Blogs

I recently posted this to a Facebook group called "The Land Called Scotland"

The Grass is Always Greener?

Genealogy is about finding records that document family relations. Until recent years that documentation was either verbal, passed down through the generations of a family, or written, whether in official records, or family bibles, or personal letters that survived the years.

Genealogical research sometimes involves making educated guesses and seeing where those guesses lead you.

The two brothers who “went to Texas” are a case in point. In my last blog I made it clear how little we know about those two brothers. Here is what we know:

In my last blog I write about my Aunt Linda having some notes written by my grandmother about my grandfather's family. In those notes, while talking about his father's family (my great-grandfather George Lafayette Hill), I read "two brothers went to Texas and were never heard from again."

No names, nothing about when they went, just "two brothers."

Here is what evidence I have for siblings of my great-grandfather.

My great-grandfather, George Lafayette Hill 1843-1922

Growing up, everyone in my family knew our family history on our mother's side. We all had copies of the family tree showing the ancestry of her father. Many lines went back to our American immigrant ancestors, and a few went beyond that, including one line back to John Knox and his second wife Lady Margaret Stewart. Through her we are descended from Scottish and early English royalty, even Norman (as in William the Conqueror).

My earliest know Hill ancestor is my 2nd great-grandfather James Hill. Information passed down from my grandfather (Luther Jean "Luke" Hill) says that James came from North Carolina to Franklin County, Georgia, taught school for two or three years, then married Zillah Poole and began farming and raising a family.