My Black History is Ella Dukes Pruitt. I never met her, but I have heard that she was about the business of doing business.
© 2018 Amy L. Cole and Tracing Amy: My Ancestral Journey. All rights reserved.
Home » Dukes
Category Archives: Dukes
My Black History Part 1
My Black History is the ancestors who wouldn’t be considered extraordinary beings. They are extraordinary to me because they survived slavery so that I would come to be.
© 2018 Amy L. Cole and Tracing Amy: My Ancestral Journey. All rights reserved.
52 Ancestors #6: Anna not Angeline
Anna Dukes is my paternal great grandmother. I haven’t done much research on her and to-date I have only found a couple of census records and a death certificate when doing a basic search. The family stories say that she was the first wife of William Dukes, but died when my grandmother was young. They had 10 children together. After her death, my great grandfather seems to have married again to a woman named Angeline. Just looking at the census records, one might think that Anna and Angeline might have been the same person, because the names are similar. But, I did a little detective work based on the information gathered from my family and found Grandma Anna’s death certificate. It turns out that she died in January 9, 19171. This means that she definitely is not Angeline who appears on the 1920, 1930, & 1940 census with Grandpa William. This is just a start to trying to correct the posting that I mentioned in my last post.
On the death certificate, it lists her age at about 30 years old and that she was born in Mississippi. The birth date was unknown. She was married and was a housewife. She was buried in the Galilee Cemetery2 (East Galilee Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery) by John Jordan, who was a neighbor on the 1910 census3.
Her mother’s name is Mira Young and the father’s name is unknown. I noticed that the informant’s name was Lindsey Bradley4. Initially, I thought that this was a woman, maybe a friend of possibly a sister since they knew the name of the mother. However, when I looked into the 1910 Census on Ancestry I found that the only Lindsey Bradley in the area was a 49 year old male5. Could this be her brother or cousin? Why was he the informant and not Grandpa William?
I looked back went back to the 1880 census and found that Lindsey Bradley (15) living with his father Lott Bradley6 and just one page over there is a 2 year old Anna living with a 28 year old Mirah Young who is widowed7. Could this be my Grandma Anna and Great Grandma Mira?
I want to find out more about her and have a lot of questions swirling in my head to research:
- Is Mira really her mother’s name?
- What is the name of her father?
- Does she have any siblings? If so, what are their names?
- Who is Lindsey Bradley in relation to Grandma Anna and why was he the informant on her death certificate?
- When did she and Grandpa William marry?
My initial view of the census doesn’t give me too much information to go on. I will have to dig a bit deeper to see what else I find to answer these questions so that I can piece together her story and ensure that it is well documented.
| This is my sixth post as a part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, created by Amy Johnson Crow of No Story Too Small. |
Footnotes:
1. Mississippi State Board of Health, death certificate 815 (1917), Anna Dukes; Death Certificates and Indexes; Mississippi Department of Archives & History, Jackson.
2. Mississippi State Board of Health, death certificate 815 (1917), Anna Dukes.
3. 1910 U.S. census, Jasper County, Mississippi, population schedule, Beat 2, p. 4, dwelling 196, family 196, John Jordan; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: 2013); citing Family History Library microfilm: 1374757.
4. Mississippi State Board of Health, death certificate 815 (1917), Anna Dukes.
5. 1910 U.S. census, Jasper County, Mississippi, population schedule, Beat 2, p. 20, dwelling 115, family 115, Lindsy Bradly; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: 6 April 2014); citing Family History Library microfilm: 1374757.
6. 1880 U.S. census, Jasper County, Mississippi, population schedule, Northest, p.34, dwelling 298, family 299, Lott Bradley; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 6 April 2014); citing NARA microfilm publication T9.
7. 1880 U.S. census, Jasper County, Mississippi, population schedule, Northest, p.35, dwelling 308, family 309, Mirah Young; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 6 April 2014); citing NARA microfilm publication T9.
© 2014 Amy L. Cole and Tracing Amy: My Ancestral Journey. All rights reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cite This Page:
Amy L Cole, “52 Ancestors #6: Anna not Angeline,” Tracing Amy: My Ancestral Journey, 06 April 2014 (https://tracingamy.wordpress.com: [access date]).
Please do not copy without attribution and link back to this page.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
52 Ancestors #5: Grandma Ella
I was blessed to grow up knowing all of my grandparents except one. My paternal grandmother, Louella DUKES PRUITT, is the grandmother that I never got to meet. I like to think that I would have called her Grandma Ella because Ella seems to be the name she went by. Her death certificate has that she was born May 15, 1909 and died January 3, 19731. Her death date is almost exactly 5 years prior to my birth. Most of what I know about her has come from my dad and his two remaining siblings. So far though, I only have one record of her and that’s her death certificate.
Since I still have more research to do in order to tell her story, I thought I would capture what I think I know. I know she was born to William and Anna DUKES in Jasper County, MS. I did find it written on another site that her mother was Angeline by stating that Anna and Angeline as the same person2. However, my family says that Angeline was the second wife and was not my grandmother’s mother. Hopefully, I will be able to correctly document this during my research on the DUKES line for future generations. Her mother is listed as unknown on the death certificate, so I will have to check other records for her and her siblings to further document. I also know she was buried in the East Galilee Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery in Jasper County, MS.
Based on her death certificate, she lived in Los Angeles, California at the time of her death and had lived there for 12 years3. This would mean that she moved to California in either 1960 or 1961. I do know that she moved there to join her husband (my grandfather), Samuel Wilson Pruitt, and they divorced a few years after (maybe 1962 or 1963). So this is where I will start. My next step will be to find the divorce record and see what it has in store.
| This is my fifth post as a part of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, created by Amy Johnson Crow of No Story Too Small. |
Footnotes:
1. Los Angeles County, California, death certificate no. 7097-000214 (1973), Ella Pruitt; Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, Los Angeles.
2. Diane Payne, “William Dukes,” Jasper County, Mississippi Genealogy & History A MSGenWeb Project, 2009 (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~msjasper/family/fadukes.html: [7 Feb 2013]).
3. Los Angeles Co., CA, death certificate no. 7097-000214 (1973), Ella Pruitt.
© 2014 Amy L. Cole and Tracing Amy: My Ancestral Journey. All rights reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cite This Page:
Amy L Cole, “52 Ancestors #5: Grandma Ella,” Tracing Amy: My Ancestral Journey, 1 April 2014 (https://tracingamy.wordpress.com: [access date]).
Please do not copy without attribution and link back to this page.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Debut of Tracing Amy
Welcome to my first blog post! My name is Amy L. Cole. I am the 4th child born to Lee Roy Pruitt & Jerlean Edwards Pruitt of Quitman, Clarke County, Mississippi. Tracing Amy: My Ancestral Journey is about my quest to learn more about my family history.
I started the blog after reading the appeal by Luckie Daniels, founder of African American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research, to make more of the research of African-American ancestry available online. After much consideration and a nod from my family, I decided to start blogging! My goal is to be able to provide a space where family members can follow and participate in my research.
Now that the blog history is out of the way, I think I should tell you a little about the names and places that I am researching. I decided that I wanted to do research on both my paternal and maternal lines. From what I know, both lines have deep roots in Clarke and Jasper Counties in Mississippi, post emancipation. My paternal lines are Pruitt, Dukes, & Carr and the maternal lines are Edwards, Sterling, Shanks & Stokes. I will tell you more about what I have found for each line in other post.
I have been able to take 3 of the 4 maternal lines back to the 1870 Federal Census giving me the names of ancestors that were possibly born into slavery. I was able to accomplish this by sifting through family records, conducting interviews with family members, visiting cemeteries, and collecting obituaries. Although I believe I have the name of the ancestors who would have been born into slavery, I have not yet started slavery research for my maternal line. I want to ensure that all of my information post civil war is correct. So, I am busy collecting birth marriage and death records as well as other records that will assist the search for my grandparents and great grand parents generation. I plan to continue to go back one generation at a time collecting these records and learning as much as I can so that I have a solid beginning to enter into slavery research.
On my paternal line, I have only been able to get back to the generation of my great grandparents. I will have to gather more information on this side because not much is remembered by those still living. So I have some…..lets call them speed bumps on the paternal side, they haven’t turned into brick walls just yet. 🙂
So that is a summary of how far I have gotten on the family tree as a whole. I have a couple of family reunions coming up in 2014, so I will probably focus on those lines the most in the coming months. I will try to keep you posted along the way.
~AmyC.
© 2013 Amy L. Cole and Tracing Amy: My Ancestral Journey. All rights reserved.
Tracing Amy: My Ancestral Journey 