Looking for Bishops

Welcome to the Researching Your Civil War Ancestry forum! How much have you done on genealogy websites, such as Ancestry? That's always the best place to start. But I do see you found a thread here already with some kinfolks so I hope that gives you some good leads.
 
Thank you! I just started late Saturday night. I didn't even know who my paternal great grand parents were and I kept hitting dead ends and boom stumbled upon a wealth of info from find a grave, Ancestry, and census records. My fiance is helping me and he knows a good deal about it as he has traced his family pretty far back. I'm very excited to learn all I can about this.
 
Hello, do you have any idea where your family is from? I don't know of a James M. Bishop, however, my mother is from the Martinsburg, WV area and my great, great, grandfather Thomas J. Bishop and his brother Charles M. Bishop both fought in the 7th VA Cavalry. They were from the Back Creek Valley in Berkeley County, WV (formally VA) I don't know if we are related in any way, but I have Bishop's in my family tree as well. Nice to meet you.
 
So far I have found that my Gr, Gr, Gr Grandfather and Grandmother lived in SC. I don't know any more than that about them yet. I've just started my research. It is nice to meet you! If I find anything that ties these Bishops to WV or VA I will let you know.
 
So far I have found that my Gr, Gr, Gr Grandfather and Grandmother lived in SC. I don't know any more than that about them yet. I've just started my research. It is nice to meet you! If I find anything that ties these Bishops to WV or VA I will let you know.
Yes, probably pretty distant, if at all. I only have Tom and Charles' father as Josephus Bishop and his father as Thomas Bishop. All from Virginia. It is a lot of fun searching though. Enjoy!
 
Bishop is a fairly common name, so I imagine that you will find a number of James Bishops in South Carolina.
My suggestion is that you start with your great grandfather Bishop and find him in census reports when he was a child. Ancestry, Family Search and Heritage Quest will all give you access to that. With that you will have the entire family, his parents and siblings. Then start tracking down the siblings in later census reports, always noting all the names, place and dates of birth in their families, in order to know when you find the exact same family in the next more recent census.

It means taking a lot of notes and keeping it organized. When you get to the 20th century, start googling their names and locations. You might be surprised what pops up, including obituaries that list surviving children. This is particularly useful for the past several decades, as it might tell you who could still be alive.

Don't take what you see in various family trees on Ancestry as gospel. There are a lot of assumptions entered as fact by various people, but those assumptions are often either doubtful or flat-out wrong, and they are blindly copied by others into their own family tree. Kinda like a spreading cancer. Always try to verify your findings.

Good hunting! It will be both fun and frustrating, but also satisfying.

A final warning: Beware after you score some good information, lest you become completely obsessed. You will know that you have fallen into that condition when you miss dinner, simply because you're on the hot trail of some good information!
 
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