Great Finding!

This is why I stay up until 1 in the morning! Tonight while doing some newspaper transcription, I had a great discovery.

For the past couple of years, I have been transcribing old issues of  The Roanoke Beacon. This is the newspaper of Plymouth (Washington County), North Carolina.  My maternal grandmother and practically all of her family and ancestors are from Plymouth and neighboring Tarboro, so I’d always hoped that I’d find something relevant for my family.   I didn’t expect to find much until early to mid 1900s, but tonight I found the death notice of one of my 3rd great-grandfathers, Prince Walker.
The notice from the February 24th, 1899 issue states that he died near his home and was about 90 years old. This is fairly close to what I’d estimated his birth to be from census records.  He is also described as a ” ‘fore the war darky,” which I take to mean he went along with social norms of the day on how blacks were to behave with whites.  According to the article, Prince died Febrary 22nd, 1899.

Prince was born in North Carolina and was married to Lovie Boston.  They had at least 8 children, their son Anthony W. Walker being my ancestor.  Anthony and wife Martha Jane Baker were the parents of Martha Jane Walker.  Martha Jane Walker was the mother of my maternal grandmother, Alice.  This Walker line is one that I know I have several gaps to fill, but I’ve not made concerted effort to get in contact with many Walker relatives.  There are a few that I know I can share this with, but maybe this will inspire me to work harder.  I am too thrilled!
Last night I had another discovery that I think may be relevant to my husband’s aunt, but I’ll save that for another blogging day.