I Returned 9 Years Later… and the Tombstones Were Disappearing

Big changes are coming to Genealogy TV. In this video, I hit the road in my new mobile office and travel to Randolph County, North Carolina to walk the land where my ancestors once lived, worshiped, and were buried. My goal was simple: see if I could locate some of the land connected to my family using old deeds, cemetery records, maps, and local history.

One of the biggest lessons from this trip was realizing how quickly history can disappear. Some of the tombstones I photographed almost a decade ago are now nearly unreadable or slowly being buried beneath the soil. It was a powerful reminder that preserving and documenting family history matters.

Along the way I:
• Visit Back Creek Friends Meeting and Cemetery
• Search for ancestors in historic Quaker cemeteries
• Explore the Randolph Room at the Asheboro Public Library
• Meet local historians and researchers
• Study old maps, deeds, and family files
• Learn more about the Henley, Davis, Hale, Winslow, Clark, and Pickett families
• Compare old cemetery photos to present-day conditions
• Attempt to locate ancestral land described only through metes and bounds deeds
• Discover the location of the original Asheboro courthouse connected to my Henley family

This trip reminded me that genealogy is not just about proving names and dates. It is about understanding the places our ancestors lived, worked, worshipped, and shaped.

And sometimes the search itself becomes the story.

If you enjoy genealogy research, cemetery exploration, local history, Quaker research, land records, and family history adventures, I hope you’ll come along for the journey.

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