After several decades of an on-again, off-again quest to know as much as is knowable about my family’s history in the U.S., I became very serious in 2015. On Feb. 21, 2015, I began a site in Tribal Pages called “E. R. Shipp’s Family." As of this writing, I have nearly 3,100 names listed there. A few hundred other names are mentioned but have not been given separate listings.

This new website — Jame Shipp, from Walton to Monroe Counties, GA —  is one of several that I am setting up so that I can explore what became of various Black people named Shipp who were married in Walton County in the 1860s and 1870s or who were in the 1870 through 1900 censuses. My great-grandparents, Shelton Shipp and Caroline Garrett, were married there on Sept. 8, 1870.  Mary Shipp married Robert Lewis on Dec. 27, 1869.  Jordan Shipp married Mary Selman on Apr. 17, 1873. Josephus Shipp and Arlevia Lewis Shipp, as well as Abram Shipp and Sarah Shipp, were raising their families and were found in Walton County censuses. James Shipp is a different story: he left Walton County sometime after the 1870 census. My ultimate goal is to figure out how these Shipps are connected. 

Some of them might have been blood relatives, as I strongly believe that Shelton and James were. Abram Shipp and Sephus Shipp were about 20 years older than Shelton, and so, one of them might have been his father. Or one or both could have been older brothers. Or, they might not have been blood kin but were nevertheless connected by circumstance of their prior enslavement by white folks named Shipp. I am pretty certain that they were connected to Cannon Howard (“C.H.”) Shipp and his brother Gustavus V. (“G.V.”) Shipp, who were the sons of Redding Shipp and his wife Argent Gardner Shipp. These white Shipps came to Georgia by way of North Carolina when land became available after the Native Americans were forced to leave. G. V. Shipp was part of the Army units that forced the Native Americans to walk to what is now Oklahoma during a shameful episode that is referred to as The Trail of Tears. As the Chattanooga News noted in a laudatory article that appeared after G.V. Shipp's death in Wilkes County, GA, on Oct. 21, 1909, at the age of 89: “He was in the military service of the United States in his early life and aided in the transportation of the Indians from Georgia to the west.” That sentence gives no indication of how horrendous that forced exodus was. 

In the 1870 census, James Shipp was part of the household of Malissa Shipp Lane and her husband Augustus Lane. She was a daughter of G.V. Shipp. By the 1880 census, he was in Forsyth, Monroe County. I suspect that he left Walton County with the Lanes, who moved around quite a bit as Augustus Lane pursued agri-business interests. 

At the end of the Civil War in 1865 and in those early years of emancipation, Black people regrouped as families. They had to choose surnames. Where husband and wife were under different ownership, they had to choose whether to take the name associated with the husband or with the wife. Sometimes, they started from scratch and took completely new surnames. Freeman was popular. So was Washington -- as in George Washington. A whole lot of Black men took the name George Washington and were known as "George" or "Wash" or "G.W." Fortunately, for purposes of our research, a number of Black people in the Walton County area stuck with Shipp. But I am sure that some of them chose other names. I have already seen an instance where members of one family seemed to switch between "Lewis" and "Shipp" as circumstances warranted. 

I invite all who visit this website to feel like collaborators in a great adventure. Please contribute what you know — starting, of course, with yourself and your immediate family members, and working backwards. If you have old funeral programs, that would be a valuable resource to contribute. Old photographs are even more prized. Stories that have been passed down through the years are priceless. I hope to be able to consolidate some of the Shipp websites when I find points of kinship. Until then, this work-in-progress will reflect what is known at any given point. That will change as more is learned.