Skip to content

Random Connections

A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Photos
  • Resources
  • Other Voices
  • Post Archives
  • Home
  • Genealogy

Tag: Genealogy

Reanimating the Dead

Posted on March 4, 2021March 4, 2021 By Tom No Comments on Reanimating the Dead
General Technology, History and Genealogy, Photography

This past year MyHeritage released two new products that add an interesting, albeit creepy new dimension to old photos. The first of these was a colorizer for old photos. The second looks like something right out of Harry Potter. The colorizer app was released about a year ago and does a pretty good job of … Read More “Reanimating the Dead” »

The Unknown Tongue

Posted on April 1, 2012 By Tom 1 Comment on The Unknown Tongue
Family, History and Genealogy, Religion

Speaking in Tongs

A weird chain of events led to an interesting investigation into history tangentially related to my family. This morning I participated in a webinar on the South Carolina Digital Newspaper Program, sponsored, in part, by the University of South Carolina Libraries. One of the presenters mentioned the possibility of doing genealogy research using the archive. I decided to try a few search terms associated with my family history to see what I found. I actually didn’t find much about my family, but I did find another tale, full of conflict, misunderstandings, racism, and corruption.

The newspaper archives are hosted on the Library of Congress website as part of their Chronicling America series. The newspapers cover all states from 1836 – 1922. Any family search would have to be within those target dates.

I decided to start with my grandfather, Rev. O. E. Taylor, since he would fit within the tail end of that time frame. I restricted my search to issues of the Laurens Advertiser. Unfortunately, his name didn’t return any hits, even when I expanded it to all newspapers in the state. It did return a Rev. E. O. Taylor, who was an episcopal bishop in the state at the same time.

I changed tactics and started searching for churches where I knew my grandfather had preached, and there I hit pay dirt. The first term I tried was “Long Branch.” I grew up in Long Branch Pentecostal Church, which was founded by my grandfather and which my father later pastored. My grandmother taught at Long Branch School, and I have lots of other relatives in the area. The term returned several hits in The Laurens Advertiser, almost all of them relating to an issue of religion being taught at the public Long Branch School.

Read More “The Unknown Tongue” »

McCormick County Photo Trek

Posted on January 17, 2012 By Tom 14 Comments on McCormick County Photo Trek
Family, History and Genealogy, Photography

Mount Carmel Presbyterian Lomo

Houston and I had a day off in common, so it was time for one of our mid-winter photo treks. I really like exploring the area south of Abbeville, McCormick, and Edgefield. That part of the state is rather remote and rich in history, including our family history. Even though we’ve been down that way several times, I never seem to cover all of it, so it was ripe as another target.

Our exploration group was larger than usual. In addition to the two of us, Houston’s wife, Lynda, was coming along, as was our sister Glynda. The plan was to meet Houston and Lynda Sunday morning in the parking lot of Calhoun Falls Pentecostal Holiness Church. From there we would head south and see what we would find. Our route would take us past paddling venues, ghost towns, fire towers, and several important genealogy spots. It had the makings of a perfect day.

Read More “McCormick County Photo Trek” »

Family Haunts

Posted on April 1, 2009 By Tom 6 Comments on Family Haunts
History and Genealogy, Photography

Road to the Home Place

I have always enjoyed looking at the photos of Scott West (South Carolina’s Northern Kingdom). Scott and I seem to cover some of the same territory in Laurens County, and I’ve always admired his gutsy trespassing to get great shots of the interiors of old abandoned houses and interesting places.

Recently, Scott posted a couple of pictures of the old Poole Homestead in the Long Branch Community of Laurens County. I immediately recognized the place as being in one of the old photos my Dad has. After a couple of message exchanges it turns out that we do have some distant family connections (don’t ALL Southerners?) and that some of his family had attended Long Branch Pentecostal Holiness, where my father had pastored years ago.

That brings us to this Tuesday. My mother had taken a trip to visit her sisters in North Carolina, so my Dad was on his own for the week. Since I was on spring break, I decided to head down and hang out with him, and see if I could find this photo of the Poole Homestead. I did find it, and we decided to take a tour of some of the old family haunts throughout Newberry and Laurens Counties.

Read More “Family Haunts” »

A Question of Ancestry

Posted on November 27, 2008 By Tom No Comments on A Question of Ancestry
History and Genealogy, Internet

Over the weekend I signed up for a free two-week trial of Ancestry.com. I guess I fell prey to their recent marketing campaign, which shows users discovering new things about their families as “leaves” appear on their family tree. I had already amassed quite a bit of data on our family, so I was curious to see if I could add to my list.

It has been several years since I’ve done any serious research on our family’s history. Even then I’ve been more of a collector than actual researcher, depending upon the prior research of several cousins and some nice folks that I’ve met online, such as Dan Ellenburg in Pittsburg, with his excellent website on the Ellenberg family. By using several sources I’ve found some conflicting data, and have had to do some verification before merging various data sets. I figured that would also be the case with Ancestry.com, and I was certainly right.

Read More “A Question of Ancestry” »

Great-Great Grandparent Encounters

Posted on August 25, 2008 By Tom 13 Comments on Great-Great Grandparent Encounters
History and Genealogy, Local

I spent Sunday afternoon visiting my folks in Gray Court. My parents had just visited my Aunt Ann, who turned 90 this month. Therefore, much of the discussion involved family history, and we even took an excursion to a cemetery in Laurens County to look up some family history. First is the picture above. My … Read More “Great-Great Grandparent Encounters” »

Categories

  • EdTech (200)
  • Entertainment (201)
  • Family (120)
  • Gear (115)
  • General Technology (99)
  • Geocaching and Maps (208)
  • History and Genealogy (260)
  • Internet (144)
  • Local (449)
  • Miscellaneous (544)
  • Music (194)
  • Paddling (245)
  • Photography (779)
  • Podcast (6)
  • Rambling (226)
  • Rants (160)
  • Recipes (34)
  • Religion (48)
  • Restaurants (165)
  • Science (48)
  • Things Overheard (29)
  • Travel (410)
  • Uncategorized (129)
  • Washington Sabbatical (113)
  • Weirdness (60)

Recent Posts

  • Wilkinsville and a Mystery Church
  • A Farewell to the Greenville Chorale
  • Edisto River from Good Hope to Sullivan’s Landing
  • Paddling Lake Monticello
  • The Remnants of the City

Recent Comments

  • Darrell Erskine on Mysterious Mayucha and The Wolf Pit
  • Hutch on Exploring Southern Fairfield County – Part 1, Old Lebanon Church
  • Nancy on About Us
  • Steve Rushton on Mysterious Mayucha and The Wolf Pit
  • Tom on Finding Irish Music in South Carolina

Tags

blogging cemetery Christmas Columbia Edisto River edtech Entertainment family Flickr Florida Furman Furman University gear Georgia geotagging Ghost Town Ghost Towns Google Earth Google Maps GPS Greenville Greenville Chorale history Instructional Technology kayaking Lake Jocassee LCU Lowcountry Unfiltered maps Music North Carolina Paddling Photography rambling restaurant Restaurants review singing social networking South Carolina time-lapse Travel video Washington Washington State
July 2022
S M T W T F S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  
« May    

Copyright © 2022 Random Connections.

Theme: Oceanly by ScriptsTown