UPDATE: Found – a Picture of Cottingham house built ca. 1707 in Maryland – an ancestor of Bibb County, Alabama Cottinghams

During my research for my historical fiction novel in this series, I was excited to discover a photograph (below) of a Cottingham house built ca. 1707 in Worcester County, Maryland. This Cottingham family is related to my Cottingham family of Bibb County, Alabama. I am not sure the house still exists as the photograph was taken in the early 1930’s.

House was built ca. 1707

The caption states the following: Cottingham was built by the Cottingham family about 1707. Of this family was John Cottingham who died in 1723. One gable-end of the house is brick and the other three sides are wood-framed. The cornice has dentils and curved end boards. 

I am working on the 2nd novel in The Cottingham series and would like to learn more about this house if anyone has additional information. This is the house from the Snow Hill, Maryland relatives that I included in my historical fiction novel,  Discordance.

Cottingham house built ca. 1707 Worcester County, Maryland (Early Manor and Plantation Houses of Maryland)

Discordance is the start of the Cottingham family of Bibb County, Alabama in colonial America that author Douglas Blackmon mentioned in his best-selling novel, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.  

Full of drama, humor, and romance, Discordance  and the Tapestry of Love Series provides details of colonial life on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and the beginning of the practice of slavery in colonial America.

Discordance: The Cotttinghams

Many significant historical events occurred on Eastern Shore

When I visited the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland to do some genealogy research on my Cottingham family, I discovered the fascinating history of my Dixon and Wilson ancestry. In 1668, Ambrose Dixon’s daughter married Thomas Cottingham. Thomas was the son of my first Cottingham immigrant to America, George Cottingham.  Until then, I did not realize how important the area was in America’s history. Many significant, but largely unknown, historical events took place on the DelMarVa peninsula and much of the history has been preserved through the efforts of the Nabb Research Center. I included many of these events in my Tapestry of Love Series.

We found where my ancestors settled

My husband and I searched the area around Old Plantation Creek and actually found the place my family settled in 1638.  The Bay Creek Golf Resort was under construction on the land at the time of our search. When I stood on the ground where my maternal ancestor, Mary Wilson, lived and raised her family in 1638,  I was compelled to share her story and my first historical fiction series Tapestry of Love was born.

Historically accurate, but still a novel

While the people and events in the series are historically accurate, I filled in the gaps of her life story with my imagination to create a more enjoyable read. Thus the novel is a historical fiction novel. An Appendix is provided at the end of each book to delineate the facts from fiction in each chapter. I recently, published a 2nd edition of the Tapestry of Love series  to correct typos, spelling and other errors missed during the publication of the 1st edition.

Depicts Colonial Life in America

Chronicling my maternal Cottingham family’s saga from the Tapestry of Love series with the Wilson & Dixon family, Discordance is a fictional account of my Alabama Cottingham’s life in Maryland and Delaware in the late 17th and early 18th century prior to their immigration to Alabama.

Hungar’s church, while not the original building, was mentioned in Ribbon of Love  (the first novel in Tapestry of Love series), and it is still in existence as can be seen in the pictures below. This church building is the third one which was built in Hungar’s Parish around 1745 but the parish is mentioned as early as 14 September 1635 in Northampton County, Virginia court records. More about the church’s history can be found here  and here. The names and life stories of many of the people in this parish in the 17th century are included in the Tapestry of Love Series.

Insight into colonial life and the beginning of slavery

I continued the Cottingham family line in my new novel, Discordance: The Cottinghams.  The Cottingham series will follow the Cottinghams through North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and eventually to Alabama. My goal for the novels is to portray as accurate a picture as possible of my ancestor’s lives via the historical fiction genre and perhaps provide insight into how and why they immigrated to Alabama.

Follow the journey and contact me about my novels on my Author Facebook page here.

Visit my Author page on Amazon.com where you can see all my genealogy, history, and historical fiction books in one place and comment and/or ask questions about any of my books

Donna R. Causey

UPDATE:  Tapestry of Love Series is now in one book!

Tapestry of Love Series