Wake County Genealogical Society Blog: January 2025

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

2025 Wake County Genealogical Society Virtual Meetings - next - February 25

We Look forward to seeing you at our next virtual meeting!

Tuesday, Feb 25, 2025 @ 6:30pm - Virtual

Researching and documenting the enslaved (and Free Persons of Color (FPOC)) and their ancestors before the 1870 census can be extremely challenging. But this research is NOT necessarily impossible. Many types of records might and DO mention the enslaved. We’ll discuss a few obvious records and then dive into less explored collections of records where relevant information might be found! Once the Civil War ended, the formerly enslaved and FPOC were usually documented as colored/black/negro regardless of their previous status – be careful of what you presuppose! And don’t assume you won’t/cannot document your pre-1870 enslaved and FPOC ancestors.

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, Mar. 25, 2025 @ 6:30pm - Virtual

Gravestone Symbolism

Robin Simonton, Executive Director of Historic Oakwood Cemetery

Tuesday, Apr. 22, 2025 @ 6:30pm - Virtual

Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website -

Genetic Genealogy Videos for All Skill Levels: From Newbie to DNA Master One Video at a Time

This post is one I originally wrote for the Fall 2020 issue of the Wake Genealogy Watch newsletter. The topics are still pretty fresh. I hope you find something useful here. - Cyndi Deal

DNA for genealogy is a big topic and there are no shortcuts on the learning curve, but there is so much DNA education at our fingertips right now. With so many great genetic genealogy webinars available on line, why not sharpen your skill set? (Bonus - All but two of these are free!) - CD

Beginner

You Can Do DNA (series 2024), presenter - Diahan Southard. (Updated and expanded to a series in 2024. Parts 1-4 are here, Part 5 can be viewed on YouTube)
New to DNA? Start here. This covers test types, test companies, testing strategies, best explanation of ethnicity estimates ever, and basic concepts in a very beginner friendly format.

What Exactly is a Centimorgan? An Introduction to the Science of DNA Testing, presenter - Ran Snir. Watch video
This is an overview of the science and terms you will encounter regularly in the study of genetic genealogy.
CentiMorgan, SNP, Segment, etc.

DNA is Dynamite - How to Ignite your Ancestral Research, presenter Michelle Leonard. Watch video
This is an overview of Y and Mito and good coverage of using Auto and X. It uses examples from several testing companies. Good overview of evaluating match trees and shared matches.

DNA the Glue That Holds Families Together, presenter - Diahan Southard. Watch video
Diahan tells the story of the discovery of her Mom's bio family. The work flow up the tree to a common ancestor and back down are well covered here. The process is the same for linking to your DNA matches, adopted or not.

Getting started with DNA, presenter - Debbie Kennett. Watch video
This video covers intro to Y, and Mitochondrial, with emphasis on Autosomal. It highlights the useful new "predictive tree" tools at the major companies.

Intermediate - Advanced

Adoption and Unknown Parentage ($), presenter - Michelle Leonard. Watch video
I am working on my 3rd viewing of this webinar. It is not to be missed. The workflow is basically the same whether you are working an adoptee, NPE, or DNA match with little to no tree. It covers match organization, age considerations, endogamy, segment data, contacting close family. There is a fee ($9/month or $45/year). This is very worth the fee.

DNA For Your Family Knot, presenter - Jennifer Patterson Dondero. Watch video
Do you sometimes get confusing results with your DNA matches? Do your family lines cross in ways you don't expect? This video covers pedigree collapse and endogamy.

DNA Painter, presenter - Jonny Perl. Watch video
If you have your DNA at sites that share segment data and provide chromosome browsers, you can take advantage of this powerful segment mapping tool.

WATO, presenter - Jonny Perl. Watch video
Introduction and explanation of the What Are the Odds Tool at dnapainter.com. Use this tool to figure out where a mystery match fits into a tree. It includes a live demo of the tool.

Connecting the dots - Intro to Auto Clusters, presenter - Paul Woodbury. Watch video
This is a good introduction to genetic networks and the new Auto Cluster tool at My Heritage. This is a good first stop for working with any cluster tool.

3 Genealogy DNA Case Studies and How I Solved Them ($), presenter - Roberta Estes. Watch video
There is no substitute for seeing the process in action. Use autosomal, Y and mitochondrial DNA to solve 3 genealogy puzzles. There is a fee ($9/month or $45/year). This is very worth the fee.

Autosomal DNA - a step-by-step approach to analysing your atDNA matches, presenter - Maurice Gleeson. Watch video
This is an older video but presents solid technique. The DNA SIG spent the summer of 2018 learning and practicing Maurice's techniques. It has served us well.

$ - if you decide to spring for a Legacy Webinar Subscription, check out the Tech Zone short videos and the whole Foundations in DNA series by Blaine Bettinger. - CD

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

AAHGS 2025 Annual Conference Jan 31 - Feb 2 Hosted by Fayetteville State University

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Link for info - https://htown.aahgs.org/content.aspx?page_id=4002&club_id=623005&item_id=2493054

Link to purchase tickets - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/north-carolina-aahgs-black-history-month-genealogy-conference-tickets-1057119726559

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Register for the next two WCGS events - It's not too late!

Don't forget to sign up for these two events. Both are free and open to all with registration.

Our next virtual meeting and presentation is next Tuesday, Jan 28 at 6:30pm. If you are not making full use of the free content available with registration at FamilySearch, you are missing out. Join us as Jill Morelli guides us through the most up-to-date search methods at the international site. You will be glad you did. Sign up here.

If you are local, there is still time to register for the Wakecogen Meetup on February 10 at 10am. We will tour both the NC Archives and the NC State Library (in same building) and lunch at the legislature cafeteria right next door is optional. Tours are free with registration and open to all. There are 30 spots available. Full details are here.

We look forward to seeing you on Zoom and in person!

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Wake Wednesday - John Lawson - Did He Pass Through Wake County?

I found this great account of John Lawson's 1700 exploration of the area that would become North and South Carolina, in a book written back in 1922 - History of Wake County, North Carolina, by Hope Summerell Chamberlain. It is a fantastic book, fast paced and pleasant enough that I am frankly captivated. You may see more posts inspired by it pages in the future.

Chamberlain describes Lawson's voyage:

"The first historian of North Carolina, the explorer Lawson, although known to have passed through the central part of this State, cannot actually be proved to have trod the soil of Wake County. One authority on our local history thinks that he did, and indeed it seems more than possible.

Lawson made a journey through western and middle Carolina in the year seventeen hundred or thereabout. His course was a long loop coming out of South Carolina and crossing the Catawba and the ''Realkin" (or Yadkin) and other streams, continuing in a northeasterly direction and then due east, until he finally reached the settlements of the North Carolina seaboard. His descriptive traveller's journal reads as fresh and as crisply Interesting as if penned last year, and we get the impression of a writer alert in every sense and perception. He was a fine optimistic fellow, and though he was hired no doubt to praise the new colony, and so draw In settlers from among the readers of his account, yet no one can close his book without the feeling that he too, like many another coming to North Carolina to live, soon fell in love with the climate, and delighted to bask under the sunny sky.

Hear his account of leaving ''Acconeechy Town" (which must have been near Hillsborough), and marching twenty miles eastward over "stony rough ways" till he reached "a mighty river." This river is as large as the Realkin, the south bank having tracts of good land, the banks high, and stone quarries. We got then to the north shore, which is poor white sandy soil with scrubby oaks. We went ten miles or so, and sat down at the falls of a large creek where lay mighty rocks, the water making a strange noise as of a great many water wheels at once. This I take to be the falls of News Creek, called by the Indians 'We-Quo-Whom.'

For a first trip through an unknown wilderness, guided only by a compass, this suggests the neighborhood, and describes the granite ridges that traverse Wake County, and produce the Falls of Neuse, where the river flows across one of these barriers.

During the next days' travel he comments on the land ''abating of its height" and ''mixed with pines and poor soil." This, too, makes it sound as if he perceived the swift transition which may be seen in the eastern part of Wake County from one zone to the next, from the hard-wood growth to the pine timber, and from a clay to a sandy soil.

Lawson highly praised the midland of North Carolina, between the sandy land and the mountains, and it is pleasant to read his enthusiastic account of this home of ours, and learn the impression it made on a good observer in its pristine state, and before the white man's foot had become familiar with the long trading path, which must have crossed west, near this section, but not certainly in the exact longitude of Wake County. This trail is known to have passed Hillsborough, and to have crossed Haw River at the Haw Fields. It may well have followed the same course, as later did the Granville Tobacco Path, which certainly traversed Wake County near Raleigh."

Lawson's map c. 1709

Chamberlain really wants Lawson's path to have cut through Wake County and his descriptions of portions certainly do sound like our wild surrounds. The "large creek where lay mighty rocks," The granite ridges, the land ''abating of its height" ... ''mixed with pines and poor soil." I feel I have walked those very spots.

Was he describing "News Creek" (Neuse River)? Others feel it could easily have been the banks of the Little River.

For more insight, see Scott Heuler's blog. Scott planned and executed his own trek in Lawsons footsteps and wrote a book about it. There was an exhibit and presentation at the City of Raleigh Museum in 2019-2020.

https://www.lawsontrek.com/along-the-path-blog

For John Lawson's personal account, visit his digitized diary from 1700 at the UNC North Carolina collection here.