Targeting Miles Bembry

If you are an amateur genealogist, you’ve probably heard of the Genealogy Do-Over challenge that is going around. The idea is: scrap everything and start all over again, improving your research and sourcing in the process. It’s a good idea, I think, and in fact, I have been sort of doing that for the last couple of years, when I discovered that my files were a hot mess.

So, since I’ve already made quite a bit of progress on the do-over front, I’m not going to scrap everything. But, I am going to “do over” a good bit of this blog. I already started by rewriting Thomas N. Bembry and his wife Sarah Simpson more accurately, and in more detail. Next, to take on the biggest brick wall I’ve been unable to break down.

Miles Bembry, you are in my cross-hairs, buddy. I’m doing you over. I am going to research the crap out of you for the next few months while I am in the Washington, DC area with more resources available to me than usual. And I’m going to blog about you in detail, listing every fact I can find—and a few theories, too. I may even get down to North Carolina for a little research.

Were you English? Scottish? Scots-Irish? Who were your parents?  Were you an orphan? Where did you get your land and money? Were you an immigrant?  Were you perhaps an indentured servant who did well?

And the question right at the center of the bullseye: where the heck did you get the name Bembry? 

Generations of people who bear this weird surname would really like to know!