Dave's North Carolina Roots

On Tuesday, also known as my birthday, I'll be heading to North Carolina for some nerd duty. I'll spend four days doing family research along the tobacco road hitting cemeteries, libraries, courthouses and the state archives in search of relatives on my mom's side (the Johnsons). I will hopefully be posting daily so as to keep my peeps up on my whereabouts and any new info I uncover. As my cousins, Don and Janet, have said, Hope Mills, NC has no idea what's about to hit it when my research mind kicks in. I hope to make the trip worth it.

Most of the Johnson clan was located in Hope Mills, NC (about 70 miles south of Raleigh) and I already know that my great grandfather, John Henry Johnson, was murdered in 1918 by his brother, Charles, in a land dispute. My hope is to find JHJ's land and grave. I want to see what the homestead was like and why my grandfather, Walter, got out of there by the time he was 18. We'll see...