Dont understand one of the answers??

Question

i forgot who gave me info on Charles C. Johnson who was born 1864 and died in SC in 1928,as maybe being Neelie Johnson husband but i just wanted to ask what it means when it says nonwhite(white).In the pictures my great grandma Recell Porterfield sure didnt look half white to me.Just was wondering.

Answer 1

Hi, I'm the one who gave you the Charles Johnson information.  I just now looked at the 1870 census (with 3 different birthplaces in South Carolina mentioned, and born 1864), and the 1920 census on ancestry.com and they all list him as Black. The only thing I can figure about the "non-white (white)" listing is maybe his skin color was light enough that his race wasn't 100% known, or something, to the undertaker??

      Do you know if "Neelie" could be a nickname?? I sure couldn't find her anywhere I looked.

Answer 2

I pulled up the actual image of the index. The issue is that the "color" is based on a code number, in this case "4". I can't find the key that tells what the numbers mean, but I'm sure if you contact the SC Archives or the SC Health Dept, they can tell you how the codes were defined. My strong guess is that "non-white" didn't mean "black", but probably included anyone of mixed race. Remember that under Jim Crow laws, anyone less than 8/9ths white was not considered white. Instead they were "colored". That included anyone with Japanese, Mexican, Creole, Indian or even a smidge of Black. You didn't need to be any less than 1/9th black to be "black" in the South. An example is Plessy from Plessy v. Ferguson. He didn't look Black at all, but the conductor knew he had a black ancestor and was legally allowed to segregate him. The same would have been true on the census and the death indices. Here's a link to the SC website where you can investigate this more: http://www.deathindexes.com/southcarolin...

Answer 3

I again tried finding either Neelie, Recell or Arthur in the 1920 census, with no luck.  It is very possible that any/all of them may be there, using a variation (Cornelia, Nellie, etc).. but, so far, batting zero on this.  I have seen a few of Charles Johnson (1920) but since the names don't match up, you might not worry too much about analysing his info.

There seem to be missing pieces here.. one might be lack of documentation. Example.. do you have Recells death certificate, or obit? Obit might list surviving siblings. Death cert should have name(s) of parents, including mom by maiden name.  Siblings CAN be crucial, if their death cert has the correct info, while Recell's children might have been estranged from family and did not know the right info.

I believe that what you are likely to find is that the info of record vs what family knows/ remembers is in conflict enough that we are all being thrown off the track.  IF Neely were living with a 2nd husband in the 1930 census, I have seen where the children are shown with stepfather's last name, despite that being a glaring error. If they were poor, it also is possible the census taker never counted them.

Bottom line is that without the documentation, you can be spinning your wheels.