A few years ago, my brother Patrick, while on a business trip to Atlanta, paid a visit to our great-grandfather’s hometown of Marietta, Georgia, and there he bought me a book titled “A Short History of Cobb County in Georgia” by Sarah Temple. Several chapters of the book are devoted to the details of what occurred in Cobb County in the spring and early summer … Continue reading Marietta July 1864
I have written about my great-grandfather’s family and their experiences at the tail end of the Civil War in a number of blog posts on this site. In the construction of the book, Gathering More Leaves, those blog posts became the foundation of a chapter that detailed the events experienced by my great-great grandparents in the final year of that horrible war. While reviewing the … Continue reading A Problem Timeline
Here is another question for ChatGPT Also in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind there is a scene where Rhett Butler refers to the Georgia State Guards as Joe Brown’s Pets. What was that all about? The reason why I asked this question is because my great great grandfather David Judson Dobbs was in the Georgia State Guards during the time depicted in the novel … Continue reading Joe Brown’s Pets
I sometimes use ChatGPT as a tool to aid my understanding of various topics encountered during my family history research. Below is an illustration of this practice. One item that I came across a few weeks ago intrigued me to the point where I could not get it out of my mind. It is an notice that I came across published on more than one … Continue reading The historical kernel behind the “$300 tax on Tara”
For years, I’ve been trying to unravel the mystery surrounding my mother’s great-grandfather’s civil rights status at the close of the Civil War. I believed I had finally solved it: Was he among the thousands denied property and civil rights due to specific criteria? These categories included former Confederate civil and military officers above a certain rank, individuals who had abandoned U.S. government or military … Continue reading Reconstruction Recall
Over 40 years of researching my family history, the top five most significant surprises has been learning… Continue reading Top Five Surprises
Aside from being a national holiday, the Fourth of July is extra special for my family. It’s the shared birthday of my maternal grandfather, James Monroe Dobbs, Jr., and his father, James Monroe, Sr. Here is an excerpt from Gathering More Leaves, Part I: Chapter One It came like a long-forgotten letter finally delivered. In the spring of 2022, when the U.S. government released the … Continue reading My Maternal Grandfather
While browsing the internet, I have on two occasions come across portrait paintings that are presented as depictions of my ancestors. On one occasion, I discovered an image on Ancestry.com that another researcher was using as a profile portrait for our shared ancestor, Evan Prothro. My initial inclination was to simply copy this image and use it as the profile picture for my mother’s 2X … Continue reading Solving Mysteries with Google Lens
Here is a video series I created discussing using my brother’s DNA to help us find more ancestors, aiming to uncover the rich tapestry of our family history. Throughout the episodes, I delve into the process of analyzing genetic information and how it can shed light on connections that were previously hidden to us. Additionally, I excitedly share the remarkable story of how I discovered … Continue reading Finding Eldad Parts 1 & 2
I’ve discovered two more ancestors who answered the alarm two hundred and fifty years ago on April 19, 1775. This makes four patriots on my father’s side of the family who took to the field during the Battles of Lexington and Concord. I will provide more details on how I found them later, but as a matter of introduction, I present them here: Samuel Stearns … Continue reading More Patriots Discovered
Gathering Leaves 