Greer Family Research of the Mid-Carolinas GFRM

09/01/2022

LOL I bet it was!

05/07/2022

FamilySearch.org is the starting place for free genealogy research. FREE.

The 1890 US census was almost destroyed by fire. Here's what happened and what 1890 census substitute records are available.

04/24/2022

Proof of the death of Joseph Greer who has long been confused with another Joseph Greer. This is for the Thomas Greer line of Union, SC (although his remains were buried in his grandfather's town of Fayetteville, NC).

02/28/2022

North Carolina Historical Records Online (NCHRO) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to providing pub

11/26/2019

Found in my husband's great-grandmother's 1853 Bible. (Sally Howe, Elizaville, KY)

10/27/2019

A G Greer married Laura O Madden in Laurens, South Carolina.

10/27/2019

When Lizzie Madden Hipp was born on August 17, 1886, in South Carolina, her father, Lewis, was 29, and her mother, Laura, was 34. She married William Pierce Willie Hipp in 1910 in her hometown. They had six children in 11 years. She died on November 17, 1952, in South Carolina at the age of 66, and....

08/30/2019

IMPACT OF CIVIL WAR ON FAMILY LINEAGES
(excerpt from a letter I wrote informing my cousins of my brother's death 1 JAN 2017):

"Odd how there were so many children 'back in the day', and here, just 150 or so years later, there are no male heirs to carry on our name. Let me briefly explain for those who are interested:

The Civil War was the most savage war America has ever been involved in. The death toll was greater than any one war ever fought by the U.S. including WWII. (See pic)

The Civil War wiped out entire generations of men. Many of those who survived were crippled/maimed in some way and typically did not marry. Women faced a daunting task in finding husbands as there were so few eligible men left in communities. Many women remained unmarried and produced no heirs for their husband's line.

In one instance in our own family, a Greer ancestor and his wife produced 9 children, 4 of whom were male. All but one was killed in the Civil War, and the one who survived was never able to use one of his arms again. Only one sister married and produced children. So out of 9 siblings, not a single Greer male heir was produced for that generation, effectively wiping out their entire lineage.

This same scenario occurred repeatedly throughout the South. The impact on the population is very evident just 10 years later when the census was reduced drastically. As the South became industrialized after the war, more and more families moved to cities to be close to the factories and there were fewer farming families. Therefore, the size of families began to be reduced, also affecting the number of male heirs. A series of epidemics killed quite a few as well.

Our Greer family was no exception. Time and again I see the effects on our genealogy directly after the Civil War. Smaller families, younger deaths, fewer Greers. And now, today, we are still seeing the effects in that our own line is about to die out. How sad."