Monday, November 4, 2024

Those Colorful Characters

This week's #52 Ancestors prompt is "Colorful". While I do have some colorful characters in my family, the prompt made me wonder about the people in my family who had names of color. And I did find a few of them. 

The first name I encountered was BLACK. None of these were direct ancestors but were by marriage and from Scotland. I had some very distant BROWNs. Again, most of these were from Scotland, but some were from various places around the U.S. Brown was a common name - I had quite a few in my database. 

I encountered a couple of CHERRYs that married into my McClerran family including a Henry Clay Cherry. I found a couple of GOLDs and GOLDENs that married into the family and a couple of GRAYs. 

Barbara GREEN, born about 1760 in North Carolina, was my 5th great-grandmother. She married Thomas Travis and together they had at least 11 children. One of their sons, Thomas Travis, married my 5th great-aunt Elizabeth and then ran away with her sister Margaret. It was a scandal that deserves its own story.

Of course, I have some LEMONs that married into the family (in more ways than one) and found a couple of SCARLETs. I have one lonely TEAL who is unrelated but married into the family. Lastly, there are some WHITEs who married into the family.

Of course, my family is more colorful than this, but looking through the list for these people with names of colors was a quick and fun exercise!!