Author Archive

45th Reynolds Family Reunion

taneya | May 6, 2012 | COMMENTS:No Comments »

45th REYNOLDS FAMILY REUNION

10:00 AM on Sunday May 20th, 2012

Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church

in Tyrrell County NC

This is a reunion of the descendants of William Reynolds Jr. and his sister Matilda Jane Reynolds Spencer, both originally from Chelsea, England.  William Reynolds Jr. lived in Tyrrell Countyand became a Primitive Baptist Preacher, while Matilda Jane Reynolds Spencer lived near Roper in Washington County and ran a local store. 

Also, everyone is encouraged to bring any items of family interest that they have (such as old pictures, family bibles, diaries or handiwork) to the reunion for “show and tell”. 

THIS YEAR’S PROGRAM:

Mark Bateman, our President, will lead the program of “Interesting Things from the Records of Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church”.  Hear the history and our family stories uncovered when the oldest record book of this old church was recently transcribed! 

AGENDA:
10:00 – 10:30 AM Registration and Fellowship
10:30 – 12:00   Business Meeting and Program
• Welcome and Invocation
• Announcements
• Kids Corner
• Minutes and Treasurer Report
• Memorial Service

• Program:  Interesting Things from the Records of Bethlehem Church

• Election of Officers
• Old Business / New Business
• Family Lines Count         

• Recognitions and Show & Tell
• Closing
12:00 – ???      Picnic Lunch
1:30 PM           Bethlehem PBC Preservation Society Annual Meeting 

The picnic is pot luck luncheon – the reunion provides barbecue and plates / utensils / cups / ice.  Everyone should bring their drinks and a dish to share. Reminder that out-of-town family members are not obligated to bring a lunch – you are invited to be guests of the local members.  

DIRECTIONS TO BETHLEHEM PB CHURCH:  Take US Highway 64 to Columbia NC.  At traffic light head south onto NC Route 94 for about 2 miles, and take right onto Newlands Rd.  The church is 1/8 mile west, park in the yard.  

ANNUAL PREACHING SERVICE AT BETHLEHEM PBC:
The annual Primitive Baptist preaching service will be held at Bethlehem PBC on the 4th Sunday, June 24th, 2012 at 10:30 a.m., led by Elder Johnny Ray Gardner. 

 

QUESTIONS?     Contact:

Mark Bateman, President  ……….. (860)464-1715

Gail Reynolds, Treasurer …………. (252)796-9471

 

 

Category: Reunions TAG:

Pre-1914 Washington County Cemetery Transcriptions

taneya | January 14, 2012 | COMMENTS:No Comments »

In the 1930′s and 1940′s, the workers of the Works Progress Administration (now called the Works Projects Administration) set out to record burial information for cemeteries across the state.  These records have now been added online by the NC State Archives and State Library of NC.

The survey includes listings for the following cemeteries.  Do keep in mind that there may be errors and/or mistakes.

  • Baptist Cemetery (pg. 2)
  • Brinkley Cemetery (pg. 3)
  • Downing Cemetery (pg. 12)
  • Episcopal Cemetery (pg. 4)
  • Methodist Cemetery -pg. 8
  • Windley Cemetery (pg. 11)

You can find the Washington County files here. To view more from across the state, click here.

Category: Cemeteries

St. Luke’s/St. Anne’s Episcopal Church Quartoseptcentennial

taneya | July 19, 2011 | COMMENTS:No Comments »

Do you have plans October 15th & 16th, 2011?  If you can make it, the members of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and St. Anne’s Episcopal Church are celebrating their 175 year anniversary.

Category: Churches, Events

Facebook/Twitter Anyone?

taneya | June 15, 2011 | COMMENTS:No Comments »

I’d love to hear from any Washington County researchers that are on Facebook! FamilySearch has a new NC Genealogy Research page and if you’re on FB, please consider “liking” the page.  You can find it at http://goo.gl/OAIYU.

You can stay connected to the page and help answer any questions that arise from other researchers, share pictures of interest, or just share links to resources you find helpful.   The Facebook page is not limited to just Washington County, but covers the whole state, so who knows what you’ll discover.  An icon-linked picture to the Facebook page, as well as a link to my personal Twitter profile is now included on the right sidebar of the site if you want to connect via Twitter.

Enjoy and participate!

Category: Announcements

Plymouth to get an African-American History Museum

taneya | May 22, 2011 | COMMENTS:No Comments »

Thanks to a Washington County genealogy researcher, I’ve learned that Plymouth will be getting an African-American history museum – great news!

 

Picot-Armistead-Pettiford House - photo by Jeanne Olecki

 

 

An article from April in the Washington Daily Times provides further details.  Essentially, an Alabama family who owned the Picot-Armistead-Pettiford House, has donated it for use as a museum.  The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Willie Drye, chairman of the Plymouth Small Town Main Street Committee, notes on his blog that the family decided to donate it after a private meeting in Plymouth.  Attending that meeting was their family friend Peter McNair. I suspect this is my distant cousin Peter McNair so need to call him to find out! :-)

Category: African-American

2011 Reynolds Family Reunion

taneya | April 2, 2011 | COMMENTS:No Comments »

44th REYNOLDS FAMILY REUNION
10:00 AM on Sunday May 15th, 2011
Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church
in Tyrrell County NC

This is a reunion of the descendants of William Reynolds Jr. and his sister Matilda Jane Reynolds Spencer, both originally from Chelsea, England.  William Reynolds Jr. lived in Tyrrell County and became a Primitive Baptist Preacher, while Matilda Jane Reynolds Spencer lived near Roper in Washington County and ran a local store.

Also, everyone is encouraged to bring any items of family interest that they have (such as old pictures, family bibles, diaries or handiwork) to the reunion for “show and tell”.

THIS YEAR’S PROGRAM:

Mark Bateman, our President, will lead the program of “Reynolds Family – Coming to America”.  Hear the story of how our Reynolds ancestors first came over to America, how many came, where they landed, lost family lines, and more!

AGENDA:

10:00 – 10:30 AM Registration and Fellowship
10:30 – 12:00   Business Meeting and Program
• Welcome and Invocation
• Announcements
• Kids Corner
• Minutes and Treasurer Report
• Memorial Service

• Program:  Reynolds Family – Coming to America

• Old Business / New Business
• Family Lines Count

• Recognitions and Show & Tell
• Closing
12:00 – ???      Picnic Lunch
1:30 PM           Bethlehem PBC Preservation Society Annual Meeting

2:30 PM           Tyrrell County Genealogical & Historical Society Meeting

 

The picnic is pot luck luncheon – the reunion provides barbecue and plates / utensils / cups / ice.  Everyone should bring their drinks and a dish to share. Reminder that out-of-town family members are not obligated to bring a lunch – you are invited to be guests of the local members.

DIRECTIONS TO BETHLEHEM PB CHURCH: Take US Highway 64 to Columbia NC.  At traffic light head south onto NC Route 94 for about 2 miles, and take right onto Newlands Rd.  The church is 1/8 mile west, park in the yard.

ANNUAL PREACHING SERVICE AT BETHLEHEM PBC:
The annual Primitive Baptist preaching service will be held at Bethlehem PBC on the 2nd Sunday, June 12th, 2011 at 10:30 a.m., led by Elder Johnny Ray Gardner.

QUESTIONS? Contact:

Mark Bateman, President  ……….. (860)464-1715

Jimmy Fleming, Vice President ….. (252)796-2361

Gail Reynolds, Treasurer …………. (252)796-9471

Category: Reunions

Washington County Government Gets Fancy

taneya | March 27, 2011 | COMMENTS:No Comments »

In case you haven’t visited in awhile, the Washington County government website has a redesign.  Perhaps I’m the last one to find out, but I was quite pleased with the new look. The site is well structured and the header area features rotating graphics of scenes from the area – very nice.  Hmm……..although I hope I’m not faced by a bear when I do get to visit one day.   8-O

Washington County Government website

Now, of genealogical interest, I also learned that the Register of Deeds site has an online search for Deed records.  The site allows you to search deeds from 1996-present (UPDATE: the search covers June 1996 to present; older deeds back to 1974 can be viewed if you have the deed book number and page.  Check the Tax Property Records to locate the deed book and page number). You will need to download and register a special image viewer and must also use Internet Explorer.   Though the more recent deeds may not help you with your ancestors – capture them now to help your descendants in their future research.

Below is a screenshot of the searching options for the deeds.  You can search by last name/first name,  select grantor, grantee or both, specify a specific date or choose a date range of 1995 or later.  Currently, they do not have any deeds prior to 1995, but I wonder if they plan to add them since it is listed as an option on the search form.

 

Searching options

And here is an example of how the deed record displays in your browser window.  The navigation controls are easy to use to go back and forth between pages, and you can print the document as well.

 

example deed record

Thank you to the Register of Deeds office for allowing access to these records.  They will be a great help and we look forward to seeing what else may be added.

Category: County Records

Roanoke Beacon Abstracts Update

taneya | March 21, 2011 | COMMENTS:No Comments »

Over the weekend I spent some time indexing issues of the Roanoke Beacon.  I extracted articles from the March – June 1890 issues to the NC People in the Papers database.   As usual, I focused on articles of genealogical interest such as obituaries, marriage notices, births, and mentions of specific family relationships.  With this update I added 168 names from 73 articles.

Obituaries in this group include:

Marriages in this group include:

In addition, there are other news items included.  For example, this grade report from the Creswell Academy of some of Principal Dunston’s students — could you imagine having your grades posted in the newspaper??

Grade reports from the Creswell Academy - May 2, 1890 issue of the Roanoke Beacon

To view the current list of 409 names from Washington County that are in the index so far, click here.

Category: Deaths, Newspaper, Vital Records

1881 Fire

taneya | March 7, 2011 | COMMENTS:No Comments »

A marker near the Washington County Courthouse mentions three fires that burned it – 1860, 1862, and 1881.

photo by Flickr user JimmyWayne

While indexing old issues of the Alamance Gleaner (paper of Alamance County, NC), I found a reference to the 1881 fire.

The loss is described as $127, 000, of which there was little insurance.

Category: Court Records, Events, Newspaper

Deaths from the Roanoke Beacon

taneya | November 14, 2010 | COMMENTS:No Comments »

Newspaper indexing is one of my favorite pasttimes.  For the past several years I’ve been working through older issues of the Roanoke Beacon paper teasing out information about Washington County residents.

My first database is here and while searchable, I’ve never been completely happy with it.  So, earlier in the year I started to redesign how I record information and have created a new database.  Not only does it work for extracts from the Roanoke Beacon, but I can use it for items reported in newspapers from many places.   I’ve named the new site, NC People in the News and am donating the material to the NCGenWeb Project.

This is the first time I’ve shared the link, so please understand that it is not quite finished yet.  However, it’s flexible, and one thing I can do is tease out Washington county deaths I’ve added that appeared in the Roanoke Beacon, organized by Last Name of the individual.   I am in transition of moving content from the old site to this one and it may take awhile.  This is definitely an ongoing project.

screenshot from NC People in the Papers database

To see the list click here.  I hope this makes looking for your ancestors a less complicated task.

Category: Deaths
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