Today is Day 14 of the Family History Writing Challenge posed by The Armchair Genealogist. The month is half over and my progress in writing the life story of my Grama Nellie (below) has been fair. While I am not writing everyday, I am trying to make up for that on other days. . I am, of course, finding that the more I write, … Continue reading Still Writing about Nellie
The Armchair Genealogist has issued the challenge – and I have answered it, I think. This challenge encourages genealogists and family historians to stop procrastinating and start writing. My subject will be my great-great grandfather, William James Scott. He has been pretty elusive. While I knew his daughter, my great-grandmother, Nellie Louisa Scott Toney, I don’t recall her ever talking about her father. Grama Nellie … Continue reading The 28-day Family History Writing Challenge
Until 1869, Massachusetts Indians were wards of the state, not subject to taxation and disenfranchised. The Enfranchisement Act of 1869 changed that – not only did the law make citizens of the Commonwealth’s Native population, it also opened up communal lands held by Natives for sale to non-Indians. Committees were formed to investigate Indian lands that might be subject to sale. One such investigation on … Continue reading Looking for Your Native American Ancestry in Massachusetts? Aquinnah (Gayhead) Wampanoag
This graveyard contains the remains of the “Praying Indians” of the Hassanamesit Praying Plantation established by English missionary John Eliot in 1664. In an attempt to civilize the Native population, plantations or towns were created in Nipmuc territory where Nipmucs could live in frame houses, attend church, and otherwise emulate the English surrounding them. In the mid-1800s, the road pictured above was created bisecting the … Continue reading Tombstone Tuesday – Indian Burying Ground, Grafton, MA
My favorite ancestors these days seem to be the Storms. Originally from Panton and Vergennes, Vermont, several members of the family moved to Worcester and Boston, Massachusetts in the 1870s. Once in Worcester, the Storms and other transplanted Vermonters of color formed the Vermont Club at John St Baptist Church, one of the few Black churches in Worcester. Hattie Storms, my great-great grandmother, was born … Continue reading The Storms of Vermont, part 1
This post is in response to the Carnival of African-American Genealogy, 4th edition. I have always lived in the Northeast of the United States, except for the 10 years that I lived in the Washington, DC area after college. I never thought much about freedom growing up. I lived in a small city where minorities had always been present and few. In fact, most of … Continue reading What Freedom Means to Me
This is a new blog so that I can document my own ancestries (Native American and African-American sprinkled with a bit of European) and other African and Native American families from here in New England. Family names I hope to document here include: Toney, Scott, Hazzard, Hazard, Pegan, Quow, Harry, Storms, and Bostic. Hopefully I will update on a regular basis with new and exciting … Continue reading Guess I Need an Intro
Cheryll Toney Holley 