A Date of Death

Rejoined Ancestry and found an updated Family Tree from another Canty Cousin and low and behold was a date and place of death.  9 Nov 41 in Beaufort, South Carolina.  There were no records to back this up but I'm hoping with an actual place and date I can send for a certificate.  I feel like I am closer to this grandfather than the ones I had more information about to start with.  I have searched, and turned over stones, and been to many many genealogy classes and I feel I now understand the story of his life.  I'll never know why he left his original family but I suspect he was homesick for the South.  A long history of calling the Low Country home.  On the other hand, my Grandma Fanny had an even longer relationship to the North.  Of course, there is more to this than we'll ever know, but I feel like I have graduated from the child who lost her mother at 5 years of age and knew very little about her and the extended family, to a woman who knows more than even her mother did about this family.  It is a special time we live in to have these answers at our finger tips.  I feel at peace and I am glad to share this story with my sons and their family.

Another Divorce

Continued searching has led me to another census report showing that Grandpa Canty and Mamie, his second wife, divorced.  He ends up back in South Carolina in a place called Bluffton.  I wonder if my mother knew anything about him or if they ever connected?  I don't suppose I'll find the answer to their personal relationship, but I do know it was a possibility.

The Quest and Finding Answers

Wow, has it been this long since I've updated my Quest for the Canty family?  Amazing.  It is also amazing the answers I have found since I last checked in.  Yes, I can confirm that my Great Grandfather James Alex CANTY was born on St. Catherine's Island.  It took a while to get from "St. Sincath" to St. Catherine's but I did arrive.  Evidently Great Grandpa was born on this island back in the 1860 era while his father Thomas H CANTEY (the spelling goes back and forth) was working as an overseer on a plantation owned by Jacob Waldburg, a man with 255 slaves.  I was shocked to learn this and dismayed.  I am curious to find out more and will continue to search the facts.  Isn't it interesting how history becomes so personal when family connections bring it alive?

In my quest for Grandpa Canty, I have found answers as well.  The last information was that he lived in Clyo GA and then I lost him.  However, it turns out he remarried and moved to Savannah, GA.  Lost him again around 1930 which I think is more than likely when he passed away.  I am going to try to get a death certificate.