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The study of genealogy, while an exciting personal voyage of discovery, is also a challenge to many ideas and preconceived notions we hold about who we are, who everyone else is, and where we all came from. I have discovered things about American, African, Native American and European history that don't fit into the edited and Hollywoodized versons of history every last one of us holds so dear. We cling to misconceptions and outright untruths because they don't challenge our notions about who we are. Each and every one of us is very wrapped up in our image of ourselves and we've mostly put those images together based
on ideas we have never questioned or sought to verify the accuracy of. The true researcher is a different breed of person. The true researcher seeks the truth. I have included links to other sites that I believe can be of assistance. It is important to keep an open mind when doing your research and realize how small communities were and how different their relationships to one another were , in the past,compared to how they relate to one another now.
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 | Great grandmother Mary Newman Bush |
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 | Ellie |
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My mother is a member of a family with the surname of Bush. The Bushes are of African , German, and probably some Native American descent and lived at one time on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and appeared to have migrated to Staunton Virginia, where by 1850, they resided in small community of free African Americans and had some relation to a family named Goin. My great great grandfather and great grandfather were both named John Goin Bush. The younger of the two John Goin Bushes married Mary E. Newman, also called Nellie, in about 1867.
They settled in a small community called Herndon, Virginia, on the outskirts of town, near the county line that divided Fairfax and Loudoun Counties in Northern Virginia. It is thought that Herndon had been founded by Northerners and was a relatively hospitable environment for them.
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This is the High School people of African descent were required to attend, if they wanted any education at all. It was called Manassass Regional High School. It was located in Prince William County Virginia. This was
called the Carnegie Building and had been donated by the Andrew Carnegie Foundation.
I have included links to sites of interest that may help you in your research. I hope you find your way home.
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 | Top: Carnegie Building. Bottom: (left) My mother, Ouida Bush Brown (right) Grndfather, Louis Albert Bush |
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