Looking Into the Past

(Note - This is a long read. It is for anybody to read, but it is also a way for me to store this in writing somewhere.)

Recently, I started researching my ancestry. I've wanted to do this for awhile, but usually I've been too busy to really get a start on anything. Due to some recent relative down time, I've finally begun. Another reason for the hesitation was that I wanted to use Ancestry.com, but they require a $23 monthly fee to use the service which I feel is a bit much to pay. However, they offer a 14 day free trial but I never had enough time to dedicate to get the most out of those 14 days.

I know a small amount of people who have their linage know due to well kept records by relatives of theirs, and the results always made me a bit jealous. They could trace their ancestors and heritage back to England, Germany, Ireland, etc, while I could only go back to my great, great, great grandfather, and that was purely because he is buried in my family's cemetery. Anything before that, I have always been at a loss. The most information I could get from any of my family lead to the same dead end. We knew he was the first Camp to move into the area we live now, and we knew he came from the east somewhere, but nothing more than that. So I finally did some snooping of my own.

Easily the best thing to use when starting to research is the United States Census database. It is extremely useful in finding children and parents of know relatives, allowing you to go farther up the line, or down a line of their children. The down side to the Census data is, one, that it is only a picture of every 10 years. And a lot can happen in 10 years. A child moves out, a spouse is remarried, or new child dies. And two, that it is limited to between the years of 1850 and 1930. Before 1850, the Census was very minimalistic in it's approach regarding it's purpose: Count the population. There is no family grouping or any kind of order in the listing, no ages, no occupations, just names. So unless you know exactly who you are looking for, it's very difficult to use. As for after 1930, US regulations state that Census data regarding names and individual information is not to be released until 80 years after the year of the Census. So it will be 2020 before the 1940 Census data is released.

This is why the Census is a good starting point, but difficult for extended use. Next comes using marriage records, death certificates, and cemetery records. The marriage records confirm spouse or reveal those to ancestors you are not sure about. Death certificates are great for death days and last residence before death. They usually show birthdays, but they don't always, and sometimes are not very reliable. When it comes to dates, a headstone in the cemetery is the most concrete proof. But the limiting factor with this kind of data is the fact that it is relatively recent. Records like this were not kept very well before the 1800s, especially in the deep south.
At this point, the best bet for going farther back in your line is historical records. Looking for last names in records from locations that have been around for a long time. Historical facts from cities like NYC, Boston, or any of the original settlements along the coastlines. History books, old newspaper records, any city records, housing directories, anything a large city would have or try to keep back then.

The final place to look is at other people's research. Everyone in America can obviously be traced back to their first ancestors who came into the country. These ancestors had children, who had more children, and the line spread out across the country. Odds are that somebody along this line passed down information or history about your family. In my case, there is actually a book that was written in the 1960s using date compiled from throughout the early 1900s tracing back to the 1600s. Using the information I collected, I could add to this new found information to see a complete picture of my genealogy.

Now, researching tips aside (which I had no intentions of writing, but just kind of happened while typing, sorry), I'll get to what I found out so far for my family, and it's made me quite excited! If you're interested, just click read more:

It turns out the Camp family is relatively well documented in the early days of the colonies, and can be traced back to England. The first Camp that can be positively traced back to is William Campe of Nazing Parish, Essex County, England, just outside of London. He had at least four sons: Lawrence, Richard, Nicolas, and Thomas Campe. Lawrence Campe is well documented as a prominent figure in London and as a major contributor to the funding of colonization in Virginia and the settlement of Jamestown. For this, he was given land in Gloucester County, VA, just north of Jamestown. He also had land in New England and in London. He had no children of his own, so on his death, his estate was divided among his brothers. Richard took the property in England and stayed there. Nicolas too the property in New England, and Thomas took the property in Virginia. This Thomas Campe had a son also named Thomas.

This Thomas Camp I (Born 1661) was one of the first settlers in the Virginia colonies. He arrived around 1675 and married a Cartherine Barron who's family lived in Jamestown. They lived in what is now King and Queen County, VA. They had at least two children, one of which was a son, Thomas Camp II.

Thomas Camp II (Born 1691) married a Mary Marshall and moved slightly north and inland to what is now Culpeper County, VA. That had at least four children, one of which was Thomas Camp III.

Thomas Camp III (Born 1717) is where my line and pretty much and Camp in the United States can be traced back to. Born in Culpeper County, VA, he married a Winifred Starling. They moved down to what is now Cleveland County, NC, near the South Carolina boarder along the Broad River. They settled on what is known as Island Ford (Ireland Ford at the time) and build a mill. The location can be seen today, minus the mill of course. A road runs over the island now.

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Thomas Camp III had 24 children! Twelve with his first wife who then died. He remarried an had 12 more children. Of those, his first son, Edward Camp is my direct ancestor. Thomas, Edward, and four other of his children fought in the Revolutionary War, most notably at the Battle of Kings Mountain.

Edward Camp (Born 1739) was born in VA, before his father moved south. After the Revolutionary War, he and his family moved south to Franklin County, Georgia. He was also married twice. With his second wife, Elizabeth Carney, he had numerous children, one of which was William Edward Camp.

William Edward Camp (Born 1787) was born in Anderson County, South Carolina while the family was moving south to Georgia. He had at least 10 children, one of which was Toliver Barton Wilson Camp. After having all of his children, he moved his family west in the 1840s-1860s. He settled in Celbourn County, Alabama. Both he and his son Toliver (and possible other sons) fought in the Civil War in the 13th Alabama Infantry Regiment, D Company.

Toliver Camp (Born 1832) is my great great great grandfather buried here in Mississippi where my family is now. He was born in Georgia, but is buried here. As is most of his children and descendants. One son of his did move his family out to Texas, so that is something I will be looking into very soon.

It's been amazing to be able to track my family and see where they came from and where it all began here in America. To know that my ancestors funded colonizing America and were some of the first here, and to know the deep military history in my family...it is an experience that has given me a new found respect for my name and an new powerful desire to keep the name honorable.