Marmaduke Scott of Pasquotank County, North Carolina, Part 4

To the descendants of Nancy, wife of Barney Clark of Madison County, Indiana, I am going to tell you now that you are not going to like this blog post...

There's a lot of family trees out there claiming that Nancy Rainer Scott Clark is the daughter of Marmaduke and Miriam Jackson Scott, but I have this feeling that she isn't and that is a myth that continues on.

Now before you go to the reply button and starting going all bananas, I have some evidence about the real Nancy Scott, daughter of Marmaduke and Mary Polly Jackson Scott.  You, too, can view it on Family Search and/or Ancestry in Marmaduke's AND Mary Polly's estate files. (Marmaduke's file is over 100 pages.)

 

All of the images on the right show that the Nancy mentioned in Marmaduke's will and his estate files, as well as Mary Polly's files clearly show she married Allen B. Jones.

I did find Allen B. Jones in the 1820 and 1830 census of Pasquotank County.  She looks to have been born between 1800 and 1810 and she is also referred to as an orphan in one dated 1819, meaning that she was under 18 or 21 at the time.  That also makes me wonder if she got married in either 1819 or 1820.

I also have to ask this question about Nancy Rainer Scott Clark (who was born about 1784 since she reported in the 1850 census that she was 66, despite some one's attempt to make her born in 1794 on Find a Grave).  If my research serves me well, Rainer is not a girl's name.  It is a boy's name as well as surname.  Was her real maiden name Rainer, she married a Scott, he died, and she remarried Barney Clark?  Another option is that her middle name was Luranny, a popular name that I have seen in numerous records for the time in Pasquotank County and it got messed up in translation.

I did find a Richard Rainer in a nearby county.  Is this her father?  A relative?  Maybe just a coincidence?

The information I have came from typed notes given to me by Dot Scott, the wife of William Lloyd Scott, after he had passed away.   The notes are from the family Bible of the Clark family.  I am not sure where that Bible is now, but would love to have scans or photographs of the original pages to study.

I met Lloyd Scott when I was about 13 or 14.  I remember him well.  They lived outside of Ovid/New Columbus, Indiana. He had been working on the family genealogy for years. I remember his "book" (which Dot kept and I'm not sure where it is now) and all the notes he had.  As I recall, he had assumed that Nancy as well as Miriam Meedie Davis were the ones mentioned in the will, but what Lloyd didn't have (nor I at the time) was access to the estate files on-line.

I understand that genealogy can be frustrating, but I would like to clear this one up.  Don't we owe it to Nancy to make sure she is connected to the right person?  If you've got the hard-core evidence, in other words, unmistakable primary documents that says she was the daughter of Marmaduke Scott, bring them forward.

If not, remember this. Maramduke was not the only Scott in Pasquotank County, North Carolina.  He had brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles, some of whom came here to Indiana as well as further points west.  So the big challenge is to find the right branch of the family to put her.

Sorry, if this offends any of Nancy's descendants, but being the research librarian and historian that I am by chosen profession, I expect to see primary resources that support theories. As I mentioned before, the images on the right are in the estates files.  You can see them for yourself on Ancestry or Family Search.  I can send links, but you're going to have to pay a subscription to Ancestry, but Family Search is free (with some restrictions on some collections).  You just need to set up an account.

CSM  

   

Forgiveness: The Cure for Bitterness

So I am finally catching up on previously written blog posts.  The poem I posted was written last winter.  This one has been sitting here for ages.  I went through a phase of finding forgiveness, rebuilding hope, kicking down old walls, and now I am revisiting and posting.

Forgiveness: The Cure for Bitterness

John F. Kennedy once said "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."  Josh Billings once said "There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness."  While Norman Cousins said "Life is an adventure of forgiveness."

I forgive you Mom for leaving me to deal with a difficult man.  I'm not sure how you did it for fifty plus years.  I highly recommend you for sainthood just for putting up with him.  I love you.

I forgive you Dad for being difficult at times, making it harder than it needed to be.  I can't imagine what effect Grandma Marshall's almost leaving you as a child felt like.  I know what it was like to have a mother leave you behind.  Looking back over our time together, I realize that you only wanted to be a part of my life the best way you could.  I know I was like my Mom, being around me was always like walking on egg shells, but that was my way of protecting myself.  You weren't a bad or evil man, just a pain in the butt sometimes.  I am your son and you are my father.  I love you.

I forgive my previous place of employment.  I wanted to do something more and you wanted to do something different.  And in the end, it doesn't matter.  We all move on.  I look back and realize what a hell of an adventure it was.  I was the one that brought it to a close.  But you also threw in a few road blocks.  I hope we can split the difference.  Thanks for the memories.

I forgive you, my brother.  It's not easy, but I understand you.  You may not care, and in all honesty I'm not sure I do either.  But we move on and live the lives we were given by our parents.

I forgive those the one that made my transition from one point in life to another extremely difficult.  I also praise and love the ones that helped me through it.  The numbers were far greater for the latter.  In hindsight, I doesn't matter.  You remind me too much of my Dad.  He outweighs you in the grand scheme of life.  He is far more important to me.  So you only get a half-assed forgiveness.

I forgive that ones that saw me as only a physical object to conquered, used, and tossed.  I will forgive you but I will never give up my romantic view on life.  So, I give you my forgiveness.  I don't really care whether you accept it or not; it's for me that I forgive.  You were just being yourselves and I allowed myself to get wrapped up.  And an special thanks to that last one.  Without you, I wouldn't be writing this, realizing that I had let bitterness in and now like a weed I will pull it out by its roots.  Once again, not really caring if you care, but I'm doing this for me.

Which brings me to the last person... I forgive myself, but I will never change.  I am a romantic.

Winston Churchill said "When it comes to living romantically, one shouldn't follow a road map either.  It's something you should discover through contemplation and intuition."

Meanwhile Shannon Ables wrote that "A romantic builds everyday fulfillment through tenacious observation of daily life and an abundance of reliance on intuition.  The result: An extraordinary life lived in ordinary days."

And one last, many thanks to Piglet for this one... "The things that make me different are the things that make me."

CSM

I Will Never Be.

I took a little time to revisit my least favorite form of literature... Poetry.  Unless it's Edgar Allan Poe.  I will never dislike his poetry... nevermore.  I wrote this awhile back and forgot about it.  So from my mind to paper to print...  Here it is.

I will never be.

I will never be your second choice. If I am, please move on.
I will never be undone again.  If you think can, just try.
I will never be underestimated.  And if you do, that will be fun.

Life is too short I have learned. I do not waste my time. For you see, it is MY time.  It was given to ME to use as I wish.  Just like your time was given to you.  So do not waste it.  Let's not waste it together.

I will never have my time taken from me again.  You have gotten all you will get.
I will never be the one to teach you.  I taught myself and so can you.
I will never be your door mat.  You can wipe your feet on something else.

Why do I explain myself?  And I do. and very often. Because that's how we learn about each other.
You feel that you don't need to.  Fine.  You don't feel that I need to know.  Fine.
But fuck you.

I will never be stopped.  Only death will stop me.
I will never be your crutch.  I wasn't the one.
I will never be left to wonder.  I don't have time for your mystery.

There are times when I look at you and think how you got too far. From here on, you will never come back to that place. I won't let you. Years from now, I will look back and see how I traveled the road without you and survived.

I will never be yours.
I will never miss you.
I will never stop moving forward.

CSM