Wilson-Greer Family Tour, Part IX

by Glenn N. Holliman

A Family Mystery Solved...continued from previous post....

Please visit other names in Ancestry.com especially Caroline Wilson (Greer).

Family tradition in the Shirley Sorrell line of the Wilsons and Donnellys identified the couple  below as Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson.  Shirley has had qualms about this identification and asked distant cousins on the June 2012 Wilson Greer Family Tour to examine the pictures.  The picture on the right is Caroline Wilson Greer (1828-1911), Shirley's great great grandmother.

Below Bryan Payne snaps the mysterious portrait which hangs over the mantle in Shirley's Ashe County home.

 

The mystery identification was solved in September when Shirley and this writer sat down together and reviewed the photograph file of Annie Heaton, a cousin through Jesse and Frances Brown Greer, Jr. Below a photo taken in March 2012 of Annie reviewing her Greer memorabilia.

 

 And here we have it, William Wilson (1823 -1893) and his wife Cindrilla Reece Wilson (1829-1911) great grandparents of Annie Heaton.  Shirley Sorrell has no idea how her family came into possession of the portrait but is giving it to Annie's branch of the Wilson-Greer family. 

 

Greer-Wilson Family Tour, 2012 Part VIII

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Tour continued to the North Fork of the New River in Western Ashe County, North Carolina...

Below the 5,000 foot and higher peaks of Ashe County, North Carolina are visible from the front porch of the ancestral home of Shirley Sorrell, who kindly opened her home in the western part of the county to her distant cousins.  The house was the home of her grandmother, Mamie Wilson Donnelly, a daughter of John and Rebecca Wilson.

Shirley has a remarkable collection of Wilson-Greer photographs and pictures dating back to Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson, her great, great grand parents.  Below Mrs. Sorrell holds framed likenesses of Caroline Greer Wilson (1828-1911) and Isaac Wilson (1822-1864).

Shirley shared another portrait which according to family tradition is also of Isaac and Caroline although the second pictures are dissimilar.  Below Connie Burns closely inspects the second dual portrait.  Bryan Payne and Connie both dismantled the second dual portrait but found no names identifying for certain the couple.

Alas, however, in September 2012 while Shirley Sorrell and Glenn Holliman were comparing photographs, they spotted in the digital folder of Annie Heaton a copy of the above picture, and solved the family mystery!

Next, the mystery solved!

Greer-Wilson Family Tour, 2012 Part VII

by Glenn N. Holliman

Family History at the Ashe County Historical Museum....

 After leaving the Todd Cemetery and community, the Greer-Wilson family tour motored into Jefferson, North Carolina, county seat of  the north west region of North Carolina tucked up against Tennessee and Virginia.  The old court house now serves as the Ashe County Historical Museum and that was our next destination.

Below, Don  Long, center, curator of the Ashe County, North Carolina Historical Museum greeted our Greer-Wilson Family Tour group in June 2012, and told us stories of Benjamin Greer and Benjamin Cleveland, area Revolutionary War heroes.  Attractive and well-displayed, the local history museum contains exhibits on pioneer days, the coming of the Railroad, the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and early 19th century occupations of the county.  Visible in this photograph left to right are Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, Becky Holliman, Don Long, Bob and Gayle Adema and Charles Bundy.

Becky Holliman Payne, a fifth great grand daughter of Benjamin Greer, points out a picture of her sixth great uncle, one Daniel Boone, whose niece married Benjamin Greer in the 1770s.  All present on the tour share the same historic lineage.

Bryan P. Payne, son of Becky Payne, met another Mr. Payne, a volunteer at the museum.  The Paynes have a southern and mountain lineage similar to the Greers and Wilson in our family trees.

Charles, Chase and Jennifer Bundy examine artifacts at the museum.  Numerous rooms in the old court house are dedicated to various themes in the history of Ashe County.