I've been blessed with a lot of information on many of my New England
ancestors. Now, this is a very good thing but the problem with that is that
I haven't gotten much work done on those ancestors for whom I don't have
much information. And the further back in time I am researching, the harder
it is to find and like the dog in the movie Up! I'm easily distracted by finding
the "shineys". Some of the families I haven't done much work on include
those that originally settled in Charlestown, Ma. before branching out to
the west and north of Boston.
Last Thursday I saw Marian Pierre-Louis' guest on that day on her Fieldstone Common Blogtalk Radio show would be Roger Thompson, the author of
From Deference to Defiance Charlestown, Massachusetts 1629-1692 and
I hoped I might learn more about my Charlestown ancestors. It was a
very interesting hour, and when Marian offered a copy of Roger's book to
the first caller, I called in with a question and won the book. It arrived
here Tuesday, and when I opened it I found it was graciously autographed
by Roger.
But that wasn't the best part.
I had run a list on RootsMagic6 of my Charlestown ancestors to check against the
names in the index but before I got that far I found three with chapters in the
Table of Contents. The first was Stephen Fosdick(whose name has always conjured
up the image of Fearless Fosdick in my mind). He was one of the first settlers of
Charlestown and he is my 11x great grandfather through his descendant Arvilla Ames
who married John Cutter West.
Another chapter concerns the family of my 10x grandfather Robert Long and his
son Zachary. I had never heard of the Three Cranes Inn before nor of its connection
with the Long family.
A third chapter contains two letters written by Arrald (Dunnington)Cole. She and her
husband Rhys Cole are my 10x grandparents as well. Both my Long and Cole descents
are through through my 2x great grandmother Florilla Dunham.
I'll be blogging more about them and what else I learn from Roger's book in future
blogposts. But if you have ancestors from Charlestown, you should get a copy for
yourself! It's available in paperback for 27.95 from the New England Historical
Genealogical Society. And if you want to hear the show with Marian and Roger,
you can download the podcast here at Fieldstone Common.
4 comments:
I so glad you are having fun with Roger's book. I bought all four of his books when I heard him speak a year ago. After I blogged about how valuable his books are for genealogy, I got lots of email from folks who had good luck finding ancestors, or just good information in general in his books. If he is ever back at NEHGS we should go together and hear him talk.
Bill, I listened to that show on podcast and heard you win the book. I'm very glad for you, as you obviously are getting a lot out of it. I have to take a look at my genealogy program and see what early Charlestown residents I have in my ancestry. But even without ancestors in Charlestown, it sounds like this book gives a great sense of life in colonial Massachusetts.
I agree it's a great book. When I received my copy a couple of month ago, I was surprised to see a chapter on my Davis ancestors. The entire book is a wonderful read.
Bill,
Congratulations on your winning, sounds like a great resouce.
I won a book on the Fieldstone Common blogtalk radio show earlier. When I got it, I opened it up to a picture of a sailing vessel that I had in one recorded.
Looking forward to your future blog posts from this book.
Russ
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