Addicts' Hunt Pedigree

              /
5-' 'COlbY, sec.IO,.,
Addicts'
Hunt
Pedigree
N. C. DttII,,_
flfCllltur,IR_CH
"Loot at me," Ted 8ragdoa:
said. "I'm supposed to be on
vacation to Raleigh, visiting
friends. But -islI't thU terri­ble!
- every cbance I get, I
sneak over bert,"
Across the table, Mrs. Frank
S. Moody I'IOdded. "It's an
addiction."
"That's right," Bngdon
said. "n's like being a dope
addicl"
But it wasn't anything like
drugs that brought the two
together : It was tbelr
pedigrees. Both had come long
distaDces - 8ragdoD from
Maine, Mrs. Moody from Ala·
bama - to spend the gray Jan­uary
afternoon in the geneaJo­gy
section of the N. C. Slate
Library.
There, among the stacks of
taJ: lists, census lists, revoill­tionary
l"(l!ters, diaries and
deeds. Bragdon had asked Mn.
Maddy "Are you by chaDce re­lated
to the Malne Moodys?"
aDd two "addicts" were off on
their favorite subject -
,."..Iogy.
They are not all that UDU$U31.
In 1975, the genealogy section
served 12,2" patroM, ".bo used
its facilites in person, over the .
telephone and through the
malls. The volume of mall the
section receives has doubled in
the past two years.
Tht state even ha.s a genea­logical
society, organized oo1y
a year ago but already boa3ting
more than 700 members. ac­cording
to one of its directors.
Dr, Lenox D. Baker.
Dr. Baker, a retired surgeon,
says genealogy takes up a5
mucb time as a fun time job. "I
.on: at it day and nigbt," he
said.
Geneolggy jook up p'E:.9~e Migrees ofJ~rory. . .
.. .. "-11,0. 2-/;:, /~ /,-//.
~nt domg thi.s, Bragdon blooded bobby - and (or many his wife and his mistress _
SlId. " I have other interests:- people, a profession -in a his- "provided they live quiet and
I st.i, 1 travel. But genea10gy 1$ torlcaU,. non-aristocratic contented together" in the
my first love." nation? same bouse
8ragdoo's search (or his "Maybe it's because Amerl- .
family has been unusually sue- cans have such a rootless, roo- People hunting for North
cessful. In the last two and a bile society," suggested David Carolina family histories soon
half years, be claims to have Bevan, chief of library tnlor- work their way out of the
turned lip more than 7~(0) matIon services. "It gives pel)- genealogy section, for it COD-Bragdons
across the Uruted pie a sense of security and of tains mostly secondary sourc-
States, all apparently d~ belonging to know wbere their es; transcribed and published
ed from one man who enugrat- allC'eStors lived and what they deeds, wills, census records,
eel towhat is DOW Maine in 1632. were like." published archives and so on.
. Mrs. Mooctr - ,~o v:,u trae- Lee Albright, bead of the
mg her fanuly only to the genealogy section, thinks pel)-
18th century - .as ~t the pie also get involved with
North Carol~ IJbrary WIth ber genealogy _ and stay involved
husband, a Birmingham doc- _ because it'a fun.
tor. They were putting in a few "The people you find in the
eight-hour days at the genealo- records" she said "become
gy room a5 a "vacation" be- more ~al to you ~n some of
fore Or. MOQdy had to attend a the people you see in the eleva-medical
meeting at Pinebunl tor every day."
"We really' enJoy it," Mrs. The old m»rds certainly
Moody said. "I've been doing show more personality than the
genealogy for the past 10 years. sort of computeriud remains
... We have an Airstream trail· we leave our descendants now-
~aooMcewe~t~ow~ adays.
m the genealogical library m Leafing througb a volume en-
Colwnbla (S. C.). We were titled " Abstract of the Wilb of
there from morning till plgbl. Edgecombe County, 1733-
everyday.Andltwasopeneve- 1856," for example, you find
nings and Sundays. It was John F1anagin. He may have
wonderfuL" dled in 1793, but It still ral.ses
To obtain original d0cu­ments,
or to verily the pub­lished
pieces in the genealogy
room, you must go to the state
archives. These are the "real"
records - handwritten, yel­lowing
documents from all
over the state - stored and
guarded In the same downtown
Raleigb building that houses
the library.
"I spend every spare
Why the growing interest in eyebrows today to read that be
genealogy? Why such a blue- lit all his between
To do any out-of-state re­search
- for example, if your
family came to North Carolina
from Virginia - you would re­main
in the genealogy room,
for it also contains ertensI.vt
published material from each
of the original 13 colonies as I
well as some materi&1 from at
least 20 other states.