Connie Knox of Genealogy TV  took a road trip to Raleigh recently to find information about a patriot ancestor. Her destination was the NC Archives and State Library of NC. The experience and findings are detailed in this video. Though she did not find the information she had hoped for, she covered a lot of records sets that might help you in your search for your own ancestors.  Watch on Youtube:  Patriot or Legend? Captain William Clark's Rev War Service & Genealogy Research Image generated using Google Imagen You will find other patriot research possibilities in the following articles from past issues of Wake Genealogy Watch. Identify Your Revolutionary Ancestors - Vol 9, Issue 2, pp. 11-13. More Than a Musket: Who Qualified as a Revolutionary Patriot? - Vol 9.3, p11. Your Patriot’s Experience: Two Websites to Help Your Discoveries - Vol 9.4, p.6 Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website - Homepage | WCGS Events | Join WCGS | Publications | Wake Cemetery...

An article from the N&O has haunted me for years. It was about the first reading of the Declaration of Independence in Wake County and what that must have been like. I saved it. Can't find it now, but every summer at this time I think of it and how it captured my historic fancy those several years ago. So much so, that my young family including my two sons, husband and my father and step-mother made the trek downtown that hot, hot July 4 to tour the Joel Lane house and stand at the Boylan Bridge spot and imagine (despite construction detritus all around) what it must have felt like and sounded on that hill at the first reading in August of 1776. Well, it haunted me enough to go searching for the article again. After several failed attempts - success! I must give mad props and a plug to the NC Government and Heritage Library for their library card and the online access it provides. From their site, with my library card to log in, I was able to search the N&O Archives t...

Before the parades, barbeques and fireworks send us into sensory overdrive, let us sit a minute with the document that defines our very existence as a country. This particular anniversary should not pass without some quiet reflection on who we are, what we can be in our best iteration and what so many before us sacrificed for us to live in this still great, but troubled country.  The Declaration of Independence  Project was created online by the National Constitution Center (NCC) to honor and celebrate the Declaration as we pass through a most special moment in time. The online project from NCC "provides the Declaration's plain text with media links to related content for each section. The links take you to an annotated version of the Declaration, as well as essays and videos that present key principles and history and biographical information on the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Visit the website . You will find two versions to explore as well as articles and...

This article was published in the Summer 2026 issue of the Wake Genealogy Watch newsletter. Volume 9, Issue 4, p7. Do you have an ancestor who you suspect might have been a Loyalist? They would be alive in the 1775-1783 timeframe in your tree. Have you noticed some clues that have you wondering? - CD If your ancestor showed no obvious signs of being a Patriot, did they show any inclination to the opposite? Maybe they signed an association paper to the British cause, or they left town abruptly.  Is there evidence that their property was confiscated or that they were prosecuted for treason (or worse!) by the new American government?  Those wishing to remain British subjects called themselves Loyalists. The Patriot rebels derisively called them Tories. Loyalist support was especially strong in parts of the southern colonies, including South Carolina, Georgia, and the North Carolina backcountry. The Loyalists’ motives were many.  Southern plantation owners and merchants with ...

Britain had spent the better portion of 1774 trying to squelch all dissent and rebellion in the colonies by making Massachusetts the scapegoat and example in their hard line drawn with the Intolerable Acts . The Acts had the exact opposite effect. The other colonies were wat ching and sensing that they would suffer equal harshness soon enough. Rather than standing by, the other colonies acted in support of Massachusetts by engaging in boycotts of British goods. They sent aid and support to Boston and they began organizing and holding clandestine meetings to discuss their dissent and possible actions. They were,  in effect,  forming a shadow government. This was occurring widely across all thirteen colonies.   "Halifax Resolves mural" by Francis Vandeveer Kughler. Source   In North Carolina, these clandestine meetings led to two very important documents written in the year leading up to the Revolution. The documents are the Mecklenburg Resolves made May 31, 1775, and ...

Piedmont colonists (including those living in Wake County, now just two years young ) lived with a mix of routine frontier hardship and growing political stress as the colony inched toward revolution. Day‑to‑day life was physically demanding and often uncertain.  With only a few poor roads in and out of the area, travel and trade with the coast and Virginia was limited. They had to produce most everything for themselves and barter for what they couldn't make and hope to bring in a bit of cash if they managed a good bargain with their neighbors.  They lived in a subsistance economy that required hands-on effort for everything - clearing land, planting seed, tending animals, working fields, building homes, barns and fences, making their own cloth, soap and food items that didn't grow from the ground. The Regulator uprising   th at had just been chaotically resolved, had already left many backcountry farmers angry at corrupt officials and unfair taxes. By 1773,  neighbo...

While researching the last post about the Regulators, I found some interesting tidbits of the time period that show the divisions and angst building on both sides.  To set the stage, the time frame covered here runs from the Hillsborough Riot in September 1771 to Nov 1771 ( six month after the Battle of Alamance - May 1771 ). The Hillsborough Riot is summarized as a violent uprising by the North Carolina Regulators who stormed the superior court in Hillsborough on September 22-25, 1770 with their protests of political corruption, exorbitant legal fees, and cronyism, resulting in the beating of officials and destruction of property, including that of "his Majesty's Associate Justice," Edmund Fanning.  A Proclamation This set Governor Tryon's blood a'boil. Within the month, he published the notice that appears below. This newspaper article from the Regulator era appeared in the  The Cape-Fear mercury . (Wilmington [N.C.]), Sept. 1, 1770, edition 1, Page 2. This pap...