Grandma's Granny's Family Album

  The Brown, Johnson, Thrower, Pate, and Williamson Families of Richmond, Virginia; Chatham, Moore, Lee, Richmond, Wake, and Scotland Counties, and Raleigh, North Carolina; Petersburg, Virginia; and Henry County, Indiana.

  The Spence, Pettigrew, Rushton, West, Rector/Richter, Brown, and Scholfield Families of Springhill, Parrsboro, Halfway River, Roslin, River Philip, Westchester, Southampton, and Maccan, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia; Wechmar, Saxony; Ireland; Westchester County, New York Colony; Horton and Cornwallis Townships, King's County, Nova Scotia; and Rillington,Yorkshire.  For next ancestors, see Rushton, West, and Scholfield Pedigree Charts.

 I know a lot of us have Ebenezer Spence in our family trees.  He doesn't exist.   (  See Spence Pedigree Chart).   Some people have even given him parents and a birthplace in Great Britain.  As for his wife Margaret Merriam, she is doubtful too.  Well, I guess there is an Ebenezer Spence in Britain, but he doesn't belong to us. Just to recap, Ainsley, Murdock, Wesley, William Mariner, Palmer, Ellen, and Sam Spence (generation 4) are all the children of John William Spence and Ann Elmira Pettigrew (generation 3).   I am color-coding the generations in the hope that it will lessen confusion.   John William, Reuben B., James Edward, George Francis, Samuel, Mary Ellen, Hannah Merriam, and Ella R. (generation 3) are all the children of Samuel Spence and Ellenor Rector (generation 2). Who is Samuel Spence (gen. 2) the child of?  Does he have any siblings?  Looking at generations 3 and 4, with all those sons, he should have li...

U.S. Civil War map - Union in blue, border states in red, Confederacy in gray, neutral territories in white After the Civil War, Robert Monroe Brown of defeated North Carolina wrote to President Andrew Johnson asking for the job of local postmaster.  (see Friends with the President, see Brown Pedigree Chart).  He went to great lengths to show he had been opposed to the War and slavery all along.   I thought that Robert was only exaggerating his beliefs to get a job, and to get by in a conquered country, but it turns out that he was indeed President Johnson's friend "privately, publicly, and politically," as he claimed.  Robert gave the name of Governor W. W. Holden as a reference.  He even attested to being a Union man in the newspaper. I thought this was odd, and the description of Robert's Unionist activities during the War piqued my interest.  So I looked into it.  In fact, Robert was part of the most controversial and dangerous political...

  Our 17th president, Andrew Johnson, held office in the aftermath of the worst time in American history and became president because of a tragedy.  The Civil War had been over less than a week when Abraham Lincoln was murdered.  But we are going to look at President Johnson's childhood. (see Brown Pedigree Chart) Detail of an 1872 map of Raleigh, available online in the NC Digital Collections. Andrew was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was apprenticed with his brother at the ages of 14 and 16 to James and Nancy Gill Selby, tailors.  In the group of boys that the apprentices were friends with was Nancy Selby's nephew, Robert Monroe Brown, 6 years younger, who was always tagging along. Robert and Andrew weren't that close; 40 years later, when Robert brought up their cheerful boyhoods together, he had to remind Andrew who he was, that he was one of the little boys called Bob.  Since Andrew and his brother had run away from their apprenticeship and had to hid...

After he has gone, they live in the big Kramer house with ponies and servants.  (See Whose Gesangverein? ~ the Story of Katharina & Jakob Sulzbach, Part the Second; See Sulzbach Pedigree Chart).  Jakob dutifully writes his wife and children and sends money.  Katharina dutifully replies, Augustin is learning his catechism, Maria Regina is learning her letters.    Rockenberg When they walk through town, everyone asks about him.  "What is your grand husband doing in America?  In New York, is he?"  "So talented, your father.  A genius.  Surely he has founded the greatest Gesangverein of them all, in America!"  The little ones giggle, and the older ones smile at the compliments, and nod, but say nothing. At home, the Kramers are silent on the matter, but Margaretha overhears her grandfather complaining about the measly amount Jakob sends, and Georg asks his siblings who the cowardly deadbeat is that their un...