Working Wednesday: James and Daniel Scott at the Farlinger Apartments and Café

From 1903 to 1906, my 2x great-granduncle Daniel Scott (younger brother of my 3x great-grandmother Scoatney (Scott) Cooper), appears in Atlanta city directories as a waiter at a place called The Farlinger, or the Farlinger Café. Just a few years later, Daniel’s brother James Solomon Scott also turns up at the Farlinger, appearing as a janitor in city directories for 1909, 1912, 1913, and 1915. The 1910 U.S. Census shows him living at the Farlinger and working as a building janitor. So, what is this place and what can we find out about it?

 

Hitting the Genealogical Jackpot: Jilson Littlejohn and the Federal Writers' Project

Writing my last post on DNA testing results made me realize that I hadn’t shared one of my most exciting finds on this blog! So here I am, fixing that.

I found a WPA Federal Writers’ Project interview with one of my ancestors' brothers!!!!!

Whew, okay. Honestly, I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I was to find what I am about to describe to you. It’s like hitting the jackpot, winning the lottery, finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But let me back up a step.

DNA Testing Update: December 2022

Fam, it’s been 8 months since I sent away my DNA samples and 7 months since I received the results, yet somehow I haven’t posted anything about it! Don’t worry, they weren’t earth shattering - I’ve just been busy. In fact, in many cases, my Ancestry.com test results did just what I hoped they’d do: confirmed connections that I already had in my family tree. And it’s been really cool to see both the family history and my own research corroborated in that way! 

Working Wednesday: Two Scott Brothers at the Arlington Hotel

Advertisement for the Arlington Hotel, found in the Atlanta City Directory for 1896, p.9. Archive.org.

 

One of the things I find enthralling about family history research is trying to picture what my ancestors everyday lives looked like, going beyond the dates and pedigree charts to try to see the world they walked through. So when I discovered that two of my maternal great-great-grandmother Scoatney Scott’s  brothers, James Solomon Scott and Daniel Scott, worked at the Arlington Hotel in Atlanta in the mid-1890s, you know what I had to do! Down the rabbit hole I went, and here’s what I’ve found so far.

Solomon Scott: A Timeline

Solomon Scott is one of my 3x Great-Grandfathers. He is the father of Scoatney (Scott) Cooper, partner of Cherry (surname unknown) and then of Nellie Little. Put differently, he is the father of my mother’s mother’s father’s mom. And like others in this generation, he saw a seismic shift in American life: the Civil War and the transition from enslavement to freedom that it brought.

Solomon Scott → Scoatney Scott  →  Noah Cooper  →  Elnora Cooper  →  Mom  →  Me

Solomon Scott's "mark" in the 1867 Return of Qualified Voters and Reconstruction Oath Book for Hancock County, GA. (Ancestry.com)

 

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.

I'm DNA Testing!

Way back when - in 2016 - one of my maternal uncles took a DNA test. I wrote, "The Genetic Genealogy Hunt Has Started!" Lol. I posted some notes from his results, and then...nothing. I was in no hurry to do my own testing.

But, six years later, I have finally taken my first two tests!