Feature Friday posts will feature relevant information from a chosen online resource. This month, the database is GenealogyBank.

On the GenealogyBank blog, Tom Kemp outlines his talk to the New York City chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists about the resources of GenealogyBank. I’ve been a subscriber of GenealogyBank for several months now, but probably don’t search in it as much as I could.

Here is a tidbit from the database – The December 11, 1922 edition of the Charlotte Observer that reported on the status of a young girl from Kinston, Josephine Douglas, that had been burned at her parents home. Josephine was the daughter of Mr. & Mrs. W. Birch Douglas. The short article reports that she was out of danger and that her clothes had been ignited when matches were struck in a closet.

Josephine was a young child when this happened. From my searching, I’ve learned that Josephine Tysor Douglas was born June 30, 1919 to William Birch Douglas and Annie Aubrey Farmer in Lenoir County, NC [1].

In 1920, the family was in Kinston and consisted of William Sr. (age 38), Annie (age 31) and kids, William C. (age 12), Helen W. (age 9), Annie Elizabeth (age 4), William Birch Jr. (age 5) and Josie Tysor (age 6 months). William’s occupation is in real estate and the Charlotte Observer article mentions that he had frequent business dealings there. William Sr. was born in NC, but his wife was from Virginia. [2]

From the 1930 census, I learn that William & Annie were married around 1906. The family is still in Kinston, and now have more children. Helen is not in the house, but there are William C. (age 23), William B. Jr. (age 15), Annie E. (age 14), Josephine is 10, and now the family is joined by kids Harry M. (age 8 ) and Clyde (age 6). [3]

There are a couple of trees on Ancestry with info on this family – including this one, but they both have Josephine’s middle name as Lezor. Tysor may not be right either given indexing nuances, but t it appears to be the maiden name of William Sr.’s mother. This could be a lead to finding possible descendants to share this newspaper article with. According to one gedcom that contributed to this information, Josephine married a gentleman named David Lloyd Dixon Jr. and had at least two kids. I wonder if they know of this story?

I am sure I will run across this story again if I get to the 1922 issues of the Kinston Free Press.

[1] NC Births, 1800-2000. Database at Ancestry.com. Link to record
[2] Year: 1920;Census Place: Kinston Ward 1, Lenoir, North Carolina; Roll: T625_1308; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 58; Image: 746. Link to record
[3] Year: 1930; Census Place: Kinston, Lenoir, North Carolina; Roll: 1703; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 7; Image: 77.0. Link to record