Medical leave has given me time to catch up on genealogy. I decided to pass the time by researching my Goodger kinfolk who lived in the counties of Warren, Lincoln, Greene, Hancock, and Taliaferro, Georgia after 1800. While some Goodgers stayed in Georgia, my 4th great grandfather, Stephen Goodger, and his brother, Andrew Martin Goodger, did not, migrating first to… More →
Author: K Trantham
Taliaferro Twist
I’ve had quite a bit of unexpected time on my hands recently so I decided to chase one of my ancestors through court records. My Goodger ancestors left Chesterfield County, Virginia sometime after 1799, following the death of my 5th great grandfather, Martin Goodger. His widow, Elizabeth, was left with 10 children, eight of whom were minors, and debt. We… More →
Cato Connections?
DNA strongly indicates there’s a relationship between descendants of Henry Cato and his wife, Tabitha, and descendants of my 5th great grandparents, Martin Trantham and his wife, Massey. (The latter is a brick wall.) Henry and Tabitha lived in Lancaster County, South Carolina prior to 1800. Lancaster County sits next to Kershaw County, where Martin and Massey were living prior… More →
Hi, Sheriff
This is my first post in some time. I’ve been chasing DNA matches trying to solve multiple brick walls. And there are a plethora of brick walls along my Trantham line. My father has many DNA matches who descend from Whittingtons who migrated from South Carolina to Mississippi. Among them are descendants of Grief Whittington and Cornelius Whittington, early settlers… More →
Whittingtons here, Whittingtons there…
Have I mentioned that when I first became interested in genealogy I was shocked to hear folks who were much more experienced than I say things like “I’ve been doing family history for 30 years.” I remember thinking to myself – quite arrogantly in retrospect – “What is taking you so long?” I get it now. The farther back you… More →
Drakeford
It’s been quite a while since I last posted. I have not stopped researching. Pushing my family lines back beyond numerous brick walls has gotten harder which means discoveries are fewer and further between. Thus, I have turned to DNA match analysis as my primary research focus. “Robert Floyd Trantham” is both the name of my 3rd great grandfather and… More →
A long time ago in a county Farrar, Farrar way…
For the second time in recent memory, I have started down a path trying to solve a specific brick wall using DNA matches and inadvertently and possibly solved another one. See, I have this methodology that I use in which I find a DNA match who’s likely in the 4th to 6th cousin range from an unknown common ancestral couple… More →
Naomi Dalton
I find as much joy in helping other folks break down their own brick walls as I do my own. I have to admit that I was a bit excited when I came across a DNA match who descends from a woman named “Naomi Dalton“. It was clear, looking at his family tree and other trees on Ancestry, that Naomi… More →
Patriotism
Happy American Independence Day! The War of Independence took on new meaning for me when I started researching my ancestors. Beforehand, it was nothing more than a subject I had studied in school. Today, I have identified five ( proudly-confirmed) male ancestors who served in the Continental Army. In remembrance of their service to our country and with deep gratitude,… More →
23andMe No Throw Stuff Out
I finally took 23andMe’s DNA test. I wasn’t really expecting any Earth-shattering revelations, having already tested with Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage and BritainsDNA. Not so. 23andMe has an interesting facet to their test results: they report on the amount of Neanderthal DNA you have. I assume they tested a bunch of Neanderthal remains and came up with a way of comparing… More →