Through the courtesy Diane Siniard, page owner of the NC Military page (and so many other great RootsWeb resources), the Burke County Bastardy Bonds have been added to the Burke County page http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncburke/records.htm. Transcribed by Elizabeth Pope, these records may help solve some of the sticking points have regarding dead ends in Burke County. Sadly, the contributions of Bill Floyd that appeared on the Burke County pages have been removed and have been consolidated on a CD for the benefit of the Old Tryon Genealogy Society. --Derick

That is great news! Another good source that also includes Burke's bastardies is at http://home.earthlink.net/~bcamin/betty.htm Sometimes it helps to be able to compare versions when deciphering old difficult documents. Derick Hartshorn wrote: > Through the courtesy Diane Siniard, page owner of the NC Military > page (and so many other great RootsWeb resources), the Burke County > Bastardy Bonds have been added to the Burke County page > http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncburke/records.htm. Transcribed by > Elizabeth Pope, these records may help solve some of the sticking > points have regarding dead ends in Burke County. > > Sadly, the contributions of Bill Floyd that appeared on the Burke > County pages have been removed and have been consolidated on a CD for > the benefit of the Old Tryon Genealogy Society. > > --Derick > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NCBURKE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >

Derick Hartshorn wrote: > Through the courtesy Diane Siniard, . . . the Burke County Bastardy Bonds have been added to the Burke County page http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncburke/records.htm. Transcribed by Elizabeth Pope, these records may help solve some of the sticking points have regarding dead ends in Burke County. This correction to published Burke County bastardy bonds is a useful lesson in verifying abstracted information by consulting the original records. In 1990 Betty J. Camin and Edwin A. Camin published and copyrighted abstracts of /North Carolina Bastardy Bonds/. Their publication includes a bond dated 6 August 1796 showing Elizabeth Burchfield as the mother of an illegitimate child, and three bondsmen named as Strobrige Young, Joshua Young, and Thomas Knight. This is *INCORRECT* information. It all goes back to the fact that the document was misfiled by North Carolina State Archives staff when the papers were received from Burke County. 1) The original bond in question carries NO DATE. This is an error in the Camins' transcription. This date comes from a completely separate bond that does concern Elizabeth Burchfield's illegitimate child. Apparently the date is an assumption by the Camins based on the fact that the document was misfiled. 2) The original bond is NOT a bastardy bond. This is an error created at the Archives when the bond was misfiled. 3) There is NO mention of Elizabeth Burchfield anywhere on the bond. See number 1 above. The bond is a bail bond executed by Strobrigd [/sic/ Strawbridge] Young who was charged with assault on James Greenlee Jr. Strawbridge Young's securities on the bail bond were Joshua Young [his brother] and Thomas Knight. I continued to research this bail bond and located corroborating records in the county court minutes and in the county's criminal action papers. I also investigated Elizabeth Burchfield and verified that her illegitimate child was _never_ charged to Strawbridge Young. There was NO bastardy between Strawbridge Young and Elizabeth Burchfield. Her illegitimate child had an entirely different father. In 1995 I notified the Archivist at the North Carolina State Archives of the error. I was told that the misfiled bond would be removed and placed in its correct location. I hoped that this problem of a misfiled document had thus been resolved. Is Elizabeth Pope's transcription of Burke County Bastardy Bonds independent of the Camins' 1990 publication? If so, then the problem still exists _twelve_ years later. Kathy Kathy Gunter Sullivan, Certified Genealogist