Lou

This blog is the second installment of the sidebar project I have been digging into, for the holes in my mother's family history.  I used to believe that the Ramseys, my great great grandmother's family, were direct from Scotland and were, by all accounts, old school Church of England folk.  There are two things that you need to know about the Scotch: they are the most hospitable, enjoyable people you will ever meet, and they are adamantly NOT ENGLISH.

I once met a Scottish tourist during my time working on a plantation in Charleston.  He asked for my name after I'd spoken with him for a time.  He said, "Ramsey is a Scottish name.  You know the Scottish did exactly what the English did to them to their own slaves."  To have a Scotsman give me a history lesson, and to the point, too!  He's correct: has anyone here seen Braveheart?  Look at me tying in another Mel Gibson movie.  My point, ladies and gentleman, is that the English treated the Scots as subservient for a long time.  They made the Scots into tenants of their own land, and routinely took liberty with their women.  I'm getting a little Scotch anger just thinking about it.  When the Calvinist Movement of the Protestant Reformation swept through Scotland and the Scots left the Catholic Church by the droves, they were persecuted.  They became known as the Presbytiers.  There's a parallel between what happened to the Scottish Protestants and the French Protestants.  The Scots moved to Northern Ireland, to a province known as Ulster (see above) and were called "Ulstermen."  Here they intermarried with the Irish and again, tended their land as tenants of English land.  Until they'd had it with all the war-mongering, and started leaving for food, money, and freedom in several sweeping waves to the New World. 

The journey was frought with danger, but I believe that the heartyness of the Scots Irish is what lead them to endure.  They landed in Philadelphia and pushed into the settlements west of Philadelphia, same thing in the mountains of Maryland.  Sidebar: my paternal grandfather's mothers family, the Harrises, were Scots Irish who came down to South Carolina from Maryland.  Many of the Scots Irish paid for their journey by selling themselves into an arrangement of 4 years indentured service, in exchange for land.  Trouble: the land was Indian country.  It is said that for every Native American killed by the settlers that 50 settlers were captured as slaves or killed by the Native Americans.  It was genocide.  The Scots Irish pressed onward, aggressive people, down the Cumberland into Virginia and thrived.  Many joined the war front and made a name for themselves.  One such family was the Ramsey clan.  I was named for them, and this is their story.  

 

John Ramsey, Sr was born 1710 in Henry county, Virginia colony.  His parents were more than likely immigrants, and their information would take me to Northern Ireland.  Ramsey Sr. married a woman in his parish named Mary, and together they had seven children.  Mortality was high: people had as many children as they could to ensure the family farm was tended and that the family line continued.  Their eldest son John Ramsey, Jr. (1740-1781) was my great grandfather.  This is the beginning of the Ramsey story.  John married Mary, and their eldest son Randolph "Randal" Ramsey (1765-1826) is another one for the Daughters of the American Revolution application.  I'm coming for you, ladies.  Randal came from not much, and enlisted in his teens to the First Georgia Battalion during the Revolutionary War.  By 1784 his captain [Boswick] awarded him [for his service]  250 acres, tax free [for 10 years], in East Georgia, on the banks of the Savannah River.  Randal married Mary N of Georgia and had seven children.  I am descended from his eldest, Randolph (1784-1866).  Randolph had his own homestead a county north, in Lincolnton.  He was removed from the family drama which went down when Randolph Sr's Will went missing.  The old man had remarried, and had multiple land holdings, adopted children, and slaves by the end of his life.  Everyone wanted a piece.  I have the names of the slaves: Arthur, Sally, Ursula, and Dinah Doggett from the 2nd wife, Mary Doggett Ramsey's first marriage.  Violet "Vile," Louisa, Flora, and Jacob Ramsey were all willed to old man Randolph Ramsey's youngest daughter, Polly.  I have a HUGE soapbox about owning people.  The subject will take on several blogs for itself.

It's time for my new favorite ancestor, Lou.  Lucretia "Lou" P. Ramsey (1856-?) was the granddaughter of the above mentioned Randolph Ramsey, Jr. who had moved his family from Chatham to Lincolnton.  Randolph Jr's son Caleb was Lou's dad.  Lucretia had a ridiculously formal name, the likes of Thomasina or Edwina.  Gag.  The family nicknamed her "Lou" for short, and I think that makes her more approachable.  She had 10 brothers and sisters, and probably helped to raise half of them!  One was named for Jefferson Davis, no lie.  Lou married John Peter Dill (1846-?) of Lincolnton on Thanksgiving Day, 1875.  Lou and her siblings took turns naming their children after each other.  I'm taking that from the headstones.  The majority of the family is burried in the Sharon Baptist Church graveyard in Appling, Georgia.  Road trip!  I'm up to five graveyards to visit now. 

Lou and John's children were

Annie L. (1882-?)

Lillian M. (1884-?)

Clara Eubanks (May 1, 1890-April 20, 1980)

Noel Ramsey (1893-?)

Thomas N. (1896-1937)

Daisey (after 1900)

Clara Eubanks Dill was my great grandmother.  We're consulting my Uncle Bill for more stories about her. 

I found a 1900 Census record taken the the Lincolnton, Georgia population.  Lou was written "Lori" and poor Noel Ramsey was listed as a son!  Dumb census taker.  At least I know that my great aunt Noel felt the same pain I have felt, in always being assumed as male.  My grandmother, mother, and first cousin are all Noels.  You should've seen my mom go after the undergraduate admissions people at my future college, for nearly putting me in the boys dorm!

Clara's father, John Peter Dill was of Scots Irish descent as well.  The surname Dill comes from MacDougall.  I make the assumption, because there are Dills from Germany as well, that the Dills were Scots Irish because they had slaves and many early German immigrants sold themselves into indentured service to witness to the slaves rather than hope to own some.  I live in Moravian country right now, so I know.    Every image search I have done for an image of "Historic Lincoln" and "Historic Columbia" counties has yielded slave sale records insteadof big pretty houses.  End of story.

John Peter Dill was the son of Peter Coleman Dill and Mary Ann Bentley of Columbia County, Georgia.   Peter was a Lodge member in Haysville.  Is that like an Elk or a Mason?  John had an older sister named Ann, and a little brother named Joseph William.  John Peter Dill was named for his great grandfather, Peter Dill (1770-1837) of Virginia, who moved the family to Columbia County.  Puzzle pieces connected, researcher exhausted but happy.