In their footsteps
Any genealogist who has ever had the great good fortune to find and walk an ancestor’s land knows there are no words that can be found — and none that are required — to describe the experience.
You just soak it in.
So it has been for The Legal Genealogist in this quick trip in to Mississippi to find the land of my Gentry and Robertson ancestors.
As I turn my steps northeast today, heading home, I am a little frustrated at not finding certain evidence of where my Gentry third great grandparents are buried — but think it’s likely to be where their son George is buried, right down the road from our mid-19th-century land. There are a number of worn stone markers in that very old cemetery — and the location is just right.
But the land… just being there and seeing what they saw… that was good enough no matter that I didn’t find a single thing new in the paper trail. The physical trail was good enough.
On, or very near the Gentry land, some day lilies brightened the field in front of an old barn.
Not far away, the Pearl River makes its muddy way through Neshoba County (and other counties) — and my third great grandfather Elijah Gentry rode the Pearl River circuit as a Methodist Episcopal preacher before marrying and having a boatload of kids.
Down the road from their land is the White Oak Cemetery where, I suspect, Elijah and wife Wilmoth are buried. It’s a lovely quiet peaceful place filled with old stones.
Among the stones that can be read are those of some of my Gentry cousins — from a later generation.
It’s been fun, Mississippi. We’ll have to do this again some time…
Judy,
I have truly enjoyed reading about your trip back “home” to visit where your ancestors lived. While reading your blog, it dawned on me how fortunate I am to have grown up on ancestral land in South Carolina. I never really thought about it because that was the norm then in my community.
My daughter, sister and I went to a cemetery created on land that had been donated by our ancestors. As we looked for our relatives tombstones, we couldn’t help but stop and gaze out over the valley that our great great grandfather stood on as he buried his loved ones. We wondered how much the landscape had changed in the 100 years since he stood there. And whimsically wondered if the cows we saw were descendants of the cows of his time period.
Yes, goosebumps rose up on our arms, and tears came to our eyes as we hugged each other!
Judy,
You’re so right, there are no words to describe your feelings and—- the sensation that trickles through your entire body. What a wonderful experience!
I’m glad you had a good trip; and of Course, you always wish you could stay longer! HA!
I Can’t thank you enough for sharing “The Legal Genealogist” with all of us.
Your opening paragraph resonated for me, having just done and written about the very same type of experience. https://brotmanblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/walking-in-the-shadows-of-my-brotman-great-grandparents/
Thank you for sharing such a beautiful, moving experience, Judy. Loved your photos and word pictures. When I went searching for my family’s western lands, I was stunned to realize that I have been on some of them, without realizing it. I have to go back.
In the 1970s, my parents had 24 unplanned hours in the central IL community where his family had lived two generations before. His goal was to find just one family tombstone. They happened to be there on the one morning a week the local genealogical society was open. The woman staffing it told him who he needed to talk to, said, “I know she’s home this morning; I’ll call and tell her you’re coming!” After they’d shared coffee and discovered the wife was his second cousin once removed, she and her husband took my parents to an old family cemetery down dusty country lanes and on the edge of a farmer’s field. Dad took pictures of the cemetery sign, and of all the direct ancestors and spouses he could think of, with the help of this elderly couple. In another decade, the cemetery had been plowed under, the stones piled at the edge of the field. Another decade on, a group unknown to me restored the cemetery, and replaced the stones they could identify. I’ve always regretted my father didn’t photograph every single stone, but it was in the days of 35 mm slides, not digital. He was frugal with his film and didn’t realize how valuable all the “extra” pictures would have been in documenting the cemetery as a whole. Still. I look at those discolored slides, now scanned, and get such a thrill. This is the final resting place of my gg and ggg grandparents, and some of their siblings. He was too excited at the time to take pictures of the others, and too mindful of his elderly hosts. The story that goes with the pictures is equally thrilling. It formed an interesting chapter in the small book my father self-published ten years later about his family. Knowing the name of the cemetery, can I use the BLM method to locate this cemetery to see what this place looks like now? Since I know it’s a family cemetery, Find-A-Grave may help me find the other family members buried there.
The BLM method works any time you know the original landowner or the land description using the public land survey system (township, range, section). If you have that, go for it. Otherwise…