Catonsville family traces roots to Virginia settlers in 1600s
A century ago, the Page family settled in Catonsville, founded a church and operated the neighborhood grocery out of the front rooms of a home on Winters Lane. Still, the family’s 99-year-old matriarch, Eva Page Brooks — whose living room was once that family store — could not trace its history back more than a few generations. But thanks to the Internet and a DNA sample, the Catonsville clan has become the first black family — and the first Baltimoreans — to verify their descent from two 17th- and 18th-century settlers of Virginia and become members of a group dedicated to their legacy, the Page-Nelson Society. …Read More…
Drought reveals slave cemetery in North Texas
Archaeologists have found two graves from the 19th century, and are looking for more along a shoreline receding from the lingering drought at Richland-Chambers Reservoir. The Navarro County Sheriff’s Office has one set of remains locked away in its evidence room, including a skull, jaw bone, several vertebrae and a few other fragments. They may date back to Civil War times. … Read More …
John Brown: His family and his legacy
There’s a section of grass surrounded by an asphalt parking lot behind Oak Grove Baptist Church on Beulah Road. Deep beneath the sod lay John H. Brown and a number of his descendants. A man of color, Mr. Brown became a free man in 1863. While legally and physically able to leave the plantation of G.F. Goode, Brown stayed on working the farm and growing tobacco, evidently fond of the man who was once his master. … Read More …
First African landing to be celebrated
The first landing of Africans in the New World that took place in Hampton has been a little known event until recently. All that’s about to change on Aug. 20 when African Landing Commemoration Day will be formally celebrated on its anniversary. The city of Hampton has partnered with Project 1619 Inc. and Fort Monroe to commemorate the first landing of about 20 Africans in the New World on British occupied territory, according to Calvin Pearson, president of 1619 Inc. … Read More …
A family reunites
Mack Parker Lyles Jr. will welcome about 170 of his relatives to his Twin Bulls acreage near Knoxville Saturday to swim, fish, ride horses, play games, do face painting and a put on a talent show. They’ll dine on 30 pounds of barbecued ribs, 40 pounds of pork loin, 25 dozen ears of sweet corn, roasted pig, greens, macaroni and cheese, fried fish, pies, cookies and cakes. Mostly the clan will reconnect, and in some cases, connect with family they haven’t seen in years or have never met. “We’ll all have a name tag, that’s for sure,” said Lyles, a retired supervisor at Titan Tire. … Read More …
Escaped slave, Civil War soldier receives proper grave marker in Woodstown cemetery thanks to efforts of his great-granddaughter
As America marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, one local veteran of this war recently received his own marker. Through the efforts of his descendants and particularly his great-granddaughter Susan Richardson-Sanabria, Edward Richardson, a former slave, Union soldier and longtime resident of Woodstown, at last has a proper headstone to mark his final resting place. … Read More …
