, Chowan, Craven, Currituck, Dobbs, Gates, Granville, Halifax, Hertford, Johnston, Jones, Martin, Montgomery, Nash, New Bern District, Northampton, Onslow, Orange, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Pitt, Richmond, Rutherford, Sampson, Surry, Tyrrell, Warren, and Wilkes. You can focus on a county of interest using the search tool. 

I hope you enjoy your look at these early tax records and find an ancestor or two. Happy Hunting!

Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website - Homepage | WCGS Events | Join WCGS | Journal | Wake Cemetery Survey Images | Society Surnames | Digital Resources | History Resources | More Links and Resources | Research Guides | Newsletter | Blog | Contact