Bama Planter

The truth has been shown the light. My grandmother's typical family stories.... of Cherokee ancestors, of questionable "highwaymen" accounts of great grandfathers who were "deported" long after deportation from England stopped, and the knowledge that her Evans family is from the Appalachian Mountains in Western North Carolina and North Georgia, coupled with the name Evans being a common MELUNGEON sir name.... It all adds up to a typical hidden MELUNGEON ancestry. I am proud of it. the Melungeon people were ALREADY THERE when the English and Scots got to Western North Carolina. They are apparently mixed Native American, African, and Portuguese. The ancestry is no longer being hidden ( generally) and a pride of this heritage is on the rise in the area. It also finally explains my 2 % African American ancestry on my DNA test !

WHEN THE TROUBLE BEGAN. My ancestor James Cunningham of Lunenburg County VA made out his Last Will in 1762. He could not write, so his name was written for him and he "made his mark" ( an X ) on the page. Some researcher about 1980 saw that and thought he had the middle name MARK. NOT SO. I have fought this mistake for 40 years. Now it's on Ancestry and has a life of its own. English law at the time did not allow non-royals to have middle names, with few exceptions. James Cunningham died in the fall of 1762, leaving wife Jane Scott Cunningham, and three sons, William, James, and John. James the son died before reaching adulthood, so his two brothers inherited his part. John joined the Virginia line and was made a Lieutenant during the Revolutionary War. He lived in Lunenburg and Charlotte Counties in Virginia before moving to Wilkes County, North Carolina. His final move was to the area of Coffee and Warren Counties in Tennessee. He died in 1842 and is

Many Baby Boomers such as myself have been so greatly influenced by our parents that we are living in the Great Depression and don't know it. Let me be clear from the outset. I am not a hoarder. The house of a hoarder has rooms that can no longer function as they were intended to function. Hallways and stairways are so full of "things" that they are unsafe. That is not the condition I am describing. No one has to climb over anything to enter any room in my house. The Baby Boomers have inherited a different sort of condition, one that is hidden from view. We might detect it in each other, but no casual outsider visiting our home would think anything unusual was going on. But it is. We are, in fact, still living in the Great Depression. Let me give you just one example of why this has evolved in me. When my sister redid my father's bathroom after he moved back home, he did what he usually did. He told the men who were working, " Don't worry about hauli

Private Moses Johnson - Elk Creek District Militia, Virginia. He was a part of the 2nd Virginia Regiment with General George Washington's Continental Army, from Valley Forge until Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. My cousin Andy Johnson ( descendant of Moses via his son William) and his daughter attended the February 2022 ceremony here in Shelby County, Alabama to honor our ancestor Moses Johnson. I descend via his son Moses Johnson JR who married Margaret Ann "Anny" West, daughter of Rev. Dr. Joshua West and wife Hannah Prentice. Andy and daughter obtained these wonderful photos of the ceremony.

This is a photo of Theodore Morris Allen and wife Mattie Perry. She was a daughter of Jacob Perry the Old Planter whose plantation house is still standing just north of Montevallo, Shelby County, Alabama. It is now a public park with 167 acres of the original plantation. In the rocking chair is Mattie's sister Amelia Perry. By the curtain holding the fan is Bertie Helen Allen, who was in the first graduating class of what is now the University of Montevallo, Class of 1899 with only 3 members. She never married and was a school teacher. The girl wearing the dark dress and holding flowers is Bessie Allen. The little girl in white is Maggie ( Margaret) Stelle Allen. The young man behind Ameila Perry is Edgar Perry Allen. The young man next to Bessie and Bertie is George Allen. I estimate the photo was taken in the late 1890's. Mrs. Allen died in 1903 so it is no later than that.

This is my best Memento Mori postmortem photograph. She is a cased view ferrotype ( tintype) ca. 1860.