I have been way overdue to post however, personal issues aside I am just now able to sit still long enough to do so.
I am planning a research trip to Halifax, NC in September. If you think there is planning involved in a vacation - you should try to cram a research trip into a few days :-)
There are two main places that have records that would relate to the current research project.
The one is the Halifax County Clerk office or Register of Deeds (Courthouse)
The other is the North Carolina State Archives. Both places have information that could prove very helpful.
However since time is at a premium and since the places mentioned are at least two hours apart from each other i have had to sit down and come up with alist of items in particular that I am looking for and pretty much figure out where those records are located, or i should say which one of those locations will I be able to find them. Halifax vs Raleigh
Currently I am very much interested in obtaining marriage records for the Fenners: Mary and Fred would be nice but any records if they existed with their marriage information would probably go back to around the civil war or right before their oldest son Major was born in 1869 and I would imagine that it would be more likely to run into a co-habitation record however from what i have seen that time frame is notorious for lack of any documents. Laws regarding filing birth certificates, marriage licenses and even death certificates were not really enforced/effective around that time. I have nto found any record of Fred's birth or Mary - his wife either. Their eldest son Major - i found his birthdate in the family bible along with many other members of the Fenner family.
so the main goal of the upcoming trip is to try and document marriages. If time permits I would like to see if i can obtain copies of the estate records from John H Fenner, Wm E Fenner both of which were slave owners in Halifax circa the 1860 Census. To try and identify one or the other as possible slave owners of these family members.
There are a few other couples I am looking for marriage records for, namely, Robert rofe and Lena rofe(johnson) Johnson
For those of you who don't know this is not a project that will be done in a a few weeks months or i daresay years. That there is somewhat of a lot of information already only makes it even more work to check out leads and a lot more dead ends.
While I would like to look up estate records and land/deed records i doubt i have enough time to do all that and not wind up coming back exhausted both mentally and physically.
One thing that will be accomplished when I go down there is the digital photographing of the Fenner Family bible which I will post excerpts here once I get back from my trip in September. So for those of you that need to feel like you have a date to work with - look for the exceprts/transcripts of the family bible to start going up around mid october - earliest.
Those of you who have a relative with the surname Fenner can email me with questions related to that line who' may have entries in the bible.
until i get to post again remember...
Blessed are those which do hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled
Matt 5:6
