THOMASVILLE- Tom Faircloth, well-known Thomasville resident, former city council member, former mayor and graduate of Mercer University, presented a fascinating and colorful program on “Flora and Fauna of Colonial Gardens and the Monarch Butterfly” to the John Lee of Nansemond Chapter, National Society Colonial Dames Seventeenth Century. Faircloth’s mother, Millie O’Neal Faircloth, was a charter member of the chapter.
Faircloth’s main emphasis was on the four life stages of the monarch butterfly, from egg, to black, white and yellow baby caterpillar, to chrysalis, and then the emergence of the beautiful adult butterfly. The eggs are laid on milkweed plants; the baby caterpillars emerge from the eggs in about four days and they eat the milkweed leaves for about two weeks; then the caterpillars attach themselves to the leaves and spin the chrysalis; after about ten days, the adult butterfly emerges and lives two to six weeks. This process is repeated for four generations in one season. All generations are about the same except for the fourth generation, which migrate to warmer climates like Mexico and the Baja Peninsula and will live six to eight months until it is time to start the cycle over. Monarchs are the only butterflies to migrate.
Jinanne B. Parrish, Chapter President, presented the Colonial Minute on the Native American Nansemond Indians of Virginia. Nansemond County, Virginia, (1642-1972), now an extinct county, named for the Nansemond Indians, was absorbed by adjoining counties on the James River in 1972. Nansemond County was where the chapter founder, Rosemary Lee Henderson’s ancestor, John Lee, settled when he immigrated to America from England.
Interested in learning about your ancestors? The place to start is the Thomasville Genealogical Library, located on the campus of Thomas University, 1501 Millpond Road, Thomasville, Georgia. The library houses well over 10,000 volumes of genealogical books, periodicals, and access to the Library Edition of Ancestry (more detailed than the home edition), Fold 3 Military Records, newspaper archives, Georgia’s Virtual Vault, Family Search.org and other sources such as maps and microfilm records. All 13 original colonies plus other states are represented by materials located in the library. The summer hours are 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The telephone number is 226-9640. You are welcome to use the library. It is free to all users.