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Genealogy for a Tragedy: The Early County Massacre

According to the Equal Justice Initiative, over four thousand people were lynched in the American South between 1877 and 1950. Many of their names have been lost to time, even though their descendants may be living within miles of their lynching sites. Some of them have been memorialized as martyrs, but their stories and ancestral backgrounds have been obscured by misinformation and cultural erasure. Grandison R. Goolsby was lynched in Early County, Georgia in 1915, but primary sources about his life were not discovered and published until over 100 years later. The task was Herculean, but not impossible due to advances in genealogical technology, social media, and traditional networking. This presentation will show how sound methodology was used to reconstruct the Goolsby Family Tree and sort through conflicting evidence, while honoring the memory of the victims and survivors of the Early County Massacre and reuniting their descendants.