A Wild Ride With the Scotts Through Atlanta City Directories!

The process of writing a blog post often forces me to go back through my research to double-check my research steps, assumptions, and conclusions. If I’m going to be wrong publicly, I’d at least like to be wrong earnestly! Sometimes a new idea will occur to me, and I’ll test it out, or I’ll try an unlikely path, just to be sure.  Often this all lands me right back where I was, but, sometimes, fascinating things pop up. And that’s what happened when I was preparing to write my post on the probable death of my 4x great-grandfather, Solomon Scott.

Five Facts About Lena Mae Hillsman and Delta Sigma Theta

Many moons ago, in my last post, I wrote about the fact that my 2x great-grandmother’s grandniece, Lena Mae Hillsman, was one of the founders of Portland, Oregon’s Omega Psi chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, Inc. I promised to follow it up with some details on what she actually did as a member of the sorority and what it meant for her to be a member. Well, here goes, with five facts!

 

A Black Greek Connection: Lena Hillsman and Delta Sigma Theta

With the election of Kamala Harris as the next Vice President of the United States, both HBCUs (she went to Howard) and black sororities (she is an AKA) have been in the news lately. I’ve been exploring my Cooper/Cummings family’s historical relationships to HBCUs for a little while now, but we also have a historical connection to at least one black sorority: Delta Sigma Theta. In fact, one of our family members helped to found a new chapter!

Lena Mae Hillsman, shared courtesy of Delta Sigma Theta, Beta Psi Chapter

 

Masonia (Scott) Worthen: A Timeline

Masonia Scott is my 2x Great Grandaunt, the younger sister of my maternal 2x Great-Grandmother, Scoatney Scott. Put otherwise, she is the sister of my mother's mother's father's mother.

Abt 1863: Masonia Scott is born to Solomon and Cherry Scott, most likely in Hancock County,

Georgia. The Civil War is raging and Sherman's March to the Sea is still about a year away. Masonia's family is probably enslaved.

Mystery Monday: What Ever Happened to Great-Grandma Cherry?

I don’t know what happened to my 3x great-grandmother. In 1870, I know where she is and I know who she’s with, but by 1880 - *poof* - she disappears.

Let’s drill down a bit. First off, who am I talking about? Cherry Scott, maiden name unknown, if she even had one. She was the mother of my 2x great-grandmother, Scoatney Scott Cooper, and since I’ve decided to spend this year focusing on Scoatney and her siblings, it seems only right that I begin by posting about her mother. If only there was more to post.

Genealogy Goals: 2019

It's 2019, y'all! And somehow, it's already the middle of January, that month of goal-setting and fresh starts and hopeful ideals. As I wrote in my last post, I learned last year that the mental load of my job means I don't always have a lot of mental energy (or sometimes, time) to work on my genealogical research. I tried to set goals for how many posts I'd write each month, but that definitely fell by the wayside. And you know what? That's okay. I still did research, I still wrote about (some of) it, and the project at large continues!

This year I'm setting no such goals for posts per month. In fact, I'm not setting any kind of SMART goals for my research and writing. Instead, I'm simply setting a research focus:

This year, I want to learn as much as I can about the siblings of my 2x Great-Grandmother Scoatney Scott Cooper.

Upcoming Speaking Engagements: Fall 2018

It's been pretty quiet over here, but don't worry - things are absolutely happening behind the scenes in KINterested Land!

For one thing, I had the great fun of attending my biennial Cooper-Cummings Family Reunion last month, celebrating and reconnecting with my mom's maternal family. Expect a post on that soon.

I've also been continuing to research the Worthen family - the sister and children of my maternal 2x Great-Grandmother, Scoatney Scott. Specifically, I've been trying to learn more about Masonia Scott Worthen's sons, Thomas, Henry, and Grant, and their time first as loggers near Shelton, Washington and then as servicemen in World War I. To that end, I've got a new book on my shelf:

The Case of the Second Masonia, Part 2: Finding the Smoking Guns

In Part 1 of this post, I introduced a "new" name to my family tree: Masonia Scott. But, of course that name is not that new - it's the same name as my 2x Great-Grandaunt. And just for kicks, they were both born in Georgia and both moved to Portland, Oregon, but were not mother and daughter. So, what was their relationship? Were they aunt and niece, as I suspected, or was there some other relationship here?

Google got me one very significant step closer to an answer. See, I believe that contextual information is *key* to understanding the names, dates, locations and events of our ancestors' lives. So parallel to my research into both Masonia Scotts, I was also trying to learn more about Portland's black community in general. What was life like when "my" Masonia moved to Portland around 1920? What did she and her children encounter? What institutions were there to support them, and what opportunities were available to them?

The Case of the Second Masonia, Part 1

A funny thing happened while researching my 2x Great-Grandaunt* Masonia (Scott) Worthen in Portland, Oregon: I came across a second Masonia Scott.

Who was this woman, and with that name, what was her relationship to "my" Masonia Scott?

My Masonia Scott had been born in Georgia about 1863 to Solomon and Cherry Scott; had married, had children with and then somehow separated from Henry Worthen; and then moved across the country, first to Washington State and then to Portland, Oregon.

I first came across this new Masonia Scott in the 1920 Census, when she was living with her sister Ruth, her parents James and Sarah Scott, and James Hunter, probably her mother's brother.

Work and War on the Road to Portland

I began and ended one of my recent posts with the question: How did Masonia Scott Worthen, sister of my 2x Great-Grandmother Scoatney Scott Cooper, end up moving all the way from Georgia to Portland, Oregon in the early 1900s?

The Many Names of Masonia (Scott) Worthen

Sometimes your ancestors are hard to find. Sometimes that's because they have the most awesome names, and no one writes them correctly. And for them, well, sometimes it's just fun to keep track of all the ways you find them along your research path.

So, without further ado and in no particular order, my top 10 favorite misspellings of Masonia Scott Worthen (ca.1863 - 1951)...so far!

Finding Scoatney's Family: An Unexpected Migration

Masonia (Scott) Worthen Funeral Notice. The Oregonian (Portland, OR) 27 June 1951, P27.

On June 28, 1951, my maternal 2x great-grandmother's sister, Masonia Scott Worthen, was laid to rest in Portland, Oregon. Born in Georgia about 1863, she somehow came to live in Portland between 1910 and 1920, widowed and with 3 sons, a widowed daughter and a granddaughter - all born in Georgia - living with her. How did they come to make this move all the way across the continent - and frankly, across climates - and what was life like for them as they tried to make new lives on the West Coast?