Hello and Welcome to E Day of the A to Z Challenge!
Name:
Elizabeth Thompson
Vital Information:
It is believed that Elizabeth was born in 1798 and died in 1857 in North Carolina, USA.
Relation to Me:
Elizabeth is my maternal 4x great grandma.
Tidbits/Characteristics/Commonalities:
Elizabeth remains, largely, an enigma as I haven’t been able to learn much about her beyond her marriage to her husband, James Buller/Bullar in June of 1811 (which would have made her only 13 years old, while James would have been 16) and the birth of her first son, Daniel (my 3x great grandma), in February of 1814.
Yes, I fully understand that very young marriages happened, especially in the wilds of North Carolina at the time, but it is still hard to wrap my head around sometimes.
Adding to the mystery of this branch and some of my research challenges is the surname change of Elizabeth’s son Daniel in adulthood. It seems he and his father had some sort of falling out and Daniel chose to drop the name Buller/Bullar (I’ve yet to decipher which spelling might be correct) and adopt the surname Lindsey, presumably around the time he left North Carolina and made his home in Indiana.
In Your Research…
Do you wonder about the women in your lineage that have little documentation about their lives? What do you wish you could know about the women in your lines?
Housekeeping
My theme for the 2025 A to Z Challenge is Kin! The first names of direct lineage kin, to be more specific.
I’m spending the majority of the month focusing on the first names of many of my direct lineage kin. I’ll include their full names, any vital information I’ve found in my research, their relation to me, any fun tidbits/characteristics/experiences, and any commonalities I may have gleaned between myself and them.
In a couple of cases, where I have not identified an ancestor whose first name starts with a particular letter, I will choose a unique middle name, a direct line surname, and/or ancestral lands/places of significance.
Pop over here to read my full theme reveal: A to Z 2025 Challenge Theme Reveal: Kin
Pop over here to visit our host and see what they’re up to throughout this year’s challenge: A to Z Challenge
If you’re visiting from the A to Z Challenge please leave a comment so I can visit you, too! If your comment bio doesn’t link back to your site, please feel free to add the link to your most recent post to the comment field so I can be sure to find you.
Thanks for being here! See you again soon!
Onward,
Melissa
I actually have more information about the women in my ancestry. I only go back to the early 1800s and don’t even have the names of the males due to them being enslaved. Often I have a photo of the woman and none of the man even after slave times.
How interesting? Do you have a theory on why that might be? A reverence for the matriarchy? There is a loss when anyone is left out of the picture, but my heart does yearn for the women in my line.
I’m still amazed at all you’ve been able to discover about your family history. Well done!!
Donna: Click for my 2025 A-Z Blog
Thank you, Donna! I enjoy it all so much!
In India, this was quite a recent thing – to be married at 13. My paternal grandmother was married at 13, my dad was born when she was 14. But she never fact this fact and lived a good, full life till 85. Cultures change over time and I think in previous generations many things were okay that are unacceptable now and vice versa. You put so much research on your posts, it’s nice to read them.
*minded this fact
Thank you for sharing the story of your grandparents. I am so glad they knew a good life together. While I know it can work, and had has worked for so many over time, I just think about my two daughters and cannot fathom it. I guess it’s a good thing I was born when and where I was.
I do think a lot about young marriages in history (I don’t have a lot of sources on my family tree). People often brush them off as “different times” and “they were considered more mature then”. But in the end they were still kids.
The Multicolored Diary
Yes, this is where my thoughts land. Still just so young.
As an aside, I have a cousin who had a son so young that when I tried to add them onto my Ancestry tree I got a warning that my cousin wasn’t old enough to be a father. Little does AI know 😉
Melissa, where do you look up your family history? I have always had an interest in digging into mine, but I’m never sure where to start.
Great post.
Hi! I build my tree on Ancestry(dot)com and get my records from a variety of places. I started with notes from my maternal Grandma and her (working) memoir to build our basic tree and went from there. Ancestry is a great jumping off point, but I also utilize newspapers(dot)com, historical societies, National Archives, Libraries local to who I am researching (Research Librarians are my favorite people on the planet), and other genealogy sites for my documentation. I’m happy to chat more with you about this at any time 🙂 It’s my favorite hobby!
Wow, getting married at 13… I just can’t wrap my head around that. Perhaps because our society allows children to be children far longer than they were allowed to be pre-Industrial Revolution. We weren’t even allowed weekends until the turn of the 19th century. So interesting!
Ronel visiting for A-Z Challenge Everlasting Life & My Languishing TBR: E #AtoZChallenge2025 #Books #Bookreview
Hi Ronel! It really is such an interesting topic to reflect on, isn’t it? Present day has plenty of its own challenges, but I sure am glad that (in general) kids get to be kids a bit longer.