Genealogy of the Brasstown NC Area

            Collected by Mrs. John C. Campbell in 1935

 

 

Mr. and Mrs. John C. Campbell toured the Appalachian area looking for a site for a folk school based on the Danish folkehojskole.  After his death in 1919, Olive and her friend, Marguerite Butler, continued the search and with the help of the Brasstown community (Clay and Cherokee Counties in Western North Carolina), John C. Campbell Folk School was formed there in 1925.  To learn more about this school, see http://www.folkschool.org .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1935, Mrs. Campbell and several helpers interviewed members of this community and compiled Brasstown genealogy on sheets of paper 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches.  These were described very precisely using a combination of diagrams and descendancy charts.  There are 286 pages of these notes.  See example to left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, Mrs. Campbell typed 3 of the larger families, using the same format, onto sheets of paper that are 14 inches wide and 15 inches high.  Pages were then taped together side by side and folded accordion-style.  One family, the Greens, has 64 pages.  This set is 896 inches wide when opened.  The other two families were Brendle and Clayton.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1984, information about the three families listed above was typed, outline-style (for example, see OUTLINE ) by a few members of a local genealogical society, and it was printed in the issue of Summer 1985, Volume II, Number III.  The Southwestern Genealogical Society Quarterly was published from Winter 1984 (Volume I, Number I) through Fall 1994 (Volume XI, Number IV).  Copies are in the public libraries in Murphy, Hayesville, Andrews, and Robbinsville.  Each of these 44 issues has a surname index at the back.  A compilation of all these surname indexes was created in 1997, plus the tables of contents.  For a list of the articles, see SWGS .

 

Genealogy was taught at Campbell Folk School by Mrs. Campbell and has been offered through the years.  Currently, classes have been offered since 1995.  Students appreciate the diligent work that Mrs. Campbell did in preserving the family history of this area.   For a list of genealogy and other classes, see http://www.folkschool.org/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Campbell also transcribed other family history data.  Click CEM/BIBLE to read the 1935 listing of Green Cove Cemetery in Clay County, the Brasstown Baptist Church Cemetery in Cherokee County, and the data from the Green Family Bible in possession of Jane Sales, about 1937.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In August 2000, the local Genealogy Study Group toured the History Center at Campbell, a museum that shows the school’s development since 1925.  It was a treat to view these old records that Mrs. Campbell compiled.  Several members were interested in keying in the data so that it could be shared on the Internet.  Mary McClure Nichols typed the 3 families from the journal and 2 families from copies of the small pages.   Marie Benge Craig Roth typed the remainder of the data, using the small sheets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gedcom files of these 2,234 persons are located at World Connect,                  http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=campbellgen
Summary of major surnames	Number of persons	Number of marriages
BRENDLE	154	48
CARRINGER	318	99
CLAYTON	151	45
GREEN	502	142
GREENE/ARRANT	107	37
SCROGGS	78	24
MISC.	924	336
TOTALS	2,234	731

 

 

 

No editing was used on this data.  The information has few dates and few places.  No further genealogical information is available at Campbell Folk School.  It is hoped that researchers will be able to add ancestors to their research.

If the gedcom files are used in PAF, notice that a small triangle to the right of the name denotes that there are notes about the person.  PAF can be downloaded free from the Internet at http://www.familysearch.org .  Click tab that says “order/download products”.

 

Webpage designed by Marie Benge Craig Roth, March 2002.