For nearly two decades I've been tracing my family lineage - specifically, my paternal roots.
The one person who has been most elusive in my search, is my great-grandmother, Chappo Robinson.
A year ago, a reader who had just finished Nowhere is a Place, decided to do a little sleuthing on my behave and uncovered a marriage record for Chappo and her groom, Samuel Elliott.
As you can imagine, I was over the moon with happiness.
The record indicated the names of Chappo's parents (T.M. Robinson and Louise White) and Lawdy-be - her daddy, my great-great grandfather was man of the cloth!
Reverend T. M. Robinson, was a minister of the Cotton Avenue Baptist Church in Macon Georgia. In 1887 lead the first congregation of The First Baptist Church located at 595 New Street. He died in in December 1895. The Macon Telegraph announced his transition in the December 14th edition, under the article title: Death of a Prominent Negro.
Fast forward one year later, and the very same angel (Valerie Beaudrault) sends me some Freedman Bank Registration Cards, which not only lists the names my gg-grandparents, but the names of their children (minus Chappo) as well as the names of my gg-grandmothers, siblings!
By now you must be scratching your and wondering why it is I titled this post the way I did.
Okay, well in January of 2010 when I received the first bit of news from Valerie, I sent an email to The First Baptist Church, (now led by Pastor James W. Goolsby, Jr.) asking if they had any additional information that would help me with my search. Information like, what does T.M. stand for? Where is T.M. buried...etc..
Since then, (one year later) I have emailed and called a number of times - and if anyone from The First Baptist Church responded -- then my wall responded!
Now, let me ask you - how does it look for a faith-based organization, which claims to be committed to service to blatantly ignore the continuous requests from the actual descendant of one of their founding ministers???
Is that "Christian-Like" behavior?
Their refusal to respond to my queries - makes me think -- that they think - they have something to lose by doing so............
Ya'll stay tuned...I think this is going to get very interesting.......
2 comments:
Wow... and very sad. I'll continue to pray that you find the answers you seek and the church grows a heart and compassion.
Good morning Bernice,
Just wanted to let you know I found your post interesting. I'm delighted that you had as much success with finding out your family information. I too, did a family search - I even have copies of census records, had to have my father's name corrected, not certain how anyone can misspell Elijah. LoL
Good luck with your continued search.
Suggestion, call the church or drop in for a visit. Perhaps the secretary doesn't know what to do with your request.
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