Fortner-Porter Cemetery, Hinds County, Mississippi

It all started in February 2011 when I contacted an individual named Carol Hughes about her post on an Ancestry.com message board.  According to the post, Carol and I were researching the same individual, Anastacia Porter Lawson Porter. Known as "Gracy" to family members, Anastacia was the second wife of William Porter, who died in Hinds County, Mississippi in the 1800s. According to most accounts, William Porter was the son of Landlot Porter and Winnie Palmer Porter. More about the Porter family of Hinds County, Mississippi can be read here. 


Shortly before reading Carol's post on the message board, I had read about a small family cemetery near Raymond, Mississippi that allegedly contained the graves of Gracy, her husband, William, his father, Landlot Porter, and other Porter and Fortner family members. I shared this information in an email to Carol, and was struck with amazement when I received her reply telling me that she lived within a few miles of the cemetery's  location.  Although she had no previous knowledge of the cemetery's existence, Carol readily volunteered to locate it and kindly offered to photograph whatever headstones she might find. As most of us know, family obligations, weather, and life in general often take precedence over family research activities, and almost a year went by before Carol was able to make the trip to the cemetery. Although Carol had actually located the cemetery this past January, she discovered it was located on private property and permission to access the property was needed from the owner. 



But Carol was persistent, and on February 20, 2011, her visit to the cemetery became a reality, albeit a bittersweet one. Although the cemetery is located on privately owned property, it has been vandalized and some of the heavier stones and monuments have been toppled.  Gracy Porter's stone was one of those that had been overturned. Landlot Porter's grave marker is still standing, and with Carol's permission, I have posted a photo of it here today.  

Finding Your Ancestral Home

As a family researcher, I am always looking for information and photos about where my ancestors actually lived. I want to know how they lived, what they did for a living, where they went to church or synagogue, and how and where they were educated. Several months ago, during a moment of genealogical curiosity, I decided to search the National Register of Historic Places to see if any of my ancestors' names were attached to places listed there. Not only did I find photos of the old Porter homestead in Mississippi, I found photos of three historic houses named for other ancestors who lived in Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. So, if you have some brick walls to be broken down, or at least scaled, take a look at the list.  Maybe you will find your ancestral home and the other resources needed to make your brick wall crumble.


Note:  Mississippi's Register of Historic Places can be accessed here.

Finding the Raglands

Searching for the graves of a few of my ancestors, including members of the Ragland Family, has been like an Easter egg hunt - especially for those who died before 1850.  Although I knew where they lived in Mississippi at one time, often based on a marriage date, I often had virtually no information about where they lived at the time of their deaths.  


One of my own rules for research, regardless of the situation, has always been "Go with what you know." And it was with this philosophy, that I began my search for the grave sites of Ragland family members in Hinds County, Mississippi, since I already knew that Winiford Ragland and Edward Tillman Branch, my third great-grandparents, were married there in 1833.  With a little luck, I found the graves of three Ragland family members buried in Palestine Cemetery, in Hinds County, near Raymond, Mississippi. Buried in this small rural cemetery are Elizabeth Smith Ragland, my paternal great-great-great-great-grandmother, who died in 1850, and two of her children, Arthur S. Ragland and his sister, Mary V. Ragland. 

As was the case then, and now, as well, parents named their children for sisters and brothers.  And this was exactly what Winiford and Edward Branch did when they named two of their children for Winiford's brother, Arthur S. Ragland, and for her sister, Mary V. Ragland. According to the U.S. Census recorded in 1850 for Attala County, Mississippi, "Auther" Joseph Branch (Arthur Joseph, later known simply as "Joe") was 12 years old.  Later, Joe would become the father of Clark Commander Branch, my paternal grandfather, and over one hundred years later, one of my brothers would be named for him. In 1860, the U.S. Census shows that Winiford and Edward had a daughter, Mary V. Branch, likely named for her mother's sister who died before the six year old was born.

For photos of these Ragland family members' grave stones, please visit Cemeteries of Dancing Rabbit Creek.  


Source Information:
Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch; Accessed 10/31/2010.
Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Accessed 10/31/2010.
Find-A-Grave, Palestine Cemetery, Hinds County, Mississippi; Site accessed on 10/30/2010.