Getting to know the neighbors, so to speak

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cemeteries, Columbus Georgia, Georgia, Narcis Pinkard, Porterdale Cemetery

A few years ago, I discovered that my great-great-grandmother Narcis Pinkard (1864-1934) was buried in Porterdale Cemetery in Columbus, Ga. This cemetery is also the final resting place of quite a few notable black Georgians. Among them:

• Gertrude “Ma Rainey” Pridgett (1886-1939): nicknamed the Mother of the Blu
  

  Ma Rainey, nicknamed the Mother of the Blues, is buried in Porterdale Cemetery in Columbus, Ga., which is also where my great-great-grandmother Narcis Pinkard is buried.

  es, Ma Rainey was one of the first blues singers to record music. She got her start by performing in live vaudeville shows and went on to record with jazz legend Louis Armstrong and noted bandleader Tommy Dorsey. She eventually returned to her hometown of Columbus, where she ran three theaters and served as a church musician.

• Rev. Primus King (1900-1986): a Baptist minister and civil rights leader whose 1944 lawsuit protesting Georgia’s all-white primary resulted in all citizen being granted the right to register and vote.
• Alfonso Biggs (1904-2003): a master chef who cooked for three U.S. presidents– Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower.

  My great-great grandmother is likely buried in an unmarked grave; the record from the funeral home indicates she was buried at Porterdale, but an online search of her grave’s location didn’t reveal anything.

Four generations and counting

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cemeteries, Columbus Georgia, genealogy, Georgia, Hamilton, Muscogee County, Pinkard, Porterdale Cemetery, vital records

Just when I thought I had hit a dead end on my Pinkard research, I happened upon a new vital record– the death certificate for my great-great-grandmother, Narcis Pinkard– and one more generation to add to the family tree.

You may recall that I found her name listed among those buried at Porterdale Cemetery in Columbus, Ga. Those records listed her death as 1934. The official death record confirms this, and also lists her father as Henry Hamilton.

Hamilton. I’m connecting all sorts of dots with this discovery.

Last year, I came across a Hamilton in a Census. His name was John, and in 1900 he lived with Ike and Narcis Pinkard, my great-great-grandparents. I now realize that the Henry Hamilton living next door to the Pinkards was more than likely John and Narcis’ father.

An unexpected find:Piecing together the Pinkard puzzle

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Georgia, Pinkard, Porterdale Cemetery

A map of Chattahoochee County, Georgia

Tracing the maternal side of my family is decidedly more difficult than the paternal side. I don’t have the luxury of calling up my maternal grandparents, their siblings or cousins. I can’t take a road trip to my mother’s childhood home in Omaha, Ga.– the last time we visited, in 2004, the dirt road leading to the home was blocked off, a “no trespassing” sign dangling from a  chained security gate.

I depend heavily on records to help fill in the gaps of the scarce oral history on my mom’s side. The availability of the records online is a real benefit.

Unfortunately, I can’t remember exactly what I was doing when I stumbled across this web site, but I was excited when it gave me another clue to my Pinkard relatives. don’t know who manages this site, but it gives information on cemeteries in an  around Columbus, Ga. This is the area where my mother’s relatives have lived since the 19th century. According to this, my great-great grandmother, Narsis Pinkard, is buried at Porterdale Cemetery in Columbus. It also lists her death date as 1934, which provided me a defined time span to research records.

Until I stumbled across this site, I believed that Narsis Pinkard had died sometime between 1910 and 1920, since I wasn’t able to find any records of her after 1910. It also lists her as being born in 1864, which is fairly in line with the other dates I had for her. (Because she was illiterate, it’s possible she didn’t know exactly when she was born).

I asked my mom if she knew anything about Porterdale Cemetery and/or the Pinkards living in Columbus. She said many Pinkards did, in fact, live in the Columbus area, including the city proper and in Cusseta, which is in neighborhing Chattahoochee County, Ga.

And speaking of Chattahoochee County, I found an 1890 tax list that listed Ike Pinkard, Narcis’ husband and my great-great grandfather, as a freedman. Stay tuned for a glimpse of what life was like for a an ex-slave living in southwest Georgia near the end of the 19th century…