You know, I have a similar experience with census information. While Carter is but one of
my Mother's surnames out of Mississippi, she has various others: Holley/Hollie/Holly,
Belue, etc spellings, Herring/Hearing... some of them were listed as being of color. As an
avid amateur genealogist, I am also an educated Sociologist and understand that people
were not so kind to other people back in the days of our history. Many times, even now
they are not so nice to each other. Many of my Mother's lines were Native
American. Many of my Native American lines are also my brick walls. That is because there
are scant records left for them, nonexistent records, and records that are confusing...
and families who were separated forever to have a remembrance of each other so that word
of mouth records also do not any longer exist.
One of the first things I found out in my research happened on my father's line when I
found out that my Murphy Irish roots were not Murphy at all and that my McDaris line
wasn't McDaris but Medearis and that my first American grandfather line was a man
named Domingo and that he can be traced to early Jamestown amongst the Brits and others
who were there.
Genealogy is very interesting and such a fine learning experience. My regret is that I am
no longer in my college classes discussing cultures of the world and missed my opportunity
to tell my classmates about my heritage. I also regret that I am getting older now and
that our science can so far only trace the Y-DNA. I am more than willing to give them a
chance to trace either one of my X's.
I have often told my children as they grew up... don't really matter where you came
from, what matters is what you make of yourself when you got here. We have to love each
other regardless. We all share history that boils down to the same thing. So far, I
haven't been able to trace any monkey lines. But, I wouldn't be surprised.
Love to you all,
Polly
Also, a lot of times back then they didn't have a category if you were
for Indian or part Indian and so put that a person was "of color". It
didn't
always mean that you were black or part black, just that you weren't white.
The census taker didn't start putting that a person was Indian until later
on. That's what I have read in Indian history.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Polly Murphy" <pollymydear(a)yahoo.com>
To: <carter(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 7:43 PM
Subject: [CARTER] Carter surname
You know, I have a similar experience with census information. While Carter
is but one of my Mother's surnames out of Mississippi, she has various
others: Holley/Hollie/Holly, Belue, etc spellings, Herring/Hearing... some
of them were listed as being of color. As an avid amateur genealogist, I am
also an educated Sociologist and understand that people were not so kind to
other people back in the days of our history. Many times, even now they are
not so nice to each other. Many of my Mother's lines were Native American.
Many of my Native American lines are also my brick walls. That is because
there are scant records left for them, nonexistent records, and records that
are confusing... and families who were separated forever to have a
remembrance of each other so that word of mouth records also do not any
longer exist.
One of the first things I found out in my research happened on my father's
line when I found out that my Murphy Irish roots were not Murphy at all and
that my McDaris line wasn't McDaris but Medearis and that my first American
grandfather line was a man named Domingo and that he can be traced to early
Jamestown amongst the Brits and others who were there.
Genealogy is very interesting and such a fine learning experience. My regret
is that I am no longer in my college classes discussing cultures of the
world and missed my opportunity to tell my classmates about my heritage. I
also regret that I am getting older now and that our science can so far only
trace the Y-DNA. I am more than willing to give them a chance to trace
either one of my X's.
I have often told my children as they grew up... don't really matter where
you came from, what matters is what you make of yourself when you got here.
We have to love each other regardless. We all share history that boils down
to the same thing. So far, I haven't been able to trace any monkey lines.
But, I wouldn't be surprised.
Love to you all,
Polly
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