The elusive Priddy Family has finally been found!

For years, I have been trying to locate the parents of my Mary Jane Priddy Cook. I thought they were going to be another one of my brick walls! I located some Priddy men in the area where she was from and deduced them being connected to her SOMEHOW. I found William and John Edward and researched forever, it seemed. I finally had some proof that they were all the children of Elijah and Sarah Baughan Priddy. I have still not located Elijah's parents nor Sarah's [could her last name be Vaughan and not Baughan...as people tended to phonetically spell names back in the olden days?]

Keep going back and chipping away at your brick walls and don't give up!

Elijah Priddy FindAGrave profile

The family of Elijah and Sarah Priddy:

Eliza Ann 1810-1846 m. William Stirewalt
James B [still researching him, I have only found one thing with his name on it.] 1812-
Elizabeth 1814-1885 m. Henry Ashmore
Mary Jane [my 3rd great-grandmother] 1819-1873 m. Thomas Herbert Cook, Sr.
Sarah 1823-1895 m. James Turner
John Edward-1825-1890 m. Eva Ann Williams
William Thomas-1826-1889 m. Selena ______

The Death Notice of Mary Jane Priddy Cook

The days I am off work, I go into full genealogy mode. I spend hours and hours going back into my files and seeing which ones I need to be digging more into. A few weeks ago, I decided to look into some old newspapers online. Lo and behold, I dug up Grandma Mary Jane's death notice. It was found in the Greensboro Patriot [now defunct] dated 26 March 1873. Her actual death date was 15 March 1873. It seemed like at the time, obituaries ran about two weeks after the real death date and only prominent citizens or tragic events were published.

Taylor Searcy: Where For Art Thou?

UPDATE: 8/18/2026

I recently found out that Taylor's father was Henry Searcy (1827–1880), and his mother was Susannah Laughter (1829–1884). They were married on July 22, 1848, in Rutherford County, NC.

However, there is still the mystery of what happened to Taylor, and that has never been solved. I have a few theories, and one of them is that he was left for whatever reason, and Julia told everyone that he died in a logging accident so the shame of her husband leaving her destitute with minor children wouldn't make her look bad in the community. I still haven't found any evidence whatsoever of his death, either then or after he possibly left the area.

I found a Taylor Searcy floating around Hendersonville, and I do believe that it was him. Taylor and Julia's son Andy went AWOL and hid out in the mountains for a time during WWI, and I have a theory that he was helping him hide and feeding him, although that has also never been proven.

My Uncle Earl Searcy used to have a photo of Taylor, but a family member had taken it, and he didn't know who. Since Hurricane Helene came through Fairview and basically decimated the town, I count that photo as lost forever. What a sad thing to think about. Thankfully, Earl and his older sister Margaret made it through and are still alive.

***

Previously, I posted about Julia, Taylor's wife. I have another brick wall to break through, and this time it is Taylor Searcy himself.

I have seen one census entry where he is listed with his mother, Susanna Searcy, as William T. Searcy in the 1880 US Census, Edneyville-Henderson, NC. She is listed as widowed and has one child, which I assume is Taylor. I do not know his father's name, and I do not know if he has any siblings at this point. Susanna and Taylor are all I know currently. I have a marriage date for Taylor and Julia: 6 October 1891 [Asheville-Buncombe-NC].

Taylor is listed under all of his sons' birth certificates and on a 1900 US Census. I lose him after Joe's birth in 1903.

I have always heard that he was killed in a logging accident. No one could recollect when or where it happened. If this story is true, he died as a young father, leaving his wife Julia with a gaggle of young sons.

I am at a loss as to what happened to Taylor. Did he really get killed? Was there another family secret? Did Julia and Taylor divorce and he remarry? To whom?

I'll update this entry as information comes to me.

Julia, oh Julia

I found Julia Ownbey Searcy, FINALLY! 🥳

Okay, those folks at FamilySearch.org get total credit for this one. I truly thank the good Lord for the people who tirelessly go through and input all those old-timey records for us regular folks to use in our family research. Without them, we'd probably never find half of what we're looking for!

Anyway, let me tell you what I know now about Grandma Julia.

After Taylor was allegedly "killed" sometime between 1904 and Julia's remarriage in 1909, I had speculated that maybe she went back home to her parents. But nope—she remarried.

Julia married a gentleman by the name of Adolphus Brown, who was nearly 30 years older than she was. Julia became Julia Searcy Brown. They had three more children together: Dan, Lula, and Wilbert.

I haven't been able to find much on the boys, but I did find a little information on Lula. I also have a theory that Dan may have actually been Taylor's son because I've found him listed as both a Searcy and a Brown. That's just my theory, though.

On a few records, I noticed that Dan and Lula had the Searcy surname. Now, I don't know if these children were born out of wedlock and later took the Brown name, or if the transcriber simply assumed they were Searcy children.  

This means Floyd and his brothers had siblings who were much younger than they were.

Fast forward to 1918. Adolphus dies, leaving Julia with five minor children to raise. I'm almost positive Floyd and Andy helped their mother take care of the younger ones. I'm not sure whether Julia was left with land or a house because I've never found any evidence of a will. I'm not even sure if all of them eventually moved into one of her older children's homes.

In the 1920 census, Julia was living with her son Floyd (head of the house), Joe, Dan, and Lula. Luther and his wife lived next door in Buncombe County. I am unsure where Wilbert was living at this time because he is not listed in either household.

In the 1930 census, she was living with Luther and his family. Again, Wilbert is nowhere near his mother. Floyd and his family were living nearby, as well as his mother-in-law Malinda Jones and sons Sam and Albert, along with her mother Harriet.

I do know that she was still alive in the 1940 census and living in Limestone, Buncombe County, NC. She was living close to her older children, especially Floyd, his wife Maggie, and their children. I'm guessing that by this point, most of Julia's children were living pretty close to one another.

In the 1940 census, Julia was about 70 years old.  

On April 4, 1920, Julia married a man named James "Jim" Henderson (1867-1953). 

I do not know the circumstances in which they were acquainted, and Limestone being a very small town, it is likely they knew of each other.

So now she was Julia Searcy Brown Henderson.

No wonder I couldn't find any more records for her! Women are SO hard to track down sometimes.  

So, this is what we know thus far:

Taylor was allegedly killed in a logging accident, although I still don't know exactly where or what year, or even if that story is true.

Julia was left with four young sons to raise and apparently couldn't afford to raise them alone. She married a much older man, Adolphus Brown, and they had three more children. Adolphus died in 1918, leaving Julia to raise young children on her own again.

Sometime later, she married for a third time to James "Jim" Henderson.

And finally, after all of this, Julia passed away in 1957 from cervical cancer.

There are still a LOT of questions here, but at least I finally found Grandma Julia! And honestly, every time I knock down one little piece of this family mystery, it just makes me want to dig even deeper.

My review of Promethease

After poking around a couple of NC genealogy groups on Facebook, I came across  Promethease, a site that promises to give you results of potential inherited health conditions, based on the raw DNA you upload to the site. For five dollars, they will analyze your DNA against their data. Not a bad deal if you are a curious person like myself. I uploaded my raw DNA from AncestryDNA onto the servers and in a few minutes, got results.

I got some surprising results!

The Good:

• Dry earwax. No body odour. Likely Asian ancestry. Reduced colostrum. [not so sure about the colostrum since I successfully breastfed two babies with no problems. I am also not of Asian ancestry, according to AncestryDNA...but who knows. I DO have dry ear wax...it's like rocks in my ears.]
• reduced risk of acute coronary events
• 90% reduction in HIV viral load
• 0.71x decreased risk for dry age related macular degeneration
• probably able to digest milk
• reduced risk (0.59x) of pancreatic cancer
• 0.75x risk of narcolepsy compared to (A;G) genotype
• 0.78x decreased Basal Cell Carcinoma risk.
• 0.75x lower risk of Male Pattern Baldness. [phew! lol]
• Lower 0.87x risk of Type 1 Diabetes.
• Smokes normal (lower) number of cigarettes if a smoker. [I have never smoked cigarettes.]
• better odds of living to 100
• Lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Higher good cholesterol.
• Able to taste bitterness.
• 0.8x lower risk for migraines

The Bad:

• 2.6x risk of rheumatoid arthritis; 3.10x risk of SLE; 2.28x risk of Sjögren's syndrome; increased risk of type-1 diabetes; and increased risk of primary biliary cirrhosis.
• 1.7x increased risk of melanoma; increased risk of squamous cell carcinoma [apparently I carry one allele associated with an increased risk for melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma.]
• 1.2x risk Rheumatoid Arthritis
• 2.6 times higher odds of developing early stent thrombosis
• 1.5x - 2x increased risk for cervical cancer, HNSCC, and breast cancer [my half sister had breast cancer and a double mastectomy.]
• you are part of the 88% of the population who will not lose weight unless you perform high energy exercise [gah]
• 2.8x increased risk for psoriasis
• higher risk of ischemic stroke
• 3x higher risk for age-related macular degeneration
• higher risk for chordoma
• 2x higher risk of lupus
• 1.2x increased risk for type-2 diabetes [that's a given being that 2/3 of my family has the disease.]
• 1.28x increased Basal Cell Carcinoma risk.
• 2.1x increased risk of Crohn's disease
• increased risk of gastric and bladder cancer
• 2.67x increased risk for systemic sclerosis

The indifferent:

• I am female. [Well, yes.]
• probably light-skinned, European ancestry 
• Blue eyes [nope, green]
• ~0.8cm taller [yup]
• Lower HDL cholesterol in women and late-onset Type-2 diabetes
• possible risk for allergic asthma
• least likely to be able to smell asparagus metabolites in urine
• Associated with (slightly) increased coffee consumption

No, I won't take this as verified medical conditions I may or may not have, only a doctor can perform those tests. I think it's just something I should know in case there ever was something to come up, then I would have had a head's up.

All in all, I give it a thumb and a half up for information and two thumbs up for being entertaining. 

Places Where My Ancestors Lived: Skyland, NC

My great-grandparents Floyd and Maggie Searcy lived and raised their brood in a little place they called "Booger Bottom", which is in the unincorporated town of Skyland.

When I think of Skyland, I think of hills of trees and grass; of hairpin curves and convex mirrors at the end of every road. Traffic is usually light, but can be harrowing on ice-covered roads.

My Grandpa Searcy bought the home place for fifty dollars and a mule, or so I have been told. There was a log cabin on site and this is where the Searcy family lived, until each child grew up and married off. Grandpa Searcy lived there after Grandma Searcy passed away, in 1977, and continued to live there until he couldn't take care of himself [and the home started falling down.]

As a child, I remember my grandparents driving up and down the beaten path that led to the home place when we came to visit. I vaguely remember my Grandpa's milking cow, Bessie and trying to get out there to pet her. I will always remember the sight and smells of this little slice of heaven.

Thomas Herbert Cook, Sr.

Well, well. It looks like I have broke through a brick wall concerning Grandpa Tom. I have never really had much luck tracking information down on him, just scant census reports and names on his children's death certificates.

A few days ago, I reopened his file and was doing what I always do, and that is scrolling through the Family Search and Ancestry sites, plus Googling. Low and behold, his name appeared in some things from Jamestown, NC. I clicked on a couple of links and found out that he was one of the proprietors of Logan Manufacturing/Oakdale Cotton Mills! How exciting is that? The icing on the cake is that there is a book out there written by Mary A. Browning called, "Oakdale Cotton Mill" which goes through the history of the business from its earliest beginnings to when it officially shut its doors in the 2000s. Even better was that the author enclosed a copy of a tintype with Thomas. I was nearly in tears when I saw his face for the very first time. I could definitely tell parts of me came from this man.

If you are interested in purchasing this book, you may click here to find book sellers who carry it.

Now, on to Mary Jane Preddy Cook, his wife....