
This is a story about a bit of genealogical housekeeping, and how tidying up your notes and filling in gaps as you do that can lead to unexpected genealogical discoveries, as one new piece of information attaches to another new piece of information, providing you a richer snapshot of a family than you had before you did your housekeeping. It’s a story that begins with the simple task of my obtaining a copy of a deed — of the original deed — and reading it, which then led to an investigation of the history of a tract of land, which, in turn, provided illuminating information about an eastern North Carolina kinship network living on the banks of the Tennessee River in Hardin County, Tennessee, from the 1820s forward. Continue reading ““In Consideration of the Love and Good Will I Have and Do Bear Towards My Sister Telitha Monk”: Daniel Cherry, Strachan and Talitha Cherry Monk, and What Land Records Can Teach Us (1)”