What happened to John Powell? Part 3 - GUEST BLOG!

South Carolina State Archives

Note:  This is a continuation from a previous post.  To start back at part 1, click here.

Long overdue...

You know, when I started this blog a year ago, I had the best of intentions.  First, I planned to write a post every week.  Then, after the first few posts, I realized that the level of research involved wouldn't allow for that.  I needed more time to be able to do the proper amount of research to develop a good story - you know, one that people might actually want to read.  I don't want to bore you folks to death with a bunch of dry, boring lists of names and dates, after all.  So then I thought maybe I could do a post once per month.  But alas - life got in the way, as it often does, and my genealogy research, which I consider to be my "me" time, all too often got shoved to the back burner.

What happened to John Powell? Part 2

Note:  This is a continuation from a previous post.  To start back at part 1, click here.

On Tuesday, February 5, 2019, I had taken the day off work to take my husband for some medical tests.  When the tests were finished, we were at CVS waiting for a prescription to be filled when my Apple Watch buzzed to alert me to a new e-mail.  The first thing I saw on the screen was a name - John Powell.  JOHN POWELL??  I immediately pulled my phone out of my purse to read the full e-mail:

What happened to John Powell? Part 1

In genealogy circles, they are referred to as "Brick Walls" -  genealogical puzzles that refuse to be solved, no matter how much research you do.  I have one that has plagued me for several years now - my 2nd great-grandfather on my Powell line.  He married my 2nd great-grandmother, Hattie Gregory, sometime around 1890, fathered my great-grandfather, James Edward Powell, who was born in 1891, and then seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.

My DNA Story

My Ancestry DNA Ethnicity Estimate.

For Christmas 2017, my parents gave me the gift of an autosomal DNA test kit.  I was THRILLED!  I won't lie, though - it wasn't a huge surprise.  Since my parents aren't quite as well-versed in genealogy and DNA testing as I am (which isn't even very much), my mom had previously contacted me to find out which DNA testing company I would be most interested in testing with.  Being just a little OCD (okay, a lot OCD - stop laughing, mom!), I had jumped right in to researching which kit would work best for the results I was hoping to get from it.

The Mystery that Started It All (part 3)

Note:  This is a continuation from previous posts.  To start back at part 1, click here.

The Old Seaboard Air Line Railway on the corner of Deadwyler Street and North Oliver Street in Elberton, GA.  Directly across North Oliver Street (to the left of the building in this photo) was where the Parham boarding house was once located.

As a preteen or very young teenager, my grandmother was sent by her mother and stepfather to live with her paternal grandmother in Elberton, Georgia.  Grandma Eva’s father, James David Parham, had passed away from a gastric hemorrhage caused by a peptic ulcer in 1937, when my Grandma was only nine years old.  Her mother, my great-grandmother, who I always knew as “Grandma Bobo” (Annie Mae Jones Parham Bobo) had remarried Snow Robert Bobo just shy of a year later on September 19, 1938.

The story that has always been told through the family is that Grandma Eva's older brother (James David Parham, Jr.) joined the military, and that shortly thereafter Grandma Eva was sent to live with her grandmother.  However, I have had some difficulty making that timeline work, as my records show that James joined the Navy in June 1944, which would have been well after Grandma Eva moved to Elberton.  At any rate, at some point between 1940 and 1943, Grandma Eva ended up living with her Grandma Parham in Elberton, Georgia.