One question those of us who claim genealogy as a hobby often hear is, “how far back have you gotten?” When asked (and frequently without being asked) I can tell you about one of my sixth great-grandfathers, John Baptist Lovelace,
An account of the remarkable occurrences in the life and travels of Colonel James Smith
Click to Enlarge John Wayne as Colonel James Smithin “Allegheny Uprising.” Although my ancestors migrated from North Carolina and settled West Tennessee in the early 1830s, they weren’t the first to find the area appealing. Indians like the Chickasaw were
Ridley Wills, Haywood County Fugitive
Click to Enlarge William Ridley Wills1898 – 1957 In the early 1920s, a group of fifteen or so writers, poets and literary scholars who were students and faculty at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, came together and, without meaning to,
Ralph Lauren ad or vintage Methodist campground photo?
Photo / Elma Ross Library Camp Pieus at Windrow’s Camp Ground Click to Enlarge If you, like the good-looking folks in this photo from the Elma Ross Library in Brownsville, Tennessee, were a good Methodist in Middle and West Tennessee
Haywood County’s first entrepreneur, Hiram Bradford
Click to Enlarge Since today is Thanksgiving, a time when families gather together to express gratitude for their blessings, I wanted to share this photo of a family found in the genealogy archives of the Elma Ross Library in Brownsville,
More old photos from Haywood County
Click to Enlarge Charles Steele, Roy Jr. Simpson, Blondell Taylor, Maurice Earl SteeleGene Smith, Mary Grace Kerr Edwwards, Betty Castellaw RossMarian Booth Warren, Maxine Lovelace Stewart, Evelyn Castellaw, Mable Duffy (possibly), Jesse Thomas White and Bobby orBilly Waddell (they were
Did you know the author of the best-selling book of the 19th Century once spent the night in Stanton?
My dad has a new gig as the pastor of the Stanton Baptist Church. This historic church is located in Stanton, Tennessee, a small town in Haywood County. As a fan of old churches, I was anxious to check it
Anderson Grammar School in Brownsville
I was recently back in Tennessee for a week and got to spend some time looking through the archives in the genealogy room of the Elma Ross Library in Brownsville. I’m usually in a hurry when I’m there so it
King William County Courthouse
Click to Enlarge Hanging with a BFTA (Benjamin Franklin Tribute Artist)at Colonial Williamburg My family and I just returned from Williamsburg, Virginia where we enjoyed the traditional “colonial” tourist experiences at Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown along with the rides at
The Haywood County History Museum
I was recently working on a project and needed a little Haywood County, Tennessee history lesson so Sonia Outlaw-Clark helped arrange an afternoon at the Haywood County History Museum with Lynn Shaw, the official county historian. Sonia runs the must-see West