So yesterday I did something I am rarely able to do - spend the day with fellow genealogist. Two summers ago I spent a wonderful Saturday being driven around southern Alamance and Guilford and northern Randolph counties by Jane Fruitt, who by her own admission is more comfortable with dead people than with the living (a sentiment I sometimes think I share). Yesterday I had the distinct honor to meet (and take to lunch) Alfred Field, administrator of the Curtis Family DNA project, and an authority on the NC line of Curtises.
The Curtises are a family about which I know little. Granny Henderson's grandmother was Sophronia Curtis (married to Nathaniel Low), and I have a single indistinct photo of the wizened little old lady standing in her doorway, but little other than that. Her father was Abram Curtis, who had a single known brother, Hiram. Al tells me that DNA testing has conclusively proven a connection between the North Carolina Curtises and the family of that name in New Jersey who can document their ancestry back to the late 1500's and early 1600's in Derbyshire, England. Their American progenitor was apparently a Quaker convert and refugee. As Al detailed the numerous and entertaining indiscretions of the North Carolina line, I concluded that my own Curtis ancestors were not much moved by any righteous Quaker sentiment. Makes for good stories, but can be very difficult in tracing ancestry...
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