Southern Pryor Family Genealogy
January 2nd will mark a beginning and an end. There will be no future posts on the TennesseePryors website and Facebook group. If you want to stay in touch and get updates on my Pryor research, please see therecordlady.com
The new beginning starts with the launch of a special project on January 2nd at therecordlady.com.
Interest in genealogy starts somewhere. Maybe it begins with stories of the “olden days” told by a relative, or it may start when looking at old photograph albums. My journey started when I was a child and my dad showed me a family tree sketched out on a brown paper bag. All the relatives who had gathered for a funeral and meal afterwards contributed their memories of kin to build the tree. I was hooked on this connection to family.
While working on my family tree I started the Tennessee Pryor website. A few decades ago I was making regular visits to the LDS Family History Library in Santa Monica, California. I collected boxes of data from records available in books and microfilms at the library. After moving the boxes several times, including a trans-Atlantic move, I decided to use my skills as a web developer to create a website to store all these notes. The website grew as Pryor researchers contacted me with more information.
Fast-forward to 2020 and to the pandemic no one expected. It should be an ancient proverb: With great change comes opportunity. 2020 was my opportunity to take (and pass) the Boston University course in genealogical research. It has been likened to taking in genealogy through a firehose. It was a lot of information in a short period of time, with an intense homework schedule. Thank goodness for the pandemic because the one thing it gave us was a brief period of time to explore new things.
While my genealogical journey has a definite beginning, it has not ended. There’s no end in sight. As I explored other genealogical research, I slowed down posts to the Tennessee Pryors website. I have written several articles for the Tennessee Genealogical Society and an article for the Illinois State Genealogical Society about a family (not the Pryors) who disappeared from records when they moved into “Unorganized Territory.”
I hope you will follow my genealogical journey as it evolves and move into new areas. My new website is TheRecordLady.com. This is where I will post sketches, stories, and updates. Updates are also posted on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/the1recordlady. I’ve been working on an exciting project that I will be sharing on the this new website next week.
Just Imported In the Schooner Bacchus from the West-Indies, and to be sold at Mr. William A. Bayley’s Store by Wholesale, for Cash only… Samuel Pryor Who will sell the above named Schooner, Now lying at Colonel Newton’s Wharf, very low, and will take in payment, Cash, Tobacco, Military Certificates, or good Bonds—-She is about four years old, burthen about ninety hogsheads tobacco, and a prime sailer.
As summer came to an end in September 1840 coach makers in Norfolk put an ad in the Richmond Whig for a runaway apprentice: Samuel Philip Pryor. Pryor was 19 years old and described as having kin in King and Queen County, VA–it’s unclear if they were Pryor relatives or another surname. There are Pryors who were coachmakers in Baltimore. Wonder if there was a connection.
Richmond Whig (Richmond, VA), 1 September 1840.
It’s not often that we find early Pryors entering the U.S., so happy to pass on information of two (or is it three?) Pryors who arrived more than 200 years ago.
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