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The Curious Roots podcast digs deep in the living earth of our personal, familial and communal lives to help us understand how we exist in the world today. Though the format of the podcast may vary from season to season, be it narratives, one-on-one interviews or panel discussions, the root line is the same. What are the stories from our family and community histories that travel with us into the present? How do we understand and work with these histories as both individuals and as collectives to create the world of now and the future?
Season one of the podcast begins with the maternal story of my own curious roots, still buried, but breathing and holding fast in Harris Neck, Georgia. Each week, in six short form episodes, I’ll share the story of my mother’s people and how it informs my life today.
Curious Roots is hosted by Michelle McCrary and is co-produced by Moonshadow Productions and Converge Collaborative.
Margaret Baisden White: And, and, you know what? Up until, uh, uh, a few years ago, I thought Willie Mae and Essie Mae were sisters. A lot of people. I did.
Cousin Weezy: A lot of people.
Margaret Baisden White: I never knew that they were cousins. I thought they were sisters. Uh huh. Well, Essie Mae's the aunt. Oh, wait a minute. Essie Mae's my baby sister. Oh!
Cousin Weezy: Essie Mae my baby sister and Willie Mae's my daughter.
Margaret Baisden White: Yeah, I know Willie Mae was your daughter, but I thought Essie Mae was your daughter, too. See, I thought the two of them were sisters.
Cousin Weezy: That's my mom and dad.
Margaret Baisden White: Oh, my God.
Cousin Weezy: But they had grown up like, a lot of people thought they were sisters.
Margaret Baisden White: Yeah, but, but, but we are related from the Proctor side, right? Yeah. I think that, I, I, you know, because, because Uncle Frank, I mean, Uncle Frank Henry was your, your, your father. Um.
Michelle McCrary: One of the things I've learned over the many years I've spent researching my family's history is that most families have enough secrets and drama to sustain a 30 season reality show. The clip you hear at the top of this episode is my grandmother Margaret interviewing her cousin Louise Weezy Proctor.
The most hilarious thing to me in that clip is cousin Weezy's cackle at my grandmother's utter confusion about Willie Mae and Essie Mae being sisters. Spoiler alert! As you heard, they were cousins. Essie Mae was Cousin Weezy's baby sister, and Willie Mae was her daughter. To give a little recap on the family connections here, Cousin Wheezy married Eddie Moran, and is the daughter of Frank Henry Proctor, Jr.,
who was Harris Neck's local sheriff. Go back to Season 1, Episode 4 for that story. Frank Henry Proctor, Jr. was the son of Frank Henry Proctor, Sr., who was, as far as we all knew, the father of my grandmother's grandmother. Ethel Effie Proctor, but according to my grandmother's cousin Bob Thorpe, Effie was not actually a Proctor, but a Thorpe.
Her father was not Frank Henry Sr., but old man Thorpe. Is all of that giving full soap opera, telenovela drama? Good, because that is the kind of thing that Adolphus Armstrong has to manage as a person who leads the Low Country DNA Project, which is part of Ujima Genealogy. Part of his work of reconnecting people and their roots back to coastal Georgia is not only working with that DNA to do that reconnection work, but it's also Also, The delicate dance of revealing unknown family secrets and unknown family connections.
This work has larger implications related to the land and to the history of human trafficking during the transatlantic slave trade as well. So if you found all of that interesting, you are going to enjoy part one of my interview with Adolphus Armstrong. Thank you so much for listening.
So I am so thankful that you are sitting down with me, Adolphus. I'm sitting with Adolphus Armstrong and, um, he is lovingly referred to as everybody's cousin. And I just want to get started. This is a question I ask everybody, who are you and who are your people?
Adolphus Armstrong: Well, first of all, Michelle, thank you for taking the time to, you know, have this forum that you know, people with roots on the coast can have a chance to have these discussions and literally look at our curious roots.
I really appreciate the work that you've done and I just pray continued success going forward, you know, in the future with it and anything that, you know, Folks back home can do to help you. We're definitely on board with it. But to get to your question about who am I like again, my name is Adolphus Armstrong.
I'd like to think in my mind's eye, I'm relatively young. I was born in 1972. So I'm in my early 50s at this point, but I am a child of McIntosh County, Georgia, and I grew up. In the north end of Macintosh County in a little community called Cannon Bluffs. So when you kind of look at the north end of the county looking at the coast, as you enter into Macintosh County, you're literally coming into the, um, Harris Neck, Jones, Shellman Bluffs, Cannon Bluff as you kind of head down coming into McInnes County as you move out to the, um, barrier, you know, islands, you know, heading back out towards Sapelo.
So that's kind of, you know, my, um, incubator for lack of a better word in terms of, you know, how I was, uh, you know, brought up, you know, during that time. And in terms of my own family, you know, connections, again, I grew up in that Cannon Bluff area and it's, uh, weird and I'm going to kind of. Pick your brain a little bit after I, you know, provide this like on my maternal side of the family.
My mother is Patricia Moran, and families that I'm connected to from her side of the family are the Moran, the Armstrong, the Hillary, the Jacksons, the Pierce, The Delegals, the West, the Bailey's, and the Bacon's. Now, I am Adolphus Armstrong, Jr. So, I am the son of Adolphus Armstrong, Sr. And some of my family connections on the coast, on his side of family, are the Armstrong's, the Buckley's, the Brown's, the Moran's, the Pinckney's, the Lewis's.
The Jacksons, the Devergers and the Dryers. And one of the things that you may not have picked up on I'm not just teasing about the I'm quizzing but, um, what I found out after starting to do some research is that my parents are actually, you know, related to each other. So the families that kind of, you know, cross both sides for me are the Jacksons and the Morans.
They're the primary ones that cross back and forth between my mother and my father. So that just gives you an idea of some of the families that I descend from and some of the connections at this point that I'm still researching, trying to figure it all out.
Michelle McCrary: Oh my goodness. Yeah, I, I'm still trying to figure out if, I don't know if we're related and the thing that I talked to Terri a couple of days ago and for everybody listening, who's listened to the show before, um, Terri Ward, who's like our resident genealogist, researcher, historian, um, we were talking and we were talking about when we do research on our families, like, Sometimes those surnames may not actually be the surnames, so in a tape that my grandmother made back in the day, she spoke to her cousin, um, Bob Thorpe, um, you know, rest in power to him, on the tape, he let her know that her grandmother, Ethel Proctor, who was, uh, Ethel Harris by marriage, She was actually not a Proctor, she was a Thorpe.
So, and her dad was actually, he said, Old Man Thorpe. So it was, it's very confusing to say the least.
Adolphus Armstrong: Wow. That is absolutely amazing. And I think, um, one of the things that we've kind of noticed is that, you know, what I just shared with you is the information that I gleaned from starting in terms of, uh, you know, interviewing family members and going back to census records, you know, trying to go up the tree so that there's that aspect of it.
And then the other piece of it is once you start to do some DNA testing and try to start to figure out who your DNA cousins are, that's where, you know, you start to see some things like, okay, based on what I'm looking at in the census record, something's not right. And the example that you use is like, okay, why is this particular family member matching thorps based on what I'm seeing on the paper record?
There should not be a connection. And so that's definitely. One of the things that once you go down the part of using or try to incorporate DNA into your family research, you almost have to compartmentalize the two and that you've done your paper research and you're going to continue to do that type of research.
But toreally let the DNA lead you wherever it will, as you make an attempt to try and figure out, you know, how you're matching with people. So that's just one thing that I have to have to constantly guard against is that it's great that Big Momma said this, but based on Big Momma's DNA tests, something's not you know, meshing right here. So I always have to, you know, caution myself because you always have, you know, those voices in your ear. What did, you know, Uncle George say? What did, um, Cousin Lewis say? What did Cousin Charles Jordan say? On one end, but then you have to take a look at the DNA and to try and make sense of what you're looking at.
Michelle McCrary: Right. And that's a good segue because you are kind of in charge of. the point person for the Low Country DNA Project. Can you talk about what the Low Country DNA Project is and how you got involved with it?
Adolphus Armstrong: Oh, yeah, it's been a it's definitely been a journey. You know, like everyone, you know, I started out, you know, writing down everything that I knew about my family.
And then the next question was, you start to, you know, ask your parents and your grandparents, and you literally start to go up that tree trying to get, you know, more, you know, information. But one of the things that I've found is that, you know, before I really started, you know, listening to, you know, family tree and genealogical workshops.
I started the process of talking to people in the, you know, talking to my, you know, grandparents, you know, aunts and uncles. And then, you know, I expanded the search to interviewing cousins, and then from cousins, just trying to find, you know, any older person in the community, trying to find, you know, those church mothers just to see what they knew about my families.
And then based on the flow of the interviews and questions, you're learning information about your family. And then you start to learn information about other families. And it literally comes to a point is that there's no way I can limit this to just My direct ancestors. I have to, at that point, expand the tree out because those are the stories that are being, you know, shared with you.
So, uh, just based on dealing with people, you know, in that local area, when people talk about that fan club, you know, friends, associates, and neighbors, it's like, wow, we were literally doing that before I ever heard the term in terms of trying to reclaim and document, you know, as best we could, you know, with our history, but.
So we started that, I think I kind of started that about maybe around 1999 in terms of really starting to dig into it. And then you literally fast forward until the advent of DNA. And for me, the advent of DNA effectively means when it became affordable for me. Now, again, I'm not going to call myself frugal or cheap.
Let's just say I am cost conscious. And once the kids got to a 99 range at that point, Okay, I can work with this. And so I, you know, started, I, um, you took my first DNA test kit. And as I was thinking about it, and I've, you know, been to a couple of workshops, and they said that, you know, try and get some of the older people and your family tested first.
And that was the absolute most difficult thing. It, for example, I, My mother would not test for me initially. So I went a generation up and her uncle, George Moran, who would be my great uncle, he was the first person to, um, actually test for me. And one of the things that I noticed from him is that once we got his DNA tested, it really opened things up in a fantastic way that I never would have.
Able to reach if I had just made an attempt to depend on my DNA test because the DNA test that we took was autosomal DNA test and typically with the autosomal test that'll take you back about 250 years and so since Uncle George was born in the 1920s, you know, Him going back 250 years from that standpoint, you could clearly see how that definitely provided a lot more information because a lot of the, uh, cousins that, you know, people were saying, ah, I don't think we're, you know, the Morans over here in the, you know, showman bluff Ken above area.
I don't think they're connected to the Morans that are out there in the ridge, but once uncle George's DNA tests came back and then as more people started to test, you started to see some of those Morans that were in the ridge started to come through. As DNA matches. And so some of the, um, you know, questions that, you know, were out there, the DNA kind of helped solidify and figure some things out.
And, um, going through that process, uh, we knew that Uncle George's grandmother was a Sarah Hillary. was born on Sapelo. But that's kind of where our story ended in that Sarah is recorded in the 1870 census in the household of a Dennis Gilbert on Sapelo. But then at that point, between 1870 and 1880, then she makes her way to the Shellman Bluff.
Harris Neck, Cannon Bluff area and that's where she starts to have her children. So she left Sapelo, you know, so long ago, really, no one really remembers her. So when we are trying to make a connection, trying to figure out, you know, who Sarah's definitive parents are, you know, from a paper trail standpoint, it's exceedingly difficult.
But because Uncle George took that DNA test, he is matching with so many feet that it. Okay, there is a Sapelo connection, and we're slowly hope, you know, making contact with individuals trying to see if we can narrow that down as we start to, uh, cluster people. And as we were looking at the Sapelo piece, um, one of Uncle George's DNA matches was a Thomas Lee Hughes, and, um, Cousin Thomas is a, um, descendant of the Lemon family from Sapelo, and his kit was managed by his son, son, Kevin Hughes, out in California.
And, you know, Kevin and, you know, Thomas, cousin Thomas grew up, uh, raised his family in New Jersey. So Kevin grew up in New Jersey and military man. And so, you know, currently he's out in California now, but one of the terms that Kevin coined was golden DNA for his father and people of his generation. And so that really You gave us an opportunity to kind of assess and based on what I noticed for Uncle George's DNA, is that we've got to make a focus on doing seniors and making that the focus just because the fact of how many different connections that the DNA is starting to reveal to us so It's the matter of trying to get that, you know, golden DNA.
And, um, at that point, so we're starting to talk it up, especially, you know, amongst the, um, Moran family reunion to mention it to people. So we've probably, we've gotten a very great representation of Miranda sentence that have completed the DNA testing, but, you know, fast forward a few years ago, um, I had the opportunity to, um, go to a, uh, Butler Island presentation on the Weeping Time and the presenter.
Brian Sheffey and currently Brian is with the International African American Museum in Charlotte, South Carolina, and he is the director of the Center for family history and during Brian's presentation he was, you know, going back and showing us the progression of with the Butler family. Where did those enslaved individuals come from in terms of showing, you're looking at the wills, in terms of tracing those families, in terms of how they migrated from South Carolina into Georgia, he literally was able to kind of give us an idea of, you know, what families, in terms of, you know, as they married, as the, uh, wills were, you know, probated, and the information, the bequests, in terms of, you know, what families went to which child, and that slaveholding family, Plink.
And so he literally provided us a concept called, I guess, the beyond, um, beyond kin network. And effectively what he's attempting to do is to take these families ultimately back to the actual ships from Africa that brought them to the United States. And so as I was listening to his presentation, it was like, this is absolutely fantastic in that he's digging in and making an attempt to connect us back to those African roots in terms of, The paper documentation to get us there.
And as I'm sitting there, you know, listening to the presentation via zoom. The question that popped into my mind is that, okay, how can DNA potentially help this part of the project? And if you know anything about matching this McIntosh County for the families that have been there, we've been there for generations.
I think at this point, I've documented a couple of families that are into the 11th and 12th generation. Of individuals with ties directly in McIntosh County. And when you have a county that that small kind of think about, you know, the different epochs of time on the coast, you have these small networks of families.
And one of the things that you will notice is that your families, we start to intermingle different communities so Over the course of time, you'll start to see instances of pedigree collapse. And that's just simply, you know, cousins marrying cousins. And again, that's the situation. And if you're from the area, you understand that for the most part, first cousins, frowned upon.
But once you get to the third, fourth cousin range, the, um, you know, people will kind of look at it, assess it and kind of, you know, okay, bless it and keep it moving. But the thing to note there is that that was not uncommon in terms of these family networks, especially in these rural areas. Um, you know, by the time I came through, you could jump in a car and, you know, drive somewhere.
But in my grandparents, you know, generation, you kind of had to assess where you were. And to figure out, okay, what makes sense in terms of living life here. So that was just one of the things that I noted is that because when you have instances of that type of pedigree collapse, and then, you know, over generations, especially with us, you know, coming out of the, um, transcribed plantation system in that with slave, you know, breeding, you know, across, you know, within a plantation and amongst neighboring plantations, you potentially could have a situation where you actually have some endogamy.
And that's just, um, extensive pedigree collapse that takes place generation after generation in an especially closed group. So my thought was, you know, and even in my own family, I know my parents are related to each other. So for anyone that's still left in McIntosh County, there's a great chance that the DNA is going to still remain in younger people because of all the crisscrossing that you have, because typically people will start doing the math.
You know, you have four grandparents, eight, great grandparents and then 16 great great grandparents. But I can almost tell you if you are from McIntosh County, you might go, you might get four grandparents, but you Mae not get eight great grandparents in the sense of them not being related to each other.
So in my instance, you know, my tree goes out and because my parents are related, then it comes back in and it goes back out again. And And based on some of the work that, you know, our front porch genealogist, Terry Ward is doing, it looks like a few generations back, it comes back in again before, you know, it goes out.
So because of the fact that it's a unique culture and a lot of that, you know, DNA should still remain in that population. That's really where the idea really came to start the Low Country DNA project to try and get some of the seniors that are in Mcintosh County to test because one of the things that we notice is that based on Uncle George's test results, he's matching people.
Once you look at their trees, they start, say, in Alabama. In Louisiana or in Kentucky, and based on their research and family history, that's the genesis of their family. That's where it starts. But obviously if they are matching Uncle George and his people have been here since about before 1800, then there has to be some connection.
You know, back to Georgia. So the idea is that if we test seniors in McIntosh County, that should give us a nice, good, solid foundation to try and help people to have ties back to Georgia, try to figure things out just because of the fact that people stayed and you have these double, triple cousin situations.
And so there's a greater Probability that you are going to match that group on certain lines. And so that really, you know, became the genesis for the low country DNA project. And so that was the concept and idea behind it. And so we wrote up a proposal and we sent it into MyHeritage just to see if they would partner with us.
And the proposal effectively was that we're trying to target seniors, individuals 70 or above, that had ties to coastal Georgia. And our specific focus as we try to identify people, we were looking at individuals with ties to Butler Island, ties to Sapelo, and ties to Harris Neck. And so My Heritage liked our proposal and they agreed to sponsor 100 kids at this point I'm 30 kids in into the hundred and when they started partnering with us, it happened just as covert was starting so covert, you know, greatly set us back that in conjunction with all the seniors that were involved.
We've lost. And so now it's a matter of us trying to get back out there and then to hopefully get some more seniors to test so we could really, you know, make some more hay in terms of identifying those connections. A long way to get around to the short end of the story, but that's literally how the formalized Low Country DNA Project began.
Michelle McCrary: Okay. That is, that is just like, um, I had, there were so many questions I have now. But the piece that just jumped out to me, because I've heard you, you know, in our conversations and in presentations I've watched you do for, um, Ujima Genealogy, I, you talk about how important it is to get seniors tested and that piece of their DNA going back like 200 years.
And I think about All the folks in my family, I kind of wish had gotten tested or were able to get tested and how many answers, um, that would help people find. Um, so I just, I have a lot of questions about, you know, kind of what you've seen and you talked about, um, you know, George Moran and everything that his DNA unlocked.
What's the most surprising thing that you found as you looked at the DNA from a lot of these elders and, and the story that it tells about some of the families in McIntosh County?
Adolphus Armstrong: I think, uh, one of the most surprising things is that, you know, growing up, you know, stories had been passed down to me because I think, um, you know, Mae God rest her soul, my aunt Eva Hankerson, like she had been, um, relaying a story where, you know, her cousin, you know, Bailey Moran Jr.
had basically said like, you know, all these doggone people in these woods are related. And she would, you know, she, you know, jokingly, she would kind of share that. And obviously, if you knew Uncle Bailey, he didn't say it as kindly as she did at that point, but that's kind of literally stuck with me. And as we started to do the DNA testing, it literally, you start to see exactly what he was talking about in that individuals that you did not necessarily think are related.
But once you start to see the individuals that they're matching with, you, you Because one of the things that, um, our good front porch genealogist Terry Ward notes is that, you know, her hypothesis is that we're going to come back to a smaller and smaller group of ancestors. And based on what we're seeing in the DNA, that, you know, is so the case in that I'm seeing individuals, like for an example, I have an aunt, Thelma Bryant, and unfortunately, she is the last of her siblings to test, but I'm so thankful that I was able to get her brother, Reverend Arthur Candy Pierce, and her brother, Alan Male Pierce, to test.
So, I have the three of them, their test results are sitting out there, and one of the things that kind of blew me away is that, you know, their parents were Gus Pierce and Charlotte Delegal. So, at that point, you know, Gus grew up in the Jones area. So in my mind's eye, I'm locking him into that community and those networks that are in the Jones leading back into Riceboro area.
And so as we, you know, continued with the Low Country DNA Project. Before she passed away, Miss Olive, um, Smith was able to test for us. And so as Thelma's results came back in, it came back that Miss Olive and Thelma are related. I had never heard that there had been, you know, any connections, because as I'm doing my research, And the line that I think is probably going to provide the clue is probably going to be the Delegal.
I can't be sure about that, but that's the one in terms of a proximity at this point that makes the most sense. But everyone that I ever and again, the Delegal's large prominent family, large plantation, but everyone that I speak with, I would talk about the Delegals that may be down in Hellman versus the Delegals that might be in Harris Neck versus the Delegals that might be in Cannon Bluff, people would always say they're different families, but the sheer fact that Thelma and Miss Olive are matching, you know, that is showing me that, okay, there's definitely something more to the story in terms of, you know, potentially, assuming that it is on that Delegal connection, but because of the fact that this is in DNA, and as you noted earlier, Michelle, don't get hung up on the family surnames that potentially could be Additional connections that tie the two.
And so that's why that's going to be one of my pushes for the end of the year to try and get a few more people that are down in Harris neck to test. So if you are part of the Campbell, the silence family or the Thorpe, you know, I am looking for you in terms of trying to establish that. And the other thing that really I'm It's absolutely fascinating is that once we start to I've seen a few of them seniors to test to see individuals that are say in states like California, who have absolutely no concept of being connected to the coast.
But once we start to collaborate and work and start to share matchless I am literally seeing these vast networks is like it's amazing. The breadth of the people that are had a starting point on the coast of Georgia that have dispersed all across the country. And so from a large 30,000 feet standpoint, you know, that's what we're seeing the connections within these communities that you might not necessarily think.
But if you kind of think about the example that, you know, that you're intimately familiar with is the, um, the removal of your ancestors from Harris neck and the dispersal, you know, that's an immediate. Example of individuals getting dispersed and moving into different pockets of community. But as I'm, and again, that's the one thing that sits in my mind, but as we're doing the DNA testing, you could definitely see, you know, cross pollination amongst all these local communities, you know, literally going all the way from Savannah.
To Jacksonville. So that's what it's like. But don't get me wrong. Um, DNA is not for the faint of heart because you will come across items that are unexpected. And an example that I will use is that with Uncle George's DNA testing, we discovered a nephew for him that no one knew about. So you will encounter, you know, surprises along the way.
And so I just want everyone who goes down this road to be cognizant of that. And for me, I tell people So I encourage people, if I'm going to do this, because so many people have tested at this point, your story's already out there. So I try and encourage people, go ahead and test, get in front of the story so you can control that narrative.
And that's literally some of the, I guess, more interesting things from a, I guess, more Jerry Springer type thing. You know, okay, here's a unknown type son, but, you know, in terms of looking, oh, excuse me, unknown nephew, but in terms of looking at. The connections amongst these various communities, it is fascinating.
And one Harris neck example that I'll share with you is that you may have heard the story of the banks family on Sapelo, although who are actually Thorpes that, you know, migrated, you know, over to, um, Sapelo. And as I am looking at some of them come on board as DNA tests, I could literally see the DNA connections back to Harris Neck with individuals.
With ties to Harris Neck. And so that's one of the things that's, you know, beautiful to see is that that's part of their family lore, but that is something that definitely is coming through.
Michelle McCrary: Those my people, the Thorpes. Shout out to the Thorpes.
I, I love, I love all, I love all the pieces of the Lowcountry DNA project because it's like, it tickles that mystery. fascination that I have. And it feels like, um, you're just like uncovering these mysteries and, and it tells this story. And the one thing that struck me, um, we were on a zoom. A few weeks ago with a bunch of other researchers who were researching, you know, family in this area of the country, um, facilitated by Terri and the subject of, um, you know, all the difficulties and the intentional challenges of folks.
Um, down in the low country and on the sea islands trying to hold on to their land. How do you feel like this, this process? This work of trying to find your people is connected to that struggle with the land.
Adolphus Armstrong: Yeah, Michelle, for me, the DNA, you know, the DNA is a representation of our genetic inheritance from our ancestors.
And the other items that we, you know, inherit are the other aspects of it is our mental, spiritual and material. And as you research your family stories, your story will become ultimately linked with land and culture. And for us, with our culture, it's a lily of seeing, you know, what happened after the end of chattel slavery in terms of what happened.
The massive improvements in education with our people literally running to schools to be able to learn how to read and write in the institutions that were created with the churches that, you know, rose, you know, after that, that are, you know, still happening today. And the other aspect of it in terms of the material well being was our cry for land.
And you know, everyone, all your listeners are going to be aware of the fact is that the demand for 40 acres and a mule started right along that, you know, Georgia coast with those 20 plus ministers who met with Sherman and shared that the need and the demand for self sufficiency going forward for black people.
would be land that ultimately, you know, resulted in Field Order 15 that was subsequently rescinded by President Johnson after Abraham Lincoln's assassination. But land has always been that economic foundation. And we have to keep in mind is that the United States economic foundation was built on productive land, and our enslaved ancestors made the land productive.
When you're in control of the food supply, and you can continue to make the land productive, our ancestors knew if we could just get that land that we would be able to literally take care of ourselves. The only, literally the only difference is that once you are no longer enslaved, all the That you put into making that land productive as opposed to the fruits of your labor going to the enslaver.
Now you have the ability to control the fruits of your labor and at that point you can then enjoy it and start to build a legacy for your children. And that's one of the things that you'll see is that as you start to do your research, chances are you're going to come across a work contract between your ancestor.
And they're enslavers. And once you start to look at these contracts, you're going to see family groupings networks is that you might see your Nana's big mama. So your grandmother's grandmother, or even great grandmother and her children signing off on this work contract. And you're going to see in that work contract, they are working for a few dollars a month.
But as you start to look through the census records, and one of the things that you will is that on the census records, It will know if the family owns or rents and they will, in certain senses, assess a dollar value. So just looking at, before you even go back to the deed books to trace your family back to figure out specifically who they got the land from, just from looking at the census records, you'll be able to see, based on the work that they put in and how they struggled earning these few dollars a month, they were able to acquire land.
Land.
ARCHIVAL AUDIO
Margaret Baisden White Okay, let's see if we can get this thing going together now. This is Aunt Gally. Her name is H. Morrison. I'll get it straight in a minute. I think you can get it.
Yeah, I think
Margaret Baisden White: so. So, um, now you said your mother's name was? Susan. You said Susan.
Aunt Galley: Susan. Susan Spaulding Harris. Yeah,
Margaret Baisden White: Susan Spaulding Harris. Yeah. And your father's name was?
Margaret Baisden White: Will?
Aunt Galley: Yeah.William Harris
Michelle McCrary: so much for listening to part one of my interview with Adolphus Armstrong. Please don't forget to like, review, and subscribe to Curious Roots on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Please follow us on Instagram at Curious Roots Pod and also check out our website, CuriousRootsPod.
com. If you have any questions about coastal Georgia genealogy or questions about the show, or maybe you are a cousin, please reach out to me at Curious at CuriousRootsPod dot com. Thanks again for listening. Part two of my interview with Adolphus Armstrong will be up next week. Don't forget to listen.