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Thursday, March 31, 2016

SAMUEL STOW'S PENSION FILE PT1

((First published in Oct 2011))

As I previously  posted, I recently found the Revolutionary War 
Pension file for my 5x great grandfather Samuel Stow. It's interesting
for several reasons that I will go into in my next post, but for now, here's
the images of the statement he made about his service  and my transcription
of it:






Here's my transcription:

Declaration
In order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress
of the 7th of June 1832.
State of New York
County of Chenango:


On this the 24th day of December 1832, personally appeared before me
John Tracy first Judge of the Courts of Chenango County Samuel Stow a
resident of Oxford in Chenango County aforesaid aged ninety years,
who being first duly sworn, according to law, doth on his oath make the
following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the act of Congress
passed June of 1832, that he entered the serviceof the United States under
the following named Officers, and served as herein stated.

He lived in Sherburn Suffolk County State of Massachusetts near Boston,
and in the year 1775 enlisted into a company of minute men of which
Captain Bullard was Captain, the first Lieutenants name was Gardner,
the Ensign he does not recollect neither does he recollect the time,
but it was previous to the battle of Bunker hill. The Colonel of the
Regiment was Whitcomb of the Massachusetts Troops. On the Alarm that
the British were coming out of Boston, the company to which he belonged
were called out went upon Bunker hill in which Battle he was engaged.
After said Battle of Bunker hill he this deponent, in the company and
Regiment aforesaid, marched to Cambridge where he this deponent
staid in sentnal service eight months. During this term eight months he
this deponent acted as orderly sergeant major of the Regiment. Having
been a soldier of the old French war of 1756 he was appointed to this birth.
He was at Cambridge when General Washington  came and took the
command, General Ward had previously been commander in chief. He was
sent with a letter by General Washington to General Ward who came to
General Washington's Quarters and General Washington thinking the
discipline of the troops not so correct as it ought to be , this applicant
heard him say to General Ward he had been esaming(?) his orders and
found them generally good, and they must and should be obeyed.
This applicant has no documentary evidence and knows of no person, whose
testimony he can provide,  who can testify to his service.

He hereby relinquishes every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except
the present, and declares that his name is not on the Pension Roll of the
agency of any State.
Saml Stowe
Sworn to and Subscribed the day and year aforesaid
John Tracy first Judge
of Chenango County
State of New York
 

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 12: SAMUEL STOW OF SHERBORN, MA. & OXFORD, NY

4x great grandfather Samuel Stow is my only direct ancestor to move out of New England. He was born 17Apr 1742 in Grafton Ma. to Thomas Stow and Anne Wetherbee. He married Abigail Dana in Dedham, Ma on 26Feb 1767.

At some point Samuel and Abigail settled in Sherborn, Ma where seven children were born:

Anne 17Aug 1770
Samuel 25Jun 1772
Melvin 6Jul 1774
Sally 28Oct 1777
Andrew Newell, 13May 1780
Polly 12Dec 1784
Walter 27Oct 1788
I'm descended from their son Melvin.

As I said earlier, Samuel moved out of New England. His daughter Sally, also know as Sarah, had married Hezekiah Morse and was living in Oxford, New York. I've also found other Stows who lived in that area. After his wife Abigail's death, Samuel moved west to join his daughter's family at age 72.  I found this entry in Henry Judson Galpin's The Annals of Oxford, New York:

SAMUEL STOW, born April 17, 1742, came to Oxford in I819, to reside with his daughter, Mrs. Hezekiah Morse, and died January 21, 1835. He was a sergeantmajor during the war of the Revolution, and in 1832 was granted a pension of $40 per year.-p546

Annals of Oxford, New York: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Early Pioneers, Self published, Oxford, N.Y. 1906



I found Samuel Stow's  Revolutionary War pension file and wrote about it here five years ago. I'll
repost those two posts next.

MY FIVE GENERATIONS ANCESTRAL OCCUPATIONS CHART

The five generation chart bug bit me again!

Today I saw a post on Facebook from Michael John Neill of a five generations occupation chart. He'd been inspired by a chart posted on the Ancestor Archaeologist blog. Of course, I decided I had to do one too (and this time it only took me two times to get it right!).



As my previous post on the five generation birthplaces showed, my Dad's side of the family has been in New England back to colonial times, and most of his ancestors were farmers. But even though they farmed, they also worked at other things to make a living while farming. My great grandfather Philip J. West farmed, but also had a lumber business, a sawmill, and built roads for the county, sometimes doing all four in the same year. The one exception is my maternal great grandfather Frank W Barker who worked for the Grand Trunk Railroad in Maine most of his adult life and is listed as a "Master Baggage Handler" on his death record.

Mom's side of the family were immigrants, mostly from Ireland, who settled in Boston. Her two grandfathers worked for the City of Boston, one with the Street Department and the other as a "Teamster. Further back, one great grandfather had been a gilder of furniture, her lone German great grandfather a cabinet maker. Of the two great grandfathers who didn't immigrate to America, one was a bricklayer and the other's occupation was unknown.

I differentiated between housewives and farmwives because being a wife to a farmer entailed  more physical work than beyond running a household.

I list my Mom as a housewife, but as in many modern families, she worked at various paying jobs over the years, mostly part time, to help pay the household bills.

Another fun idea. Thanks Ancestor Archaeologist and Michael John Neill!

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

THE "HOT MESS" PROBATE FILE OF NATHANIEL STOW JR PT4

Having put the images of Nathaniel Stow Jr.'s probate file in chronological order, it was now time to see what I could make out of all of them. In this post I'll look at images 4,5,6,7 and 2. The first three show the estate inventory.

Nathaniel died on 12Nov 1724 and an inventory of his estate was completed by 4Dec. This included real estate consisting of 15 pieces of land with a total value of 801 pounds and ten shillings.


Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.4


His livestock included six oxen, one yearling steer, six cows, four heifers, four calves, seventeen sheep, six wine, and two old horses.


Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.5


Most interesting to me among Nathaniel's personal possessions were one sword, one musket, one carbine, a pistol, a pair of holsters, and a halberd. That would seem to be evidence that Nathaniel had served with the town militia.


Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.6


The total value of Nathaniel Stow Jr's estates was 1,333 pounds and one pence.

Image 2 is the Letter of Administration which was issued by Francis Foxcroft Wright. My 6x great grandfather was appointed administrator. It's from this document I learned Thomas was a housewright.


Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.2

Finally, image 7 looks like the back of one of the inventory pages, but unfortunately, I can't decipher most of the writing. I've encountered this judge's handwriting before and it's frustrating at times trying to read it.


Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.7
 Next post we'll look at four images from February 1725.

To be continued.

Monday, March 28, 2016

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 11:THOMAS STOW OF SUTTON & STOW, MA.

My 6x great grandfather Thomas Stow was born in Concord Ma. on 25Feb 1699 to Nathaniel Stow Jr and Ruth Merriam. On 17Jan 1725 he and Ann Wetherbee were married in Stow, Ma. I knew he died in Grafton, Ma. on 6Sep 1746, and that I am descended from his son Samuel. Other than those facts I knew little more about Thomas Stow, except that he was a housewright.

I did a Google search  and found this petition:

ORDER IMPOWERING MOSES HAVEN AND WIFE TO SELL PART OF AN
  ESTATE AND MAKING PROVISION IN REGARD TO THE PROCEEDS.

A Petition of Moses Haven and Anne his Wife, John Stow, Joseph Stow, David Stow, Samuel Stow, and Ephraim Sherman Guardian to Timothy Stow; the said John, Joseph, David, Samuel and Timothy being Children of Thomas Stow, late of Grafton deceased, Setting forth, That the said Thomas Stow died seized of certain Lands and Buildings situate partly in Sutton and partly
in Grafton one third part whereof was set off to the said Anne, formerly Wife to the said Thomas Stow; That she being again married, and living remote, can improve it only by leasing of it out,
which she finds attended with sundry inconveniences, besides which the Buildings and fences are going to decay And Praying that they or some of them may be impowered to sell the said Thirds set off as aforesaid, the said Anne to have the Income of the produce of such Sale during her natural Life, and the heirs of the said Thomas Stow, to receive the principal at her Death,
             [Read and]
Ordered That the Prayer of the within Petition be granted, and that moses Haven and his Wife be, and are hereby fully Authorized and impowered to make Sale of her Thirds of the Estate within mentioned for the most it will fetch, and to execute a good deed or deeds of the same, they observing the directions in the Law for the Sale of Real Estates and giving sufficient caution to the Judge of Probate for the County of Worcester, that the Principal Sum arising by said Sale shall at her decease be well and truly paid to the Children of Thomas Stow deceased, her former husband or their legal Representatives according to their respective Interest. [Passed October 27 1764.] -p562
Legislative Records of the Council xxv., 294
House Journal  p116,  Province Laws 11., 151, chap.10 


The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay: To which are Prefixed the Charters of the Province. With Historical and Explanatory Notes, and an Appendix. Published Under Chapter 87 of the Resolves of the General Court of the Commonwealth for the Year 1867, John Henry Clifford Wright & Potter, printers to the state, Boston, Ma. 1910

The connection with the town of Sutton was new to me. This caused me to search the Early Vital Records of Massachusetts website. I found baptism years for three children of Thomas and Anne Stow in Sutton:
Lidia 1732
John 1732
Joseph 1734

There were births of four more sons in Stow:
David 10May 1736
Nathaniel 28Sep 1739
Samuel 17Apr 1742
Timothy  21Oct 1745


I'm hoping that FamilySearch releases more of the Worcester County, Ma. probate files. They haven't gotten to the files for names beginning with "S" yet, and when they do, I'll be looking for
the one for Thomas Stow.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

MY FIVE GENERATION ANCESTRAL BIRTHPLACE CHART

Recently Facebook friend and fellow genealogist J.Paul Hawthorne posted an Excel chart there that showed the birthplaces for 5 generations of ancestors. It caught the imagination of a lot of genealogists who've been posting their own ancestral birthplace charts for the past few days now. I decided I'd take a shot of doing one too.

The only problem is, I'm what I call "Excel-challenged". Actually, it's more like "spread-sheet challenged" since I didn't purchase the Office Suite that came with the computer when the free trial ran out. I use the MS Works Spreadsheet program instead. I downloaded a template for the chart that Miriam Robbins had made and after four tries, I finally succeeded, then used Snipping Tool to save the chart as a jpeg. This is the result:



On Dad's side the family is all New England, mostly in Maine. The two New Hampshire births are my Ellingwoods, the family that moved back and forth a lot between Maine and New Hampshire. Past those five generations it runs all the way back to the Mayflower in some branches and the Winthrop Fleet in others to the early 17th century. Most of the ancestors were born in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire, with one born in Vermont. For some reason the family steered clear of Rhode Island and Connecticut. 

On Mom's side in the fourth and fifth generations you run into my 19th century immigrant ancestors from Ireland and Germany. The one from Canada was born in Nova Scotia of Irish parents on their way to Boston. They all made lives for their families in the Boston area. I'm equally proud of my heritage from both sides of my family.

Thanks J.Paul Hawthorne for coming up with the idea, and Miriam Robbins for the template!

Friday, March 25, 2016

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Tuesday, March 22, 2016

THE "HOT MESS" PROBATE FILE OF NATHANIEL STOW JR PT3

The judge had questioned three other sons of Nathaniel Stow Jr about whether or not their
late father had intended for their brother Samuel to receive a share of his estate. All three
brothers said that was not the case, and cited conversations with Nathaniel as proof. Now it
was time for the judge to question Samuel. 

He was asked three questions, as shown by the bottom part of image 35.







Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.35

 
Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.35

The handwriting is rather ornate, so some words are hard to decipher:

Questions to Saml-
Whether Father said any thing abt {?} in Consideration of Learning?------answeres------Denyd.

Ditto----- whether he ever rec'd any money of Father. Answer-Yes. -- did you ever give a Rec. in
Consideration of Learning  ----denyd--answer-denyd.

Ditto--did you ever give a Rec. of  an {?}-- ans: refused.


Well, this didn't look good for Samuel. Given that Harvard University was the only place at that time in colonial Massachusetts he was probably a student there and would need to somehow pay
to finish his education. But his brothers had testified that there was no further money coming to
him from the estate and when questioned himself his answers weren't cooperative.

The other side of the paper is in image 36 and it's another messy collection of writing at different
angles and parts of the page. Among some figuring of the money value of the estate is this line:

"Samuel's 35 L allowed by the judge"



Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.36




Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.36


So Samuel did receive some money from the estate. What he did with it I do not know.

I next turned back to the other pages in the file.

To be continued. 

Friday, March 18, 2016

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Tuesday, March 15, 2016

THE "HOT MESS" PROBATE FILE OF NATHANIEL STOW JR PT2

Continuing my slow crawl through my ancestor Nathaniel Stow's probate file.

As I said, there were 38 images in the file, which I then went through to see if they
were dated so they could be put in chronological order. These are the dates I found:
1-N/A                                                                                                 
2-15Dec 1724
3-7Feb 1725
4-4th Dec 1724
5-4th Dec 1724
6-4th Dec 1724
7-15th Dec 1724
8- 7Feb 1725
9-7Feb 1725
10-7Feb 1725
11-9Apr 1726
12-18Apr 1726
13-18Apr 1726
14-6Jun 1726
15--6Jun 1726
16--6Jun 1726
17--6Jun 1726
18- No date
19-6Jun 1726
20-6Jun 1726
21-7Jun 1726
22-10Jun 1726
23-10Jun 1726
24-4Jul 1726
25-4Jul 1726
26-11Jul & 19Jul 1726
27-11Jul 1726
28-11Jul, 2Aug, & 5Sep 1726
29-5Sep 1726
30-5Sep 1726
31-5Sep 1726
32-2Jul 1726
33=30Mar 1726
34-27Oct 1726
35-No date
36-No date
37-13Dec 1726
38-No date

Luckily it didn't require too much moving around of pages to come to a chronological order:
1-N/A
4-4th Dec 1724
5-4th Dec 1724
6-4th Dec 1724
2-15Dec 1724
7-15th Dec 1724
3-7Feb 1725
8- 7Feb 1725
9-7Feb 1725
10-7Feb 1725
33-30Mar 1726
11-9Apr 1726
12-18Apr 1726
13-18Apr 1726
14-6Jun 1726
15--6Jun 1726
16--6Jun 1726
17--6Jun 1726
18- No date
19-6Jun 1726
20-6Jun 1726
21-7Jun 1726
22-10Jun 1726
23-10Jun 1726
24-4Jul 1726
25-4Jul 1726
26-11Jul & 19Jul 1726
27-11Jul 1726
28-11Jul, 2Aug, & 5Sep 1726
29-5Sep 1726
30-5Sep 1726
31-5Sep 1726
32-2Jul 1726
34-27Oct 1726
35-No date
36-No date
37-13Dec 1726
38-No date

Notice the three with no dates. Two are something I hadn't seen before. They seem to be actual
notes taken while the judge interviewed various heirs, and were taken "on the fly", so they are
messy and difficult to read:



Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.35

Image 35 says there had been some appeal against the original settlement that all parties had dropped.
Now they were questioned about what they might know about Nathaniel's intention for the further
schooling of his son Samuel, and whether any knew if Samuel had received any money from his father
before Nathaniel's death.

 -Son Joseph said the other children were concerned that Samuel would try to claim a share of the
estate, to which (he said)his father replied he had left something behind "that would remove all their
doubts" and prevent Samuel from making a claim.

-Son Nathaniel testified that he heard his father tell Samuel "he must never expect any Land".

-Son Thomas said he'd heard his father tell Samuel "he had received his full portion and not to expect any more Estate."

-Son Benjamin told of a conversation with his father a year before his death about the division of his estate "asked him if he had given any acquittance----- answered in ye affirmative and intended to give him twenty pounds..."

Hmm. So there had been a dispute between Samuel Stow and his four older brothers over whether
he had received any money already prior to Nathaniel Stow's death and if so, what form that
inheritance should take. His brothers said he had nothing more coming to him.

I'll discuss Samuel, his answers to these statements, and a little background I've found on him.

To be continued.

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Friday, March 11, 2016

THE "HOT MESS" PROBATE FILE OF NATHANIEL STOW JR PT1

Probate files are wonderful things for genealogists because of what they can tell us about an ancestor and his family: his profession, his possessions, his financial state, his relationships in his family and in the community. But not all probate files are alike, and some tell us less than others. Particularly frustrating are the files with lots of pages and information, if you could only decipher the handwriting! Take the probate file for my 7x great grandfather, Nathaniel Stow, Jr. I've found some challenging probate files for ancestors before, but this is the first one I consider a "hot mess".    

I'm going to look at the file and try to decipher it. Now to be honest, I usually work on the easier
to read files first. More complicated ones like Nathaniel's I set aside for days when it's raining or snowing and I need something to distract me. How far I get before wanting to tear my hair out by the roots will determining how much I blog about it.

For starters, how do I know it's the right Nathaniel Stow?

Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.) Case21772 p1


While the year of filing on the first image of the file is correct, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right Nathaniel. In early colonial Massachusetts you could have many people sharing the same
name. My method is to check the information I have on a person's family against the names of the people in the probate file. In Nathaniel's case, I knew he and his wife Ruth (Merriam) Stow
has the following children:

John 8Sep 1691
Joseph 19Feb 1693
Samuel 27Nov 1694
Nathaniel 21Jan 1697
Thomas 25Feb 1699
Benjamin 28Feb 1701
Ruth 25Jan 1703
Jonathan 2Oct1705
Mary 6Sep 1707
Sarah 10Apr 1710
Simon 11Apr 1712
Timothy 16Feb 1714

That's a lot of names, and I looked through the 38 file images to see if I could find some matches. Right off the bat in the second image I saw "Thomas Stowe Housewright, Joseph Stowe Husbandman and Samuel Stowe." 


Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p2

Three matches, but fairly common names, so I looked for more.

Finally I came upon a list of signatures on one of the documents which matches up well against the list of Nathaniel's children, with most of his sons and several men who probably were married to his three daughters.

Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case21772 p.34





Alright, I am now sure this is the probate file of my 7x great grandfather Nathaniel Stow Jr.

Now what?

My next step was to make sure the images were in chronological order and that will be where
the next post about the file takes up the story.

To be continued.   



Thursday, March 10, 2016

AGGIE






((This was my very first post here back in February, 2007. I'm reposting it 
today to mark Womens' History  Month)) 

I’m a child of mixed heritage. On one side I’m
descended from a long line of Yankee settlers.
On the other, I’m descended from Irish Catholic
immigrants who came to Boston in the late
19th century.

Meet my maternal grandmother, Agnes McFarland.
In the family she’s known as Aggie. To us grandchildren
she was "Nanny". I believe the picture is for her Confirmation.

She was born in 1898, eighth child and third daughter
out of the ten children that would survive infancy. She
grew up in a Irish Catholic family, her father a laborer
on the Boston Elevated Railway.


She had rheumatic fever as a child in a time when it
was a deadly disease and although she'd survived it left
Aggie with a weak heart. In 1924 she married Edward F.
White Sr. They had two children before a third died, then
Edward walked out in the middle of the Great Depression
leaving Aggie to raise the children on her own.

Aggie divorced him in 1935.

It was hard for her; in those times the label "divorced"
was somewhat shameful for an Irish Catholic woman.


Work was hard to come by for a woman with children
so she scrimped and saved. Some nights dinner was
bread soaked in milk. My Mom and uncle were sent to
a nearby dental school to have their teeth worked on by
students. When Mom came down with what was known
as St. Vitus’ Dance in those days, Aggie somehow came
up with the money for the doctors and to buy liver to
serve at dinner to get Mom’s iron content up. I suspect
Aggie’s parents must have helped her out here and there
financially. My Mom once claimed that the legendary
Boston Mayor James Michael Curley helped out with
some problem as well.


But Aggie was no cream puff, either. One story my
Mom told was of the time she and Uncle Ed skipped
school to hang out at the cottage out on Houghs’ Neck
with their cousins. The place was owned by Aggie’s
younger sister Peggy and her husband Leo McCue and
was quite a distance away from the Jamaica Plain
neighborhood of Boston Aggie and her children lived
in.


Yet suddenly my grandmother was walking down the
beach towards them. She’d taken the trolley and two
different buses to get there. She stayed long enough
to let Mom and Ed get their things and then took
them home by the same route she’d used to get there.


Somehow she did it. She raised her children to adulthood
even though it meant sometimes ducking her rebellious
son's head in the sink when he used swears or nursing her
daughter through a case of scarlet fever. She survived
watching her son join the Navy at 18 to fight in WW2.
All this while living life as a divorced Catholic woman
whose husband had left her for another woman.


She never remarried.


I knew her as Nanny, my grandmother, and she lived
with us when I was a kid. My Dad and Uncle Ed had
bought a two family home after the war in Malden on
a GI loan and so Aggie saw all five of her grandchildren
everyday. But she spent most of the time with my sister
and I because my parents both worked fulltime.


I have memories of her.


She was a quiet woman, black haired with grey streaks
and usually wore those one piece housedresses. She’d eat
peas by rolling them down the blade of her knife into her
mouth and looking back I think she did it to amuse me
and tease my mom. She never yelled but I remember
her breaking up a knockdown fight between two Italian
ladies who lived in the houses to either side of ours and
doing it with a slightly louder than usual voice and a
disgusted tone at their behavior in front of children.



I remember her being upset when the goldfish got sucked
down the drain of the kitchen sink when she pulled the
sink plug by accident after cleaning the goldfish bowl. And
I recall how she kept me from looking out the window after
a worker fell off the roof when it was being reshingled.
(He survived by the way; he broke his back and narrowly
missed landing atop the picket fence that ran between our
house and our next door neighbor’s.)


As time went by her rheumatic heart got worse and she
needed an oxygen tank in her bedroom for when breathing
was hard.


Aggie died at age 58 on February 12th, 1957.


She lived a tough life but she always carried herself like
a lady.

Wednesday, March 09, 2016

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 10: NATHANIEL STOW JR. OF CONCORD, MA.

My 7x great grandfather Nathaniel Stow Jr is another ancestor in the Stow line for whom I have somewhat limited information. I know from the Concord Ma/ Vital Records that he was born there 16Sep 1663, married Ruth Merriam there on 3Dec 1690, and died there on 12Nov 1724. I also know from the same records that he and Ruth had twelve children, nine of whom were sons:

John 8Sep 1691
Joseph 19Feb 1693
Samuel 27Nov 1694
Nathaniel 21Jan 1697
Thomas 25Feb 1699
Benjamin 28Feb 1701
Ruth 25Jan 1703
Jonathan 2Oct1705
Mary 6Sep 1707
Sarah 10Apr 1710
Simon 11Apr 1712
Timothy 16Feb 1714



Most of the children were still living when Nathaniel died without a will and he left a good sized estate. This led to what looks like an agonizing process for whoever was trying to figure out how to divide everything up. My head hurts just looking at the calculations, never mind trying to interpret them




The probate file is one big hot mess. I'll try to decipher some of it in the next post.

Monday, March 07, 2016

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 9: NATHANIEL STOW SR. OF CONCORD, MA.


Continuing on with my Stow ancestors:

Again, I've found very little online about Nathaniel Stow Sr. Most of what I do know
comes from page 563 of The Great Migration:

8x great grandfather Nathaniel Stow was baptized at Biddenden, Kent, England on 7
Oct 1621, came to Roxbury with  his parents in 1634 and then to Concord around 1648.
He married a woman whose first name was Elizabeth but whose last name is unkown sometime before their first child was born at Concord Ma.in 1657. By 1662 he was a widower at which time he married the widow Martha (Metcalfe) Bignall, the daughter of  Michael and Sara Metcalf of Dedham, Ma.

I've found the birth dates of some of Nathaniel's children on the Early Vital Records of Massachusetts from 1600 to 1850 website, all at Concord, Ma:

A son and a daughter from his first marriage with Elizabeth-
John, b. 29Jun 1657
Thankfull, 4Jan 1659

And three sons from his second marriage with Martha Stowe-
Nathaniel,  b.18Sept 1663
Samewell, b. 22Apr 1666
Ebenezer,  b. 18Sept 1668  

Nathaniel died in Concord on 30May 1684 and left a will, but again I've been frustrated
because even though I've found the probate file on AmericanAncestors.org it's essentially
empty:

Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case 21771p1

Add cMiddlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.) Case 21771p2




I searched the Middlesex County, Ma. land records over on FamilySearch thinking that might be what the mysterious note in the probate file referred to, but that was fruitless as well.

I'm descended from Nathaniel Stow Jr, who'll be my next subject in the Challenge.

Saturday, March 05, 2016

"PEG O' MY HEART"

((March is Womens' History Month, and also the month of St. Patrick's Day. So I 
thought I'd celebrate by reprinting a story about one of my maternal side relatives, 
my Irish American grandaunt Peggy(McFarland)McCue. First posted in 2012))


Memory is a funny thing. You can go for years not thinking about something
and then something will catch your eye or ear and a memory will be triggered,
which might lead to others. I had one of those memory triggers happen the
other day.

I was doing my laundry over at the community center here in the apartment complex
and while I was waiting for the dryer to finish I checked out the recreation room
bulletin board and passed by the record player. Now for you young folks records
were these large wax or vinyl discs that you played music with using a turntable
and a needle. There was a stack 33 1/3 albums(I’m not going to explain that to
you. Look it up in your Funk & Wagnall’s…or on Wikipedia) and the album on
top was entitled “Peg O’ My Heart” by Jerry Murad and His Harmonicats.
That’s when I started humming that song and remembered where I’d heard
it as a kid. It wasn’t a version played by an all harmonica band. It was the versions
played by Aunt Peggy on a standup piano.

Peggy was actually my grandaunt on my mother’s side of the family, the
younger sister of my grandmother Agnes McFarland.  I’ve written before
about the cottage she and Uncle Leo McCue owned at Houghs Neck in
Quincy, Ma.. But  I also remember their place on Bowdoin St (or was it
Bowdoin Ave?). The first aquarium I ever saw was at that house and one
of the fish was a swordtail. Cousin Bobby had some sort of walkie talkie radio
connection with someone who lived across the alleyway from their house..
The best chicken salad I ever tasted (at least up until age 8 or 9)was the
chicken salad I ate at Aunt Peggy’s.( It had little chunks of celery in it.)

Aunt Peggy worked at one of the big department stores in Boston but I can’t
remember if it was Filene’s Basement or  Jordan’s Basement.  I remember my
Mom bringing me in there to shop and we’d  stop by the department where
Aunt Peggy worked. The first real wristwatch I ever had was a birthday or
Christmas gift from Aunt Peggy. It was waterproof and I wore it in the bathtub
which was where I found out that while the watch was waterproof but the watch
band wasn’t. It was some blue cloth material and I had a blue stain around my
wrist for a few days afterward..

When I was cast as Merlin in a play put on by the Codman Square Library Kids’
Summer Reading club, it was Aunt Peggy who provided the big black coat that
served as my magician’s robes along with the plastic paperweight that served as
my crystal ball. The paperweight was hidden in my sleeve and I was supposed
to pull it out at some point, but the sleeves were so big that the paperweight fell
out and rolled across the floor in the middle of some scene. That’s about all I can
remember about that!

But it’s the memories of Aunt Peggy playing “Peg O’ My Heart”, and “Heart of
My Heart” and “Those Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That old Gang Of Mine”
on the piano that I remember most. I don’t need to actually hear the song to have
those memories triggered. Just seeing the names can do it, and once more I’m
reminded of summer days at Houghs Neck and Aunt Peggy.
    

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Alex
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