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Researcher Tracks Family History in Finklea Community
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| By: Ettie Newlands |
October 29, 2003 |
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Carolyn Harrelson Buckley has been putting a puzzle together since 1995.
Any time she thinks she's finished, the Loris native finds another piece. Eventually, the big picture will be a family history going back to 1799.
Against a backdrop that includes both royalty and slavery, Buckley is tracing a genealogy that tells as much about Horry County as it does about her own ancestors.
She'd told and retold the stories that had been passed down through the generations for as long as her children and grandchildren can remember. Eight years ago, when a ruptured disc kept her home from work, her son urged her to use the time to put those family memories on paper.
That began the "wonderful treasure hunt" she's still on.
Her hunt for puzzle pieces has taken her from the well-lit archives of public libraries to the tangled undergrowth of obscure, forgotten cemeteries. She's met dozens of strangers-turned- relatives on the Internet and about 10 of them in person.
Buckley, who has two children and three grandchildren, said she's persisted in her pursuit of information so the generations that follow her never lose a single piece of their rich family heritage.
One of those pieces is a Royal Seal from King George 111 given to Buckley's ancestor John Graham in the early 1700s. The seal, described by Buckley as a "very rare and priceless treasure," has passed through six generations.
It went from John Graham to his son, William Graham. The seal's next caretaker was his son, William Bellamy Graham who passed it to his son, Franklin Bellamy Graham. From him, it went to the next son in line, Sam Graham, Sr., who then passed it to Sam "Tugg" Graham, Jr.
The Grahams, Buckley's research has shown, were known as "the gallant old Grahams of Mitchell Swamp."
Information about the seal has been documented through microfilm at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History in Columbia.
Documentation, Buckley said, is critical in genealogy research.
"You want bills of sale, deeds, every record you can find," she said. "So much has been put on microfilm that there's a lot of digging involved. It takes time, patience and a lot of thumbing through stuff."
There are several web sites devoted entirely to genealogy and Buckley suggests that people hoping to put their own puzzles together start there.
"Just take one little piece that you have and start from there. One thing will lead to the next," she said.
Buckley, who now lives in Socastee, has been able to document back to Captain Edward Conner and Sara Grissette, the parents of her great-great grandmother, Jane Conner Graham, born in 1799.
Conner, a Revolutionary War commander, served and rode with the "Old Swamp Fox," Francis Marion.
Jane Conner and William Bellamy Graham married in 1814 and had 17 children. They owned a 7,500-acre plantation at Mitchell Swamp in the Finklea community. In 1846, with 15 of their children still at home, Graham was killed in a boating accident while rafting logs to Georgetown.
Their son, Kenneth Asberry Graham married Ava Jane Grainger. Of their 12 children, six died but one who survived, Ava Jane Graham, married Doc Harrelson.
Those were Carolyn Harrelson Buckley's grandparents. When Ava Jane Graham died, her husband honored her deathbed wish and married Ava Jane's own sister, Jackie.
It is Aunt Jackie who is perhaps the most important piece in Buckley's puzzle.
"I grew up just two miles from Aunt Jackie and she was always old and we were always taking care of her," Buckley said.
When Aunt Jackie died, she left the 18-year-old Carolyn two family portraits, and a request.
"Aunt Jackie knew what an interest I'd taken in her stories and she said to me, 'Don't forget my Mama and my Daddy, my Grandmama and Granddaddy,' " Buckley said.
Uncle Steve - Steve Joe Graham Floyd - who lived eight days short of being 114 years old, is also one of the key pieces of Buckley's puzzle.
Born a slave on the family plantation in 1828, he and Aunt Jackie's father, Kenneth Asberry Graham, grew up as best friends. When Jackie was two years old and her father was killed, Steve, who became known as Uncle Steve, started looking out for the family.
"He was married and lived on another farm but he helped raise the six children that Kenneth Asberry left," Buckley said. "Slavery had just ended and Aunt Jackie used to say, 'it didn't matter that he was black and we were white, he was family just the same.'
"Aunt Jackie used to say, ' Uncle Steve remembered me my Daddy,'" Buckley said.
Those stories are the corners of the puzzle Buckley has been putting together for almost a decade. The edges are the chronology of the births, marriages and deaths that she has discovered and documented. And the middle, made up of thousands of facts, are the details that connect the rest of the pieces.
"I hope 100 years from now, my grandchildren's children and all the rest down the line will know something about where they came from and how life was," Buckley said, adding that "this record will help."
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©Loris Scene 2010
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