Transcriptions

I am begin­ning to post tran­scrip­tions and doc­u­ments on this site.

My first tran­scrip­tion is of David Gra­ham’s His­to­ry of the Gra­ham Fam­i­ly (pri­vate­ly print­ed: Clay­ton, West Vir­ginia, 1899). This book, authored by my my sec­ond great grand uncle at the age of 78, is an invalu­able resource. While David Gra­ham did not source his mate­ri­als, there are some ref­er­enced items that can eas­i­ly be found in court records, such as wills and deeds. The book is well writ­ten, and the author had a fair sense of humor and whim­sy. It is also a book of its time, and so there are racial, eth­nic, and his­tor­i­cal notions that do not fit with how we see the world today. For exam­ple, he spends a fair amount of time explain­ing that the Gra­hams, while being “Scotch-Irish” were not at all “Irish.”

Tonight, I am post­ing the first 21 pages of the 119-page vol­ume. The rest of the book will fol­low short­ly, as will oth­er tran­scrip­tions.