Am I indeed moving forward? Is the road I perceive as behind my feet - having I actually left it behind me - or am I still traveling along it? Back and forth; up and down; right and left; etc. etc. The conclusion of my journey, when I departed from my home state of Kansas one month ago, it was set here in North Carolina, Elizabeth City per se. This is where my ancestry.com research place, pd my earliest ancestors, Jeremiah Sexton, as having been born and died. Other names preceded his, but I looked upon those name as suspect, not holding any concrete evidence to them beyond a scant few mentions here and there.
With my discoveries of a Darby and Dorothy Sexton, parents of a Sarah Sexton, who married an Esau Albertson in January of 1700, I find there is a measure of hope my tree was true.
The question to answer, for myself, is what should be done now, where should I go, how do I proceed? The month I permitted myself is up. The coast I aimed myself toward, it has been reached (I visited North Carolina's 'Outer Banks' last Wednesday). What is the next step in my goal of moving forward, along a road, which leads somewhere?
Last Friday I spoke with a Southern gentleman, a genealogist by trade, who graciously discoursed with me for an ample amount of time on these questions. He conveyed to me what I need to search for are court records (as those were the means through which people of the earlier years, circa 1700s) recorded their activities. I also needed to look into all manner of deeds; and, if I wished to travel to Virginia's state capital of Richmond (I expressed my ideas of venturing into Virginia, as that seemed the logical place from whence my ancestor Darby Sexton came) I could peruse the land grants which were kept there. Court Records, and Deeds, and Wills could be found at the individual county courthouses (in Virginia, he told me this was the standard practice); land grants, being a state-governed activity, they were all kept at the state capitol
Initially, my intent was to venture into Virginia bright and early on Monday morning. At church yesterday, though, attending the morning service of the people where I have been staying this past week, I met a man who told me he knew of lots of Sextons over in Washington County, which is, I believe (my sense of direction is still a bit off) west of where I have been staying in Hertford. The counties in Virginia pertaining to my interests would lie east.
The man's wife emailed the lady where I am staying, Jackie, yesterday afternoon. It fascinated me because she offered a list of some twenty new Sexton names I did not contain in my ancestry family tree. I wanted to investigate these names, learning how they fit into my family ancestral map, but I knew my focus needed to remain on the earlier name, this Darby Sexton who apparently emerged out of Virginia sometime in the mid-to-late 17th century.
Is this the first Sexton, journeying across the ocean from Europe, ('Darby' sounds like, to me, more of an Irish name than English.), who landed on the shores of Virginia before emigrating into North Carolina with his family of, at least, two children? I decided the prudent coarse of action from this point would be a perusal of the Perquimans County Courthouse records, as I know he resided in this county, to see what information it might be able to convey. If it has some record as to where Darby and his family emerged, I have my next step in the road long traveled.
While none of the content of this post carries anything of 'picture' quality, what follows are a few random snapshots from my past week here in North-eastern North Carolina:
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| me at the Elizabeth City sign along highway 17 |
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| Cape Hatteras Lighthouse |
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| memorial to Orville & Wilbur |
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| Sexton family graves discovered in the Old Hollywood Cemetery in Elizabeth City |
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