Who Are Your Ancestors?

Grandparents John Henry Rabon & Mattie Lawrimore

At one time or another we have all wonder what part of the world our ancestors came from, for example while growing up I knew my parents and grandparents lived in Conway, SC. Unfortunately it wasn’t until I was in my middle 30’s when I began to think about who my great grandparents were and where did my family come from originally.

I say unfortunately because by the time I began to seek the answers most of my older ancestors were either deceased or too old to remember much about their family members.

Whenever we think about where we came from most people think about where they were born or where they grew up as a child. I knew I was born in Kingstree, SC, but why were we living in Kingstree, why did we move to Columbia shortly after I was born? Had so many questions about my family.

I questioned my grandmother (my dad’s mother) and she was able to give me some information about her parents, but it was limited because as we know the older we get the memory starts to go. The information my grandmother gave me did help get me started in my search.

I found that I was actually only a five minute drive from the South Carolina Archives. I proceeded to the South Carolina Archives where I located a couple books on the history of Horry County & Marion County. Thumbing through the pages I came across surnames of my father and mother, this intrigued me so I began to do some digging. I knew my ancestors resided in each of these counties, what I found were many surnames that matched my ancestors and my first thought was “wow, what if these are some of my ancestors.” My problem was that I didn’t know anything about my family beyond my great grandparents. The search had me more intrigued and now I wanted know more about ALL my ancestors.

The limited information my Grandmother did give me included her side (Lawrimore formerly Lowrimore) of the family. There is an interesting story about the spelling of my Grandmother’s maiden name, I was told by a William Lowrimore (now deceased) who at the time was in his 80’s shared with me how the spelling of the name changed. In the early 1900’s the Lowrimores lived in Marion County (Britton Neck area) and there was a disagreement about where a family member was to be buried. It seems that the family member was to be buried in a family cemetery but the family member who owned the land where the small cemetery was located would not allow the person to be buried on the land. So, the deceased was buried elsewhere and thus started the family feud, several members of the Lowrimore family left Marion County and moved to Horry County near the Pawley Swamp area and changed their last name to Lawrimore.

This is just one of the stories I learned about during my search and I’m sure there are many about your family that would be worth knowing. During my family research I have found over 9,000 ancestors dating back to the mid 1600’s and has become the talk for family reunions.

You can also know more about who your ancestors are and also find out where your family originated.  As someone that has been doing genealogy research for over 20 years I do understand there are many researchers who are only out to make as much money as they can. Obviously there is nothing wrong with making money but my reason for doing genealogy research is to help others find what I found during my search.

If you are looking for a simple name search or extensive family research I would love to work with you. My research is concentrated in South Carolina, I'm minutes from South Carolina Archives and the South Caroliniana Library.

Rates:  Hourly $15.00

            Weekly $60.00

Alton Rabon

803-351-5476

allschistory@gmail.com