by
Jan Garbett
You
pull out a photo you took
30 years ago and hardly remember the details, you
turn it around to see if you had presence of mind to identify it. If you did,
you can easily jump back into the connection of that time and place. Who
would think with the distance of over 100 years and 3000 miles that I could
piece together family we’ve never known? Thanks to the internet and modern
technology it is easier today than ever before. In the Spring of 2003 I
received an email from someone who had visited the Redd family web site
asking me if an old photo their parents had bought at a garage sale might be
one of our Redds. I certainly didn’t recognize her, but gratefully someone
had written on the back of this photograph taken by Jesse Harrell in Suffolk, Virginia: Mollie F.
Redd Myrtle Nansemond County Va.
For
two years this picture has circulated via the internet on this web site without any response. In the meantime census records
have become ever more accessible on-line and interlibrary loans make it
possible to order microfilms and view them anywhere in the country. It was a
combination of checking census data and reading Nansemond vital records that
one day gave me the ah hah moment. Carolyn Nell, the professional researcher
who lives in Virginia has been working on the Redds since 1988 had pieced
together a family of Allen Redd and Mahala Willis. Working in conjuction with
her from miles away here at my home in Utah I discoved a widower Allen Redd
remarry Mary Adealine Aichen on marriage records loaned from Virginia to my
home state of Utah. They have a son Gusavus who in 1882 marries 18 year old
Mollie F Pruden in Nansemond. Our mystery Mollie sitting on this site for two years is finally found. In fact, in an effort to
contact relative Redds in Virginia I got lucky enough to call her Grandson
who still lives in Virginia. His name will sound familiar: John H Redd.
