#barnwell county

[unteriors]

Jenice Street, Blackville, South Carolina.

[throughthetreesblog]

Pre-1870 African American Genealogy Is Real

In recent days, genealogists, online and offline, have begun dissecting and dismantling the myth of The 1870 Brick Wall in African American genealogy. Despite claims to the contrary, tracing African American ancestors and their lives prior to 1870 is not only possible, but a frequent occurrence among practitioners of African American genealogy. Pre-1870 records of African American forebears do, in fact, exist, even if too few Americans (genealogists among them) know how to access or use them. I am sharing a five-year-old Facebook post of mine, adapted for this site, as a demonstration of what one can uncover when researching African American ancestors in America’s antebellum era. Stay tuned for additional discussion.

Sometimes light falls from the darkest places. Less than 24 hours ago came the culmination of years of research. Attendees of my genetic genealogy seminars have heard how I assembled oral history, marriage records, death certificates, the US Census, and three different types of genetic evidence to extend my mitochondrial DNA line an additional two generations, back to my maternal 4th-great-grandmother, Silvia Willis (wife of Alex Brown Sr.) of Barnwell County South Carolina. Last night, after reviewing countless pages of FamilySearch's digitized antebellum probate records for Willises in Barnwell County, South Carolina, I found my 4th-great-grandmother, Silvia Willis and three of her children (including my 3rd-great-grandmother, Charity Brown) listed as slaves in the estate inventory of Williamson Watson Willis Sr. (1808-1853) of Barnwell County, South Carolina. That is just the beginning.

Identifying the slaveholder unlocked an unmarked door to the world that my ancestors inhabited: a life of servitude to various branches of a sprawling, but tightly-knit family of South Carolina planters. I traced how a 5-year-old Silvia, apparently orphaned by 1835, appeared in the estate inventory of her first documented slaveholders, Moore Johnson and the former Charity Couch (parents of Williamson Watson Willis Sr.'s wife, Charity Johnson), before being sold that year along with a number of other enslaved persons to Williamson's brother, Elijah Willis. By 1853, Elijah transferred ownership of Silvia and the others purchased from the Johnsons to Williamson Watson Willis Sr. Ironically, Elijah seems to have sold Silvia and the others to help emancipate and relocate his enslaved common-law wife, Amy, and their children, a process that begat controversy and court contests. Silvia and her progeny became the property of Williamson’s two surviving sons once Williamson died intestate in 1853.

The documents reflect how family separation remained a constant facet of life among the enslaved, especially when their slaveholders died. Silvia's husband and the father of her three children, Alex Brown Sr., does not appear in any of the same estate inventories, confirming that he had a different slaveholder and likely resided on another plantation, preventing the enslaved Willis-Browns from cohabitating as a nuclear family unit. Unlike Silvia's more fortunate counterparts on the plantations she worked, neither of Silvia’s parents appear with her in any of the three different estate files; one wonders if Silvia ever knew either of them.

These estate records illuminate a still unfolding story about people who otherwise have gone unnoticed. Some question the value and efficacy of genealogy generally and slave ancestry research specifically. While the research requires great effort, that effort yields great rewards, enriching, deepening, and personalizing our understanding of global history's complexities and nuances. Reconstructing the lives of the long departed can impart much-needed wisdom, teaching invaluable life lessons that transcend and bridge disparate times and places. May this unique study of the past power a dissolution of artificial divides and restore respect for universal humanity.

[unteriors]

Galilee Road, Barnwell, South Carolina.

[unteriors]

Jenice Street, Blackville, South Carolina.

[unteriors]

Galilee Road, Barnwell, South Carolina.

[aikenareaprog]

Republicans looking to supress voters in Barnwell County

BARNWELL -- I just received an action alert I must share to people in my home county of Barnwell. This comes from CREDO:

We need your help to prevent a stolen election.

Could it happen in your state? In Barnwell County?

Election Day is just five days away and we're already seeing voter suppression emergencies around the nation: President Bush asked the Attorney General to investigate new registrants in Ohio. Former felons in New Mexico were told by a pollworker that they weren't allowed to vote — even though they had served their time and legally re-registered. The list goes on, and here at CREDO, it makes us nervous. It makes us want to fight back.

There's an easy way for you to join the fight: If you are ready and willing to take action, sign up for CREDO Mobile's election protection text network. We'll send a text message to your mobile phone if there is an election protection emergency in Barnwell County.

Sign up for election protection text message alerts now.

We know you're getting a lot of traffic in your e-mail and on your phone in the lead-up to Election Day. Let me be clear about this program — this is not background noise. This is an easy way for you to make a big difference on Election Day if you are needed in your community. Here's how the program works:

Here at CREDO headquarters, we hear about an election protection emergency in Barnwell County — say college students are being forced to wait in line for hours to vote, or pollworkers are requiring voters to present photo ID even though your state's laws allow non-photo ID, like utility bills.

We're concerned about these reports, but we want to make sure they're true. So we vet and verify them through the media and our sources on the ground.

We send you a text message — a quick summary of the problem and an easy way that you can take action and make a difference. "Students waiting for hours at City Hall — bring pizza!" Or maybe, "Pollworkers illegally requiring photo ID — call Board of Elections!"

We'll give you all the information you need to ensure your time is well used — for example, if we ask you to call your Board of Elections, we'll text you the number to call. If you need to hurry to a hotspot to protest voter intimidation, we'll text you the address. Chances are that we may not text you at all, but if we do, it will be because you have a real opportunity to protect voters in your county and in your state.

If you prefer not to receive messages on your phone or don't have text messaging capability, that's okay — watch your e-mail box on Election Day. If there's an emergency in your area that warrants a text alert, we will likely also send out an e-mail to those who aren't in our Election Protection text network.

So click here to sign-up today. You may end up saving someone's right to vote.

Thank you for working to protect our democracy.

Kate Stayman-London, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets

So, to all of you in my home county of Barnwell -- especially in the towns of Blackville, Elko and Kline -- take note. There are desperate Republicans out there trying to deny you the right to vote. They have already suppressed 50,000 voters in Georgia. They have suppressed 13,000,000 voters in battleground states like Colorado. The Macomb County, Mich. GOP was caught red-handed trying to use foreclosure notices to suppress voters. And just recently, the US Supreme Court rightfully ordered 200,000 Ohioans back on the voter rolls. As I mentioned before and I'll say it again, PLEASE take video evidence of any funny stuff going on when you try to vote.

[aikenareaprog]

Williston-Elko bond vote deserves yes vote

WILLISTON -- If you live in Williston, Elko, or Windsor then pay attention. There is a new school bond that will be on your ballots on November 4. I am urging voters to vote yes on this new school bond. This was a long overdue reward for the three schools -- Kelly Edwards Elementary, Williston-Elko Middle and Williston-Elko High -- for their good academics. Also, keep in mind that only one of the ten high schools in the immediate Aiken area achieved AYP -- that was Fox Creek. Not even the great academic schools of Wagener-Salley and South Aiken met AYP. And that is why I feel that this vote shouldn't be weighted solely on such a ridiculously flawed criteria. Opponents of the bond measure would say that this is about results. When W-E made the results, these people who now oppose this bond didn't crack a peep. That is not the opposition's only complaint about this. They have also brought up wasteful spending. Most of the wasteful spending has been happening in Washington, not Williston. Unlike Washington and Juneau, we don't fund Bridges to Nowhere in Williston, Elko or Windsor. I don't think anyone in these three towns take $773,000,000 in earmarks like cheerleader-turned-Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS). Again, people in Williston, Elko and Windsor should vote yes on the Williston-Elko school bond on November 4.

[aikenareaprog]

Allendale County's unemployment hovers around 17 percent

ALLENDALE -- South Carolina has finally managed to lower its unemployment numbers. Problem is, people have just given up on seeking jobs. Allendale County still has the highest unemployment rate in the state, at 16.9%. That's more than one in every six county residents that are unemployed. Bamberg County ranks 3d highest in unemployment, at 13.6%. Barnwell County, my current county of residence, comes in fifth after their unemployment numbers went up from 12.4% to 12.7%. That means that more than one in every eight Barnwell County residents are now unemployed. Exactly one in every eight Orangeburg County residents are unemployed. That puts them right behind their southern neighbors in sixth place on the state's unemployment rate. Each of these four counties' unemployment rates are more than double the national average. Allendale County's numbers are more than thrice the national average. Thankfully, the numbers are better in the area's other three counties. Hampton County ranks 19th, with an unemployment rate of 9.6%. Edgefield County has an unemployment rate of 7.4%, putting them 31st on the list. And Aiken County has the lowest unemployment rate in the area, at 6.3%. At 40th place, Aiken County has one of the ten lowest unemployment rates in the state. ---------------- Now playing: Hotel Hobbies/Warm Wet Circles/That Time of the Night - Marillion via FoxyTunes