WORK SAMPLES
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Context and Comrades Illuminate A Silent Southerner: John Temple (1758–1838), Revolutionary War Pensioner." Winner of NGS Quarterly Award of Excellence, 2015.
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“Identifying a Son for John Temple of Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama.”
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“Jonathan Turner—More Than a Name: A Carolina Case Study in Dissecting Records.” Separates three same-name individuals through the analytical use of Revolutionary War Stub Indents and contextual records. Winner of NGS Quarterly Award of Excellence, 2010.
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“Mother, Thy Name is Mystery! Finding the Slave Who Bore Philomene Dorat.” The research reported in this article identified the three generations of female slaves immortalized now in Lalita Tademy’s Cane River, an Oprah’s Book Club Selection and New York Times Best Seller.
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“A Proposed English Ancestry for Henry Ball (circa 1676–1735) of Middlesex County, Virginia.” Establishes birth-family and place of origin for a yeoman immigrant who left no record attesting any birthplace or kin.
Part 1 Part 2
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“Rachael ‘Fanny’ Devereaux/Martin of Alabama and Florida, a Free Woman of Color: Discovering a Name Change through the Federal Census.” Demonstrates how to effectively correlate pre-1850 censuses for poor households that left few public records.
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"Southern Strategies: Merging Identities by Mapping Activities and Linking Participants—Solomon Harper of South Carolina's Lowcountry. Demonstrates problem-solving in eighteenth-century "burned counties."
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"Southern Strategies Revisited: Expanding 'Reasonably Exhaustive Research' to Find Solomon Harper's Roots in the Carolina Backcountry."
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“The Wives of Jonathan Turner: Identification of Women in Pre-Twentieth-Century South Carolina.” Uses the FAN Principle to identify three wives of a backcountry farmer in a place and time that did not record marriages. Winner of NGS Quarterly Award of Excellence, 2005.
Sample Research Reports
Analysis of Client's Research—a Fresh Eye & a Jumpstart:
"John W. & Sarah Anderson of Union County, Georgia"
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FANs* and Community Reconstruction to Separate or Merge Same-Name Men
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Henry Westbrook of Barnwell County, South Carolina
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Harper Report 3: Thompson's Creek Neighborhood Reconstruction
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Harper Report 9: Document Analysis to Resolve Identity Issues
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Harper Report 10: Solomon Harper of Gooch's American Regiment
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*The FAN Principle calls for studying Friends & Family, Associates, and Neighbors to establish identity and origin.
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Military Service:
“William Cooksey of Georgia’s Continental Line: Finding Clues to Origin and Service” Analysis and extensive development of two scant military records left by a North Georgia frontiersman of unknown birth and kin.
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Sorting Same-Name Individuals in Burned Counties:
“Herringtons of Greene County, Mississippi, and Barnwell District, South Carolina” Analysis and research designed to separate the identities of many same-name individuals across three states in the 1770–1825 period—including multiple burned counties.
Theses & Research Papers
“An Architectural and Social Analysis of Beverley Manor, Virginia, 1745–1770.” Reconstructs the earliest structures of Beverley Manor—internally and externally—by merging genealogical, historical, and architectural methodologies; includes biographical information about the earliest Manor landowners. M. A. Thesis, University of Virginia.
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“The Slave Trade in Microcosm: Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, 1850-1855.” A targeted study of all slave sales in a prosperous cotton-plantation region—its nature and participants, its economic triggers and restraints, and its impact on the individuals whose lives were bartered, mortgaged, and sold. Doctoral seminar paper, University of Alabama.