Getting to Georgia

 

If the goal this month is to research a family which had originally lived in Virginia, how did they get to Georgia?

Though we are barely into the month of March and the third of my Twelve Most Wanted research topics—Thomas Firth Rainey—I can already see that while this third great-grandfather may have spent his adult life raising a family in Georgia, he claimed to have been born in Virginia. What made a young resident of one of the leading locations of the nascent United States decide to move elsewhere?

On the surface, the reason might seem to do with Thomas Rainey's choice of a bride, for he married a Georgia-born woman by the name of Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro. But even her maiden name told me that this, too, was a family name known for its roots in Virginia.

As it turns out, that connection between the Raineys and the Taliaferros may have revealed only a small part of a larger circle of Virginians who all decided to head south to Georgia. That migration may have reached back to the days of the American Revolutionary War, when support for colonial military action was weaker in Georgia than in the other American colonies. Some of the early recruits sent to serve in Georgia were actually from Virginia. The second Georgia regiment formed in 1776, for instance, was comprised of eight companies of men from Virginia.

Whether any men from the Rainey family were among those recruits, I can't yet say, though I do know that a Taliaferro relative of Thomas' future wife did serve in Georgia. After the war, though, a small group of Virginian Continental soldiers returned to Georgia, remembering that they liked what they had seen there. They petitioned the legislature for a grant of 200,000 acres, which was provided upon the condition that two hundred families would be brought into the settlement.

That group of settlers arrived and claimed land in the Broad River valley, a location which, before 1790, was part of Wilkes County. Beginning in 1790, Wilkes County was divided to form a number of smaller counties. Among those newer counties was Oglethorpe County, the same county where, in 1818, Thomas Rainey took Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro as his bride.

Was the Rainey family part of that migration of two hundred Virginia families to Georgia after the Revolution? I can't yet say, but I do know that Mary Elizabeth's extended Taliaferro family was among those Broad River settlers. It may be possible that that was the same reason that drew Thomas Rainey's family to the area as well. If I can find census records, land records, or even tax records for that area during that time period, it may help to locate any families there claiming that same Rainey surname.

When There Isn't Much to Go By

 

Beggars can't be choosers, as the saying goes. When there isn't much to go by, we must take what we can get. In the case of my fourth great-grandfather Thomas Rainey, he didn't leave much of a paper trail. That, however, is understandable; this pre-Civil War resident of Georgia may likely have been one of the many southern residents whose records subsequent to his death were destroyed by fire, flood, or even wartime casualties.

There are a few clues we can go by, however—weak leads, but possibilities, nonetheless. Keeping in mind my role as the Genealogy Guinea Pig, I'm willing to test any theory.

After searching hopelessly for more documentation—side note: reading court records can put you to sleep at any time of day—I decided to take a cue from some of the names in Thomas Rainey's own family.

First on my list was the patriarch, himself. Written in the records I found as "Thomas F. Rainey," I wondered what the "F." could mean. Though none of the documents I already located divulged the answer to that question, I did notice two clues. One was the fact that his namesake son was called Thomas Firth Rainey, as was that man's son after him. The other was that, apparently, other family members among Find a Grave volunteers had inserted that information on Thomas' own memorial on that website. Firth might be a clue worth keeping in mind.

If I couldn't find anything from that first clue, I could take a more indirect route and trace Thomas' wife. After all, the two of them would have met up somewhere. What was their connection? Finding the history of Thomas' wife Mary might give us a more well-rounded picture.

However, relying on the marriage record itself to guide us in finding Thomas' in-laws would not be a wise move. The minister, Nicholas Powers, had entered Mary's maiden name as "Talafero." Her real family name, as it turned out, was Taliaferro—as we have already seen from her baby daughter's impossibly long name, Mary Elizabeth Warren Taliaferro Rainey. Why the minister couldn't get Mary's maiden name right is beyond me; at about the same time as Reverend Powers performed the ceremony for the young Rainey couple, he himself married the new Mrs. Rainey's widowed mother, Mrs. Mary Taliaferro.

If that detail doesn't sound complicating enough, it is important to know that the young Rainey couple named their first son Warren Taliaferro Rainey, after Mary Taliaferro Rainey's father. And when that son died young in his twenties, the couple must have decided to name a subsequent child by that same name in order to honor Mrs. Rainey's deceased father. The only problem was that that next child turned out to be a daughter, not a son.

With all of that family detail—even if much of it was about the in-laws—we may have enough to search for the nexus between the two families. And that nexus might lie buried in the details of what convinced a number of colonial Virginia families to move the distance to the borderlands of Georgia. 

Beginning at the End

 

It is interesting to read family history assertions noted by other researchers who evidently had missed the details of one or more pertinent documents. Such may have been the case, yesterday, when I mentioned a July, 1988, query from a Rainey researcher who had provided a list of "all" Thomas Rainey's children. As it happened, there was at least one family name missing—that of my second great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Warren Taliaferro Rainey. 

Beginning our search at the end of Thomas Rainey's life helps to fill in the picture, for there in his will, he specifically records his youngest daughter's full—and unusually long—name. Drawn up in October of 1857, the document was not entered into the record in the county of his last residence—according to the 1850 census, that would have been Coweta County, Georgia—but in the now-extinct Campbell County.

The 1850 census itself wouldn't have provided the full picture of Thomas Rainey's family, for Mary Elizabeth Warren Taliaferro Rainey had not yet been born. Not until her father's death could I find any confirmation of her birth—and that, only from inferences based on those two documents. Orphaned at a young age, then dying shortly after her own marriage, Mary Elizabeth was for a long time the missing link who kept me from connecting her to Thomas' Rainey family line.

Now, Thomas apparently has become the next pivot point in the Rainey generations. We can move from the point of his last testament filed in Campbell County, to his 1850 residence in Coweta County, and then jump to his possible residence, according to the 1820 census, in Oglethorpe County, the same Georgia location where he had married only two years earlier. But then what?

Pushing Thomas back to his origin in Virginia—his reported state of birth, according to the 1850 census—would be a different matter. No steady procession of documents could easily point the way to the late 1700s. There were, however, a few clues we could consider from what we already know. Those hints are certainly worth the try to follow.

Chasing Unanswered Questions

 

Back in July of 1988, someone from Texas posted a query in a genealogical publication called Rainey Times.

That researcher basically asked the same question I'm chasing after, nearly thirty eight years later: Who were the parents of Thomas F. Rainey? Perhaps that curious researcher back in Texas might have found the answer to that question by now, but I certainly haven't. This will be my month to see if I can.

I have some ideas about this third great-grandfather of mine, but so far, I've failed to produce satisfactory documentation linking him to his past. I did manage to discover that his middle initial—F.—likely stands for Firth. And I've also realized that the very child who is missing from that 1988 listing happened to be my own second great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Warren Taliaferro Rainey (yes, that was indeed her full name).

There has been a lot of time invested in learning more about this family over the years. Tracing back to those roots leading to the Rainey line has been information hard won. But I can't let that brick wall remain standing; I selected Thomas Firth Rainey as the third of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026 in hopes of pressing back at least one more generation to his past.

While I know that Thomas Firth Rainey spent most of his adult life in the state of Georgia—marrying in Oglethorpe County in 1818 and dying in Coweta County in 1858—there is a possibility that his origin was in Virginia. At least, that's what he reported for his entry in the 1850 U.S. Census. This month will hopefully tell more of that tale.

Image of query from Rainey Times above is courtesy of the actual insertion, as shown at Ancestry.com; the image of the publication's July 1988 cover is courtesy of FamilySearch.org where the entire Volume 8 is available to view.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

 

The start of each month has me facing forward, looking at the plans from this year's Twelve Most Wanted for the upcoming month. When that starting date falls on a Sunday of my biweekly count, it also has me looking backwards at what I've accomplished in family history pursuits for the past two weeks.

Since February had me examining colonial records to see what could be discovered about my fourth great-grandfather Job Tyson—hint: it wasn't much—I didn't think I had made much progress on my family tree. Surprise: the numbers told a story that was a bit more encouraging.

Though progress wasn't galloping forward at my usual two-hundred-plus rate of the past few reports this year, in the past two weeks, I did manage to round up records for an additional 148 ancestors and their collateral lines.

Much of this was thanks to examining DNA matches linked to the Tyson line of descent, as I brought several lines down to the present time through solid documentation. There is much more work to be done on these Tyson descendants, despite my inability to identify Job's parents yet. Hopefully, in a future year, I'll narrow the possibilities from the three locations which were under consideration this month, possibly through inferences, as actual documentation has, so far, eluded me.

Bottom line in looking back is that I now have 41,722 documented individuals in my family tree. It's growing slowly but steadily. Research attempts like this month's quest to find Job Tyson's origin may have gone especially slowly, but future months may fare better.

For this upcoming month, we'll turn our attention from the coastal Georgia home where Job Tyson spent his adult years to another southern ancestor. For March, that featured research project will involve finding the roots of yet another Georgian ancestor, my third great-grandfather Thomas Firth Rainey. Again, this will be a man whose adult life can be documented through records in Georgia, but his connection to the past will involve finding colonial connections, this time possibly in Virginia.

Tomorrow, we'll take a closer look at what has already been found concerning Thomas Firth Rainey. 

Community and Collaboration

 

While "community" and "collaboration" may have been the keywords around which our local family history class is focusing this semester, these words are also reflected in another way I've been reaching out, lately.

That way is connecting with individuals across the country who are also researching the same ancestors who have stumped me for years. In one particular case, those ancestors are the predecessors of my Polish paternal grandfather. Fortunately for me, there are a few others working online who are also struggling to piece together that same family line, an ocean away from that Polish homeland.

It is so encouraging to find another researcher who takes the same level of care in assuring that every statement in a family tree is supported by documentation. Over the past few months, I had noticed one Ancestry subscriber who had been seeking those same records, attaching them to the family tree, making careful notes. Turns out, that person was also my DNA match—distant, but a genetic connection. I decided to reach out by email and see what would happen.

Often, when we make such a move, in reply, we get...nothing. That kind of disappointment may make us shy away from trying to connect with anyone else. But if we never take that first step, we don't get the chance to connect with a family member who may know just the details we've been seeking.

Fortunately, in this case, I did hear back. Ever since that initial contact, my DNA cousin and I have been comparing notes and strategizing on next steps for finding our way around our brick wall ancestors. The collaboration has been energizing. And while this way of reaching out doesn't necessarily create "community" in the way an in-person genealogy class might, assembling a small group of researchers dedicated to finding the same answers does indeed foster a sense of community, even if it connects through email.

The more I think of such experiences, the more I think it is time for us to shed that image of the solitary researcher's genealogy-in-bunny-slippers and bring ourselves and our fellow researchers out into the daylight where we can work together, even if only virtually. There is no one like another "genie" who gets it when we finally find the answer we've searched for, year after year. Even if we are not researching the same ancestor, we find joy in hearing about others' research victories—sometimes, we even learn from those victories, as well.

The strength of what we are doing comes from collaboration. If great numbers of people hadn't come together to assemble collections of record sets, or develop ways to preserve documents, or become the way-finder to point others to the right collection, where would genealogy be today? On a smaller scale, if it weren't for the local groups of people who helped each other learn and improve their research skills, many of us would not have been able to find as much as we have concerning our roots.

Sure, technology has played a big part in the many advancements we enjoy today, but technology alone can't leave that personal touch that makes family history come alive. Community and collaboration have both been in genealogy's history. They need to continue being part of the balancing act with technology that allows genealogy as a pursuit to become meaningful to many in the future. 

Less Than a Week

 

Less than a week away, the first sessions of RootsTech 2026 will open the most-anticipated genealogy event of the year. While it may be too late to purchase tickets and fly to Salt Lake City to attend in person, the online option is free to attend, and it's not too late to choose your preferred classes.

Sessions of this international conference begin on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 4, and run nearly around the clock through a full day that Saturday—and even into the wee hours of Sunday, March 8, for the benefit of those viewers who live halfway around the world.

Setting up a watch schedule is easy on the RootsTech scheduler. The hardest part, perhaps, might be assembling a workable watch list; there are so many choices. No matter; those sessions which have been recorded will be available for you to watch at your leisure for months to come. The real trick may just be remembering to watch all the goodies you've selected for yourself from this genealogy candy shoppe.

Since I've recently been wrestling with my Polish ancestry, I was glad to see there were class selections for that particular subject. But if Polish is not your family's story, there are other possibilities to view: French, German, or Italian for those of European heritage, for instance. But the picture expands so much farther than that. There are several sessions on researching Chinese or Japanese roots. Classes of interest to those seeking their African, Jewish, or Native American roots mingle with the forward-thinking meetings involving emerging technologies, such as AI use for genealogy.

Some of the most convenient resources we use today in our search for the history of our ancestors were first introduced to researchers at past RootsTech conferences. This is the place to discover the latest developments in that quest to tap into our ancestors' past, as well as hone our researching skills and broaden our knowledge base in the process. 

While nothing can replace the excitement of attending RootsTech in person at the Salt Palace, the online experience does what it can to include viewers in the full RootsTech experience. Classes provide a chat channel specific to each session's topic. You can opt in to search for Relatives at RootsTech. There's even an Online Expo Hall Tour. 

Who knows? At RootsTech, you might discover your latest can't-live-without-this research tool—or better yet, find a cousin to collaborate with on that mutual brick-wall ancestor.