AMXROADS-L Archives

From: Carolyn McDaniel <>
Subject: [AMXROADS] Timelines
Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 21:33:35 -0700

Dear Cousins,
The class I will teach in Baltimore on the 14th of September will expand
on timelines. I plan to use a couple of the ones I already have up on the
American Crossroads website, and additionally I plan to demonstrate another
type using census records and tax lists. These kinds of comparisons can
help identify individuals from one census listing to another, and
importantly, establish their identities within their contemporary
communities and discover links to their previous ones.
I was looking over our cousin Jim Pennington's really excellent effort on
his family which was in Ashe County, NC. Some went to Kentucky and parts
west -- as most of these migrating frontiers people did. I decided to use
Ashe County as the basis for the census timeline I want to demonstrate,
because Ashe county has fantastic genealogy resources for, particularly
with information on the internet.
First, there is the New River Valley Historical Notes website, a marvelous
depository established by Jeff Weaver, which includes all of SW Virginia
and much of NW North Carolina. ALL is excellent, and very
comprehensive. I mention this site regularly, because it just keeps
getting better and better.
http://www.ls.net/~newriver/nrv.htm
All of the census records for Ashe County are available online, from 1800,
the year after Ashe was formed, to 1880 and can be accessed either at the
NRVN website, or through the USGenWeb's Ashe County's archives.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/nc/ashnc.htm
This is pure genealogical gold. You can also find the Ashe-area residents
in the Wilkes County census for 1790, and in 1787, and 1797 Wilkes county
tax lists, also at the NRVN.
One of the difficulties of using most internet search engines (for
example, at Ancestry.com) is that you have to search one variant spelling
at a time, or with the census, you can try a soundex search. The
advantage of viewing an entire census index, the old-timey way we used to
do in books, becomes immediately apparent. The variant possibilities leap
out at you. I searched the online census images at Ancestry.com for 1790
Pennington listings in Wilkes County. None came up, yet I knew there were
Penningtons there. Using the 1790 online index at NRVN, produced the
Penningtons I wanted, only they were spelled "Piniton, Pinninton, and even
"Sinnington."
In addition to the allied Pennington names, I have identified a number of
names connected to my Maryland Pennington research, which was part of my
intent in making the timelines. Other Ashe surnames include root families
on both sides of my ancestry: McDaniel, Foster, Russell, Watts, Van
Winkle, Smith (of course!), and names that I recognize for various
listmembers: Burton, Coffey, Griffith, Lindsay, Sparks, Bolling,
Sizemore, Anderson, Davis, etc. etc.
The locality and the surnames don't matter, it is the methodology employed
which will help you with your own chronological analysis. Keys to
effective timelines are using the data itself not summaries, and not
following just one surname, but including those known to have been
neighbors or allied families -- the kith and kin. In this way you can
better understand something of the way these families lived, which in turn
will help you find their roots.
I should have some of this up in the next few days.

Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn

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• [AMXROADS] Timelines by Carolyn McDaniel <>