Lowery - Surname research
FTDNA 184974
Contact information:
Sandy
- [email protected]
Genealogy
Report Form
1.
Your kit number ____184974____________________________________
2.
Your name __LIVING_____________________________
3.
Why did you join the Lost Colony project?
My
grandfather and grandaunts indicated that Henry Berry Lowery is my great-great
grandfather and that we are descendants of the Lost Colony.
4.
How is your Y-line DNA line connected to the colonists, the surnames,
Native people or the location?
We
are reported to be related to Henry Berry Lowery.
My grandfather said that he is my great-great-grandfather.
My grandfather, Elmer Lowery, AKA Saint Elmo Lowery, indicated that my
relative, Henry Berry Lowery, was the leader of the Lumbee Indians, as was his
father before him. My
great-grandfather, Lem Dugan Lowery, did not allow my aunts and uncles to speak
of their native american heritage for fear of the Trail of Tears.
Oral traditions indicate that the family left Robeson County, NC shortly
after the Civil War.
My
father and aunts always referenced a book called To Die Game and a
magazine article that had been retyped from the original called Ghost
Warrior of the Lost Colony. Both
documents focused on the life of Henry Berry Lowery during the Civil War era.
They told of how Henry's Native American father was killed and Henry,
functioning as the head of the family, avenged his death.
5.
Please provide a brief write up (2 paragraphs to one page in length) on
your line that has DNA tested!
I
am the only one of my family that has DNA tested so far, but I match closely
with 7 other Lowerys in the Lowery DNA Project with ancestry (some confirmed
some not) to the Lumbee Lowery clan of Robeson County, North Carolina. The
confirmed participants all descend from different sons of Calvin Lowery (b. 1835
d. 1892 in Robeson County, NC) brother to Henry Berry Lowery (b. 1848 d.
1872*disputed in Robeson County,
NC).
The
three other participants with whom I also match closely are all three descended
from the same man using the name Edmund Lee Middleton (b. 1865 in NC*unconfirmed
d. 1934 in GA) but his origins were kept from the family aside from a clue
that his mother a "Ms. Lowery" took the train from Buie, NC to come
visit him at his home in Georgia around 1910-1912. And the fact that these three
Middleton boys all match very closely to the Calvin Lowery descendants suggests
Edmund Lee Middleton was a close relative of the infamous Henry Berry Lowery of
the Lowery clan of the Lumbee Indians of Robeson County, NC.
Edmond's
family history indicates that Henry Berry likely escaped to Georgia and took up
a false identity. My family
traditions indicate that Henry Berry left NC and settled in Tennessee. Since I have confirmed Lowery connections in Kentucky,
Tennessee and Georgia, it is possible that Henry Berry and his close relatives
lived in all three states.
6.
Mini-Genealogy From Participant to Oldest Ancestor (complete form below)
Completing
the form below, enter the current generation’s name in line 1 and add each
generation on subsequent lines through your oldest ancestor.
You don’t need to provide
personal info for living individuals, just a placeholder name.
For living people, don’t include the maiden name of the spouse.
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#
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Ancestor’s
Birth Name
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Birth
Date
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Death
Date
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Birth
Location
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Death
Location
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Other
Residence
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Spouses
Name with Birth-Death Info
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1
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LIVING
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2
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Elmer
Wayne Lowery
Father
of Benjamin Lee Lowery
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1958
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1999
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Montgomery
County, OH
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Montgomery
Count, OH
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Montgomery
County, OH
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Lindy
Lou Murphy
(b*d*)
Lowery
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3
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Elmer
Lowery (AKA Saint Elmo Lowery)
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1913
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1997
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Briceville,
TN
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Montgomery
County, OH
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Montgomery
County, OH
Richmond,
IN
Harlan,
KY
Anderson
County TN
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Mildred
Irene Chapman
(b
1925 Whitesville, WV
d
1982 Montgomery County, OH
Mother
of Elmer Wayne Lowery
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4
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Lem
Dugan Lowery*
*father
of Saint Elmo
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1876
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1941
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Tennessee
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Roane
County, TN
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Anderson
County, TN
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Cora
Blizzard*
(b.1880TN
d.1971TN*) Mother of Saint Elmo
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5
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Aleck
Lowery
Father
of Lem Dugan Lowery
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Unknown
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Unknown
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6
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7.
Do you have a family website that includes this line?
If so, please provide the link.
The
tree on Ancestry.com
is detailed with census records, marriage certificates, etc.
8.
Do you have research items such as papers you may have written, deeds
you’ve extracted or other historical or genealogical documents to contribute?
If so, paste here or send separately.
9.
Do you have history to share? This
could be a family story or history of the area.
Yes.
From my Aunt Sandra Kay Lowery:
My
father and aunts have always indicated that my great-grandfather is Henry Berry
Lowery. I have done quite a bit or
research and I have some promising leads but nothing that definitively links us
to Henry Berry.
I
have posted as much of the Lowery family tree that Gedcom will accept on the
FamilyTreeDNA site. Many hints on Ancestry.com
are pointing toward AC Lowery from Roane County, Tennessee as my
great-grandfather. I have tracked AC around through census records for a while
now and have found a trail that leads back to Robeson County NC.
I have set AC aside for a little while and I am tracking the brothers.
I have heard stories of Lem, Brad, Tom and Andy.
According to documentation that I now have, AC Lowery is also know as
Aleck and Eleck Lowery. My family
has written documents that indicate that Henry Berry Lowery relocated to
Tennessee and changed his name to Aleck/Eleck.
Henry
Berry had his first child in 1866 and Lem was born in 1876.
So, Henry Berry is old enough to be Lem's dad and my
great-grandfather--providing he did not die in 1872 as some records say.
My father also mentioned that, at one point, the family used the last
name of Berry instead of Lowery. If
members of the family were trying to leave their past behind and start again,
this is a possibility.
My sister Mary, by Dad’s first marriage, indicated that my great-uncles
Brad and Tom were both Mountain Assembly preachers.
She also documented that Brad and Tom married sisters.
I have found the marriage documents that prove that oral history to be
true.
The recent discovery of the burial records for my grandfather Lem and my
great-uncle Andy is a very precious piece of family history.
Both documents list my great-grandfather as Aleck.
The records indicate that Lem died of pneumonia and confirms the oral
history provided by my father. Grandpa
borrowed some animal traps from Dad and went about setting them on some cold
rainy days at the end of November and the first part of December, 1941.
He caught pneumonia and died within a matter of a day or two.
My sister Mary was 7 when my grandfather was buried.
She remembers that Grandpa lived in Wheat Tennessee.
There was a dirt road that lead to the cemetery.
The hearse got stuck in the mud and that my father and uncle Tom cut tree
branches to lay under the wheels to get the vehicle out of the mud.
My father had not yet entered the navy when my grandfather died, even
though some online documents tend to indicate otherwise.
Uncle Tom was in an army uniform at the funeral.
He had received a hardship leave and Mary says that even though he stayed
in the Army, he was not sent over seas so that he could be home to help my
grandfather. She believes that she,
my father and her mother Pauline lived in Chevrolet, KY when my grandfather
died.
My grandfather Lem, was buried in the East Fork Cemetery which was in
Wheat, Roane County,Tennessee. The
Atomic Energy Commission took the land in Wheat and moved the cemetery to the
east of where the family home was. The
cemetery is located in Anderson County, Tennessee just east of what was the K-25
nuclear power plant. Along with my
grandfather Lem, grandma Cora, aunt Jennette, uncle Luke and aunt Etta are
buried in that cemetery. Luke, Cora
and Etta died during my lifetime. There is a picture of Dad, Tom, Maude and Etta
at the cemetery where Grandpa, Grandma, Etta, Luke and Jenette are buried (East
Fork). It was during Luke's
funeral.
Jennette had a son, James, who was very young when she died.
You will see him listed as the son of Cora and Lem in the Census records
but, in reality, he was their grandchild. My
uncle Tom retired from the Y-12 plant. Etta died in 2004. She was over 100 years old.
Uncle, Luke, John, Henry and my father all had black lung and died of
lung cancer from working in the mines. Uncle
Tom is my last surviving relative from this generation.
Most of the documentation concerning my father lists his name as Elmer
Lowery. When he went into the navy,
he had to use his given name, Saint Elmo Lowery.
My father told me that a neighbor offered to buy his shoes and clothes
until he was 10 if she could name him, so they let her. Dad went by Elmer until
he went into the navy and then used Saint Elmo in all legal matters when he was
discharged. It was very difficult
for him to get his black lung benefits because they would not agree that Elmer
and Saint Elmo was the same person with the same SS#.
Even after he met and married my mother, she did not know his real name
until after she gave birth to his third child, my brother.
Dad wanted to name him Lem and mom didn't want to.
When dad wasn't around, mom signed the birth certificate and named him
Elmer after my father. When dad found out, he snorted and let her know that his name
was not Elmer. So Mom and Dad were married 5-6 years before my brother was born
and in all that time, my mother didn't know my father's given name.
He eventually started signing his name S.E. Lowery pretty late in life.
Growing up, I always thought the connection to Elmer and Elmo was related
to the way that the southern part of the family pronounced it.
They pronounce Lowery as Larry, they call my aunt Etta, Etter.
When my dad deeded some property to me before he passed away, the deeds
were printed the way he always pronounced my name - Sander K. Lowery.
Dad
and his first wife, Pauline got married in Concord Tennessee.
They lived in Richmond Indiana when dad joined the navy.
After he joined, Pauline took Mary to live with her mother and Pauline
got a job working at John Mansfied. Before
Dad shipped out, Mary and Pauline went to Treasure Island on a train. That was the last she was able to see him before he shipped
out.
I
have one old picture of grandma and grandpa with their kids, sitting in the
front yard. We have a nice picture
of dad when he was a law enforcement officer in Harlan County Kentucky.
I think he was a deputy sheriff and Luke was the sheriff.
If I have the facts right, it was during the prohibition period.
Somehow, Luke was shot in the line of duty but obviously recovered.
I
am the first child of his marriage to my mother, Mildred Irene Chapman.
There are three children by Saint Elmo and Mildred.
Me, my sister Leola and my brother Elmer who was always called Spanky. My
mother was married before she met my father.
Her first two daughters, Drema and Vera, grew up in the same household
with me, Leola and Spanky.
Another
interesting little piece in the family tree is that my grandmother Chapman
(Martha Alice Sparks) was reported to be part Cherokee.
She was born in Briceville, Tennessee in 1882 and migrated to Kentucky
and then West Virginia where my mother was born.
Briceville is where my father was born.
I have often wondered if Briceville was a safe hiding place for people of
Native American descent.
REMOVED
LIVING PERSON DATA...NLP
I
have been researching my family tree for years.
I am certain of my connection, to Henry Berry Lowery and the Lost Colony
due to oral tradition. I have only had access to some genealogical tools for a
matter of months. I am trying to
find the time to meet with my uncle, cousins and sister to see if the
documentation that I have gathered so far triggers new memories.
Right now, it could be that Henry Berry is either my great-grandfather or
my great-grandfather's close relative.
10.
Are you willing to have your e-mail address and first name listed as a
contact for your kit? If so, what is the e-mail you want listed?
Sandy
- [email protected]
11.
Are you willing to be a coordinator or resource for any of the Lost
Colony surnames? If so, which ones?
No,
sorry, I have no free time.
We
are working to be sure that everyone who should be included in the Lost Colony,
is in fact included, and that folks who don’t have a potential link to the
colonists have the opportunity to join a project more suited to their needs.
If
possible, please reply within the next week or so.
Thank
you very much,
Roberta
Estes
Lost
Colony Project Volunteer Administrator
PS – I have periodically had problems with my
e-mail. If you send me information
and do not hear from me, please resend or try my alternate address at [email protected].
Nelda Percival, our webmistress, who is working with this data is at [email protected]
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