George: My computers is beeping, but I do not know what that means? I'm on Linked-In and in a Navy forum just mentioned your website there. Jim

If you have South Carolina black ancestry, you may be interested in the black Bellinger family there. Civil War Union Pvt. Bellinger and Sgt. Bellinger were on Hilton Head Island (island named for the brother of my Exeter, N.H., ancestor), and one married there. After the war, one was a carpenter in Charleston. The other died in S.C. in service. I'd love to find his grave, and if not adequately marked, get him a gratis Union tombstone (or memorial stone if grave is lost). My (white) Pvt. James Landreth Malcolm, CSA musician, allegedly is in an un-marked grave near the marked grave of his son-in-law, musician Sgt. James Anderson Woollen, Old Salem, W-S, N.C. I'd like to mark his grave too. Grandmother, born 1885, Mrs. Ruby Valery "Tee" Woollen Miller, was reared by her twenty years older sister, Mrs. Lillian Elizabeth "Muttie" Woollen who wed book salesman Henry Lee of W-S, son of Charles Carter Lee, older brother of Gen. Rbt. Edw. Lee, Sr., CSA. That is why Sgt. Woollen and wife Mrs. Susan Caroline Malcolm Woollen are in the 1890's book "Lee Family of Virginia" by Edm. Jennings Lee. Now grandmother of traditional Southern values; never rabid, but believed in segregation, etc.; was funny about one side of the family. I was never sure why? In Southport I met the wonderful wife of a descendant; her husband's ancestor, my close kinsman; was a Confederate veteran who after the war wed an ex-slave. She/he do not advertise it, but neither are they ashamed of it; they voluntarily explained it to me--I didn't know to ask. A prominent Winston-Salem, very good folks family (one was a classmate) learned they descended from a "cryptic Jew". These are of two types; the frequently simply unknown to them, and the intentionally cryptic. Either the Jew hid his heritage; or some descendants did. Thus the slave descendant ("white kin" as nothing looks nor acts "black" about them) kin were of cryptic black heritage to me, as I simply did not know otherwise.

Hi George ,Your Great Grandfather looks like an amazing person  with a beautiful Face .I love his hat, I bet he would have been a wonderful person to have as a friend, you must be very proud of him.I would be.