OF JAMESTOWN AND PLYMOUTH

While eating breakfast and then sorting my laundry I did my
occasional Google search on the words `Massachusetts’ and
'history’ and came across a newspaper article about the
recent festivities down at Jamestown with the President and
Queen Elizabeth in attendance. The article was entitled
“Take That, Plymouth!” and I was somewhat amazed at how
some of the Virginia and Jamestown authorities seem to have
some inferiority complex regarding how Plymouth gets more
attention then they do: the historians over how Plymouth’s
story is better known and the state officials over tourists who
visit Plymouth and spend their dollars there.


Yes, Jamestown is older. Yes, the Plymouth Rock story is
most likely 99% myth. But neither Jamestown nor Plymouth
is the oldest European settlement in North America. That
should be St Augustine in Florida, I believe. And there were
the Spanish missions and towns of the Southwest, and the
French colonists of Canada and the Mississippi Valley. They
are far older than the English colonies and get very little
of the attention they deserve in our history.


I am proud of my New England roots, some of which I’ve only
recently discovered. But I am also well aware of how rich
a past other regions possess. So, congratulations to Jamestown
on their anniversary, but let’s not turn it into some historical
spitting contest.


Oh, and what colonist was the only man to be accused of
mutiny in Jamestown and then later a colonist in Plymouth?
My ancestor, Stephen Hopkins!

WAITING ON THE SANDMAN

I mentioned last week that I’d discovered some information
concerning my Abbot(t) ancestors and Acadians in Andover
Massachusetts but that I wanted to obtain permission from
the person whose website I’d found it on before I used any
of their research.


I’ve since received Lucie LeBlanc Consentino’s gracious
permission to quote from her website and originally intended
to write a post on the subject but time and events have delayed
it. Sunday I went to see Blue Man Group with my sister Cheryl,
my brother Phil and his son PJ, A good time was had by all and
I didn’t get much serious thinking done afterwards.



I’d thought I would be able to work on it and have it done by
Monday and then realized I hadn’t written anything for the
Carnival of Genealogy yet, so I did that first. And tonight, I’m
too tired from work to write in such a way as to do the subject
justice. So it will have to wait until tomorrow night


My thanks to Lucie and my apologies for the delay.



Also, my congratulations to Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings and
Jasia of Creative Gene on being quoted in an article in Family
Tree Magazine about the decline of memberships in genealogical
societies. One of the perks of working in a bookstore: I read the
genealogy magazines at my lunch hour. I have a few thoughts on
it but I’ll wait on that also for an earlier hour of the night before
posting them as well as a few about the impact of the Family
Search announcements of the past few days.


But right now sleep sounds really nice.

HOW I LEARNED TO RIDE MY BIKE

There is a legend in my family. When my sister Cheryl read
my posts about our family trips up home she asked me if I
was going to post something about it.

It was shortly after we’d moved into the Capen St. triple decker
apartment in Dorchester and kids in the neighborhood noticied

that I still had one training wheel on my bike. Now confession here

: I’d seen an older kid thrown over the handlebars of his bike right
outside our house in Malden. I was in no hurry to have something
like that happen to me.

Ok, I was a chicken.

Dad was of course was working so it was Mom who ran me up and down
the street trying to get me to keep my balance while the other kids
watched and called out advice or laughed. Finally I just wouldn’t

get on the bike.

I should have known better.

A few weeks later we went uphome for vacation with the bike

strapped upright atop the car roof. How Dad did it, I don’t know.

This was pre-bikerack days. I do recall it involved a lot of rope and

open car windows. We got to Aunt Flossie’s house which was at

the end of a long downhill driveway at the bottom of which was a

garage or small barn. And the next day the lessons began.

Mom would start me off at the top of the driveway and push the

bike and down I’d go to either fall over or keep my balance until I

hit the garage door At some point they opened the door and put

something in there softer for me to hit. I’m not sure. I was busy

yelling like McCauley Culkin in “Home Alone” as I wobbled down

the hill. I just knew I’d fall and each time Mom would get me back

up and tell me to try it again.

Eventually I learned to stay on the bike. Hitting the brakes and

steering came a little later. When my kid brother Phil came along

and my sister’s kids after him, they heard about how I was taught

to ride a bike.

Mom was a tough cookie. She had to be, growing up when she did

and how she did. She had a temper you’d expect from a redhead

and she made us toe the line but she was ready to step in to defend

one of us if she felt we needed it.

She loved to sing and while untrained had a good voice. She used

to sing a duet of “God Bless America” to close the Saturday Night

Dances at the Abington VFW.

Mom liked parties and threw two Halloween Costume Parties I

vividly remember. For one she dressed up as the Underwood

Ham Red Devil and greeted guests on the front lawn, pitchfork in

hand. For another she went with her resemblance to Carol Burnett

and dressed up as The Washerwoman character.

She liked to watch the Boston sports teams, especially the Celtics

of the Larry Bird era and would often yell at the referees on the

tv. She also rooted for the Red Sox. When Pudge Fisk hit that home

run to win the game in the 1975 World Series everyone else but

had gone to bed and we woke them up with all the cheering we did.

She adored her grandchildren and I wish she’d had more time to

spend with them all..

When Dad died she was heartbroken. Luckily some friends from

the Post took her in hand and eventually she met Joe with whom

she found laughter again. I think if they hadn’t met we’d have lost

Mom sooner than we did.

Mom died of cancer in 1999 and it’s hard to believe she’s been

gone for eight years now. As with Dad’s passing there’s a lot of

things about those final days that are difficult to think about. But

there’s a lot of good things from the years before for us to remember

and laugh.

Like how Mom taught me to ride my bike.

SAM ADAMS ON THE MAYFLOWER

No, it's not an anomaly.

The Sam Adams Brewing Company has provided the Mayflower II
with a beer that is based on the sort brewed in the days of the
first Mayflower. It's part of the celebration of the 50th
anniversary of the Mayflower II's voyage.

The full aricle is here:

http://www.southofboston.com/articles/2007/05/10/headlines/life/life01.txt

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 13: ACADIANS IN ANDOVER

Bedtime genealogy is pretty much as the term sounds. I
work on the sales floor of a large bookstore five days a week
and my longer sessions on internet genealogy searching
usually take place on my days off. Other times, after I’ve
eaten dinner and dozed for an hour or two I’ll come online
for a bit before heading to bed and randomly pick out some
ancestors for a quick random googling.

Hence, “bedtime genealogy.”


A few nights back I googled “Abbott+Andover” hoping to fill
in some of the history of that line and on the very first page
of hits saw this link: “ACADIANS ANDOVER MA;ACADIAN
ANCESTRAL HOME”. Given my previous discovery of the
role of Essex county cousins in Canada after the expulsion of
the Acadians by the British, this link piqued my curiosity. It
led to a page at the Acadian and French-Canadian Ancestral
Website which is owned and created by Lucie LeBlanc
Consentino.


I want to obtain Lucie’s permission before I cite her research
here, so for now, check out her webpage.

GENEALOGY GRUMPING

I read with interest Randy Seavers’ account of Ancestry.com’s
recent dealings with Michael John Neill at rootdig.com over
his use of images from Ancestry of WW1 draft registration cards
and other records on his web site.

Seems parent company The Generations Network threatened
legal action over the material even though Ancestry was properly
credited as the source and the usage was in a free advertising for
the usefulness of an Ancestry subscription.

I’d done a post awhile back about the information I’d found on the
draft registrations of my grandfathers and granduncles and I
couldn’t recall if I’d posted an image, so I checked. I hadn’t; I’d
only posted what information I found.

I’m not sure what to make of all this. I have one of Ancestry’s free
memberships which basically is just to keep my family tree posted
there but I’m not a fan of hardball corporate tactics. I’m thinking
of finding another home for that and then changing any reference
to Ancestry in this blog to “A Subscription Genealogy Service That
Shall Remain Nameless”.


Hey, it’s late and I’m grumpy!

GENEALOGY DIGGING

Sundays are days when I get to spend a bit more
time on the genealogy hunt.

I’ve been backtracking a bit and adding names of siblings
of my direct ancestors to family sheets. Up until now I’d
had much of the information on paper but not in the
computer but there are also some lines where I had none
entered at all, such as the Ellingwood and Abbott siblings.
I’m hoping that by filling in those blanks it might help in
the search for the parents of my brick wall, John Cutter
West.


One of the things I’ve discovered is how many men in
my family have worked as blacksmiths or wheelwrights.
For example, John Cutter West listed his occupation on
the 1850 Oxford County Maine Federal Census as being
a blacksmith. His wife Arvilla Ames was a granddaughter
of John Ames, also a blacksmith. Could John and Arvilla
have met through that occupational connection?


On another subject I found some information which shows
the other side of events mentioned in my recent posts about
Essex County settlers in Canada and it involves one of my
Abbot(t) ancestors. I’ll be posting more on that later.


Back to the family sheets.

SCHOOL DAZE

I’ve been trying to come up with a post for this month’s Carnival
of Genealogy and realized that there are stretches of my school
life I’ve very few memories left to review. It may be because
I switched schools four or five times over the years.




For instance, I can recall some of my days at the ABC Nursery
School: the big yard, a cocker spaniel who belonged to the school
owner, and the little girl who I had a crush on and whose name I
gave my sister. Of course the memories are helped along by a
class picture I will post here at some point.



Elementary school was split between three school as I spent the
first two grades at Linden Elementary School in Malden, then
grades 3 to 6 at the Frank V. Thompson and grades 7 and 8 at
St. Matthew’s Parochial School, both in the Dorchester section
of Boston.



I can’t recall who was my first grade teacher…but ah…second
grade! Miss Murphy, my first and only teacher crush. That was
where I learned to play the flute-a-phone and was part of a big
Christmas Chorus where they lit a tree. Those sort of events
are long gone now at public schools.



When we moved to Dorchester I ended up in Miss May’s 3rd
grade class. It was there I got my first rattan on the hand and I
realized school in the city was a whole lot different from the
suburbs. It was also the first time I had to go from the style of
handwriting I’d been taught in one school to the one my new
school was using. 4th and 5th grade seem to be unmemorable but
the 6th grade…well, the fights between the male teacher and one
of the students that were a near daily occurrence I recall clearly,
as I do the two unfortunate brothers whose Swiss immigrant
parents sent them to school in leiderhosen one memorable Show
and Tell Day.



The 7th and 8th grades I spent at St Matthew’s under the eagle-
eyed watch of the Sisters of St. Joseph. Sister Mary Roque felt
a tug on the ear was a great stimulant to solving math problems at
the chalkboard, but Sister Mary Steven was a sweet elderly nun
who was patient.



I spent the 9th grade at Cathedral High School in the South End
of Boston, a building so close to the elevated railroad tracks that
from our classroom window it looked like the trains were headed
right at us when they came round a bend on the tracks. Another
change of writing styles (no wonder my writing is horrid) and a
disastrous encounter with the new math taught in the Archdiocese
schools which totally confused me. The Left Distributive Principle
of Multiplication over Addition, for example


And finally my last three years of high school I spent at Abington
High School where while I wasn’t a whiz I did have teachers whose
names and faces I still recall in good memories: Mrs. Trask, Mr.
Smith, and Mr. Divoll.


I googled my old schools just now. The Linden School still is there,
but the Frank V. Thompson is closed and being developed as
apartments while the nuns left St. Matthew’s years ago and the
school was closed last June and the students sent to the nearby
school at St. Gregory’s parish at the Lower Mills.


I wish I knew why certain years seem to have vanished into a haze.


Maybe I will dig out the old report cards Mom saved and see if
they jog any more memories.

A GRAVE MATTER

I got an email from Chris Dunham (with whom I share
Dunham ancestry) about a news story concerning an
interesting discovery up in Maine. The clipping is from a
weekly named the Advertiser Democrat which I believe
is a paper from Norway, Maine but the farm in question
is in North Paris, which is in Oxford County.

Chris tells me Dunham Road is likely not named after our
Dunham line but for another family in the area with the same
name. The name and death date of Sally Dunham plus the
name of the husband, James, matches up with my ancestress
Sally Houghton who was married to James Dunham. She’s
buried in West Paris and there’s a headstone on her grave
there.

So, why another gravestone? James and Sally’s family moved
about a bit after her death and it’s not improbable that her
grave was moved as well and the stone left behind.

As to why it ended up under the barn I suppose the next owners
of the farm found it and in an example of true Yankee frugality
perhaps might have decided it might come in handy one day!

APRIL 30th

IMAGES OF AMERICA

The bookstore chain I work for has a Local Interest category
and (in what is clearly a case of serendipity for me) I’m the
person responsible for that section in my bookstore. It’s fun
for me on several levels stocking the books and there’s one
series of books that are particular favorites.


The Images of America books by Arcadia Publishing consists
of titles with historical photographs of many cities and towns
in the United States. While some may have a few illustrations
most of the contents are black & white copies of daguerreotypes
and photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries. These books
had caught my interest even before I became more active in my
genealogy research because there were books on Dorchester,
Malden, and Abington, all towns where I’d lived in at one point
or another in my life. It’s that nostalgia which makes them sell
very well as customers shop for birthday and Christmas gifts
even if many of the scenes and people shown are from a century
before they were born. The books are paperbacks and are priced
usually at $19.99


From a genealogy viewpoint there’s a chance to see what my
great-grandparents might have seen when they walked down a
street in Boston or Maine. Last fall I special ordered in one title
for myself: “The Oxford Hills: Greenwood, Norway, Oxford,
Paris, West Paris, and Woodstock.” My paternal grandfather
Floyd E. West, Sr. was born in South Paris so these towns would
have been familiar to him. I didn’t find any Wests among the
high school class or church portraits but still it was a lot of fun
looking through it. Maybe they’ll come out with a book on Upton
soon.


Maybe they have one on your ancestors’ towns, too. Check at
your own local bookstore or online if they sound like something
you’d be interested in!

GOING UP HOME 4

This was taken on one of those family trips 'up home'. It was one

of the rare ocassions that our family and Aunt Dorothy's visited

at the same time so my Mom or either Uncle Chuck or Uncle Herb

got Grandpa West to pose with his children.

Front row (left to right)is Aunt Dorothy, then Grandpa Floyd Earl

West Sr. and then Aunt Flossie (Florence). In back is my Dad and

my Aunt Hazel.

This was taken in the late 1950's or early 1960's judging by the

top photo which shows my mom. my Aunt Flossie's kids and

me engaging in the perennial favorite New Hampshire pastime

of *cough* croquet.

JOHN AMES(EAMES) AND LYDIA PHELPS

I mentioned earlier that I’d recently found information that
disproves the belief that my ancestress Lydia Phelps was the
daughter of Jonathan Phelps and Beulah Parker. I’d googled
around with intentions of doing a post about ancestors who’d
been called to arms at Concord and Lexington when I found
this at “The Ancestry of Overmire, Tifft, Richardson, Bradford,
Reed,” by Larry Overmire, RootsWeb World Connect Project,
2000-2007 on John Ames, Lydia Phelp’s husband.


The line that caught my interest right away was one concerning
John teaching his stepson Sampson the blacksmith’s trade. This
was the first I’d ever heard of stepchildren, so I then read Larry’s
entry on Lydia Phelps:

“OF SCOTTISH ANCESTRY

GREAT GRANDMOTHER OF CIVIL WAR HERO AXEL HAYFORD
REED

Lydia was of Scottish descent, her parents born in Scotland. She
was known as a "remarkably vigorous woman." She and her
second husband John Ames migrated to the wilds of Maine about
1793-5.” -Larry Overmire, The Ancestry of Overmire, Tifft,
Richardson, Bradford, Reed.


There followed two quotes:

"My father was John Ames, who was born in Groton, Mass., and
mother was Lydia Phelps, who was born in Hollis, Mass... When
father married second wife, the widow of Sampson Read, she had
three children, Sampson, Lydia and Amy, then children by John
Ames were: John, Jonathan, Zekiel, Polly, Betsey, and Ralph;
all born in Groton, Mass., except Ralph, who was in Merrimac,
Mass., and myself in Hollis." --Aunt Betsey Putnam, as told to Axel
H. Reed, Genealogy, p. 17.

"Lydia Phelps, my mother, was of Scottish decent [sic], whose
parents were born in Scotland, and from whom the Reads got
their light eyes, so father Ames used to say."
--Aunt Betsey Putnam, as told to Axel H. Reed, Genealogy, p. 17.

((The source for the quotes is: "Genealogical Record of The Reads,
Reeds, the Bisbees, the Bradfords of the United States of America"
in the line of Esdras Read of Boston and England, 1635 to 1915.
Thomas Besbedge or Bisbee of Scituate, Mass. and England, 1634
to 1915. Governor William Bradford, of Plymouth, Mass., and
England, 1620 to 1915." By Axel Hayford Reed, Glencoe, MN,
1915))


The list of children given for John and Lydia by Betsey Putnam is
what I had already in my records but the information that Lydia’s
parents were Scottish-born was new and negates the supposed
descent from the Phelps of Andover. This is a personal account of
one of John and Lydia’s own children, after all.


And now I’m left with another question: if Lydia was the second
wife of John Ames, who was the first?

My thanks to Larry Overmire for permission to use his research!

ELVES HUG (FAMILY) TREES

I’ll have some longer posts later on today(Sunday) but
I just thought I’d mention that I bought the new Tolkien
book and…..I spent about five minutes studying the three
genealogy charts of the hero’s family.

As far as I can tell, I am not related to any elves.

LOPPING A BRANCH OFF THE FAMILY TREE

Ouch!

It appears I have to do some tree pruning. Several of us
climbing our West Family tree have believed that Lydia
Phelps, mother of Arvilla Ames and the grandmother of
Jonathan Phelps West was the Lydia Phelps whose parents
were Jonathan Phelps and Beulah Parker. Last evening I
found fairly strong proof that is not the case.

You can view it here. The work is copyrighted and I won’t
say anything more while I try to contact the person to get
permission to blog here about it. I’m deleting my previous
Phelps ancestry post so as not to lead anyone else down
a wrong path.

On the good side, I am still descended from Edward Phelps
through Hannah Phelps, wife to Ephraim Abbott.

But I’ve lost the Andrews, Dickinson, and some of the Parker
lines. One of the hard parts of genealogy: removing ancestors
that are interesting when you find out they don't belong on the
tree!

Ah, the pain!

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 12

Word of the events at Lexington and Concord reached the Essex
County expatriates along the St Johns River by late April or early
May. Many had brothers or fathers among the Minutemen and
there was sentiment among many to join the rebellion. There
was a 12 man committee formed to write resolutions in support
of the rebels and to declare their desire to be henceforth part of
the state of Massachusetts. (At this time, Massachusetts included
most of what is now the state of Maine so extending the border
north into Canada would have seemed possible.) The committee
sent two delegates to Boston with familiar family connections: one
was Asa Perley and the other Asa Kimball.


The two men were well received and sent back to Maugerville
with arms and ammunition for the cause. But the attempt to win
control of the province was doomed by the failure of a series of
futile attempts to seize Fort Cumberland and other points along
the river as are detailed here. One of the rebels was the Pastor of
the Maugerville church Seth Noble and this might have been the
cause of some trouble among the congregation. A new covenant
fwas drawn up in 19 Jun 1779 and Moses Coburn and his wife
Hannah are among the names that appear upon it.

The rebel movement in New Brunswick ultimately faded away
and in 1783 the Essex County settlers faces an influx of expatriate
American Loyalists and after a period of uneasy adjustment the
area settled down back into the business of everyday life. Moses
Coburn and Hannah Burpee raised two sons and their descendants
lived for the most part around Sheffield, New Brunswick, Canada.
Three of them also were named Moses.


I wonder if my ancestor Moses Coburn ever met or corresponded
with his Canadian kinsmen and namesakes?


I’d like to credit the Sunbury County RootsWeb Site where I found
much of the information in these last few posts.

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 11

As I mentioned last time in my post about Maugerville the
name Mose Coburn was mentioned several times, mostly
in transcriptions of church documents.


Now my father’s mom Cora Berthella Barker was descended
from a Moses Coburn and wife Esther Spaulding (Spalding)
of Newry, Maine. Our Moses was also originally from Essex
County, Massachusetts, so I wondered about a connection.
I tried Family Search first and it seems the Moses Coburn of
Maugerville was related. He was born in Dracut or Tyngsboro
Ma. on 1 Jan 1702 and died in Sheffield Parrish, New Brunswick,
Canada on 27 Apr 1800. He married Hannah Burpee on 31 Dec
1767 in Sheffield and they had a family of seven children.

Hannah’s father is given as Jonathan Burpee and one of the
leaders of the Maugerville Settlement was Deacon Jonathan
Burpee.

Further googling led to more information as to why this Moses
Coburn would have left Essex Co., Ma. for Canada. On 15 Apr
1762 he’d married Elizabeth Peabody but she died a year later.
Apparently they had a son Stephen but I find no other mention
of him so he might also have died. About this same time the Essex
County colonists would have started leaving for Canada and it
must have seemed like a way for Moses to leave painful memories
behind and start a new life. So in 1767 he moved to Maugerville
and marriedHannah Burpee later that same year.


But while the Essex Colonists had started a new life in Canada the
events to the south would have an impact on them, which I’ll leave
for next time.

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 10

As I mentioned earlier, I discovered something unexpected
while surfing the web last week I googled for any information
on the Ruth Perley (E)ames incident and while looking into the
Perley family came across Israel Perley who moved from Rowley,
Ma. to settle in Canada in a town named Maugerville along the
St. Johns River. The website contains more detail but apparently
after the French and Indian War the British were seeking settlers
to replace the Acadians they’d expelled and an invitation was sent
to colonists in New England to move north. Some 200 families
took up the offer of a new life and made the move and most of
that number came from Essex County in Massachusetts.


There’s a list of the family names of many of the settlers and
at least a half dozen listed could be related to me including Barker,
Dow, Estey, Coburn, Kimball, Richardson and West. If you have
Essex County ancestry you might want to check out this Canadian
connection.


The name Moses Coburn appears several times on the website
and I’ll go into that a bit more next time. The nor'easter is still
howling outside and bed beckons.

RIPPLES

A very rainy Sunday afternoon and I’ve been noodling around
the web on genealogy and other matters. This is a dangerous
thing, because all sorts of stuff runs through my mind and if I’m
not careful I’ll blog it and subject those of you reading this to it.


I was doing a bit of research and writing about something I
found out while working on the entries I wrote about the murder
of Ruth Perley (E)Ames. I’ll be posting what that was a bit later
today. But it did seem to verify many statements I’ve seen that
climbing your family tree is a pursuit with lots of surprises and
side paths to explore. I keep finding new information online that
may or not be true and has to be evaluated. I’ve discovered
distant cousins like Tim Abbott or Chris Dunham and it makes
me wonder how many more there are out there who I don’t know
and may never learn about.


I guess the best analogy I have today (and we’ll blame this one on
the fact that there’s a nor’easter outside) is that it’s like dropping a
rock into a pond and setting off ever widening ripples.


But what interesting ripples they are.

BIRTHDAY LADIES

April brings showers, and birthdays in our family as well.

The first is Aunt Dorothy’s, (my Dad’s sister) which was
last Thursday. This is the lady whose own genealogy research
inspired mine. Hard to believe that she’s 81 now when I look at
this picture from the photo album. I think she sent it to Dad

shortly after she traveled to Ohio to marry Uncle Chuck. She’s

the young lady on the right of the picture, although the note on

the back says it was printed backwards since Dot was actually

sitting on the right of the other girl. She and Uncle Chuck raised

a large and happy family and I’m hoping to make it out there to

visit them this summer.


The next two happen to both fall on the same date, April 12th.

One is my Aunt Emily (Cappadonna) White, the wife of my Uncle
Ed White. Here she is with Uncle Ed (who looks like a young
Jerry Orbach) and their daughter Winnie. Emily was known as
“Aunt Mimi” because as a toddler it was as close as I could get to
“Emily” and I still occasionally use that. As I mentioned in an
earlier post we all lived in a two family house in Malden for some
years. After my folks moved to Dorchester Emily and Ed
moved to a house in Arlington and later bought a house here in
Abington where we had moved after leaving Dorchester. Uncle

Ed passed away a year before Mom did and Emily now lives in

Florida and summers up in New Hampshire with Winnie and her

family.






And last (and far from the least) today is also my sister Cheryl’s

birthday. My folks let me name her and the name comes from my

first crush. (a girl in my kindergarten class named Cheryl.) Cheryl

and her husband Peter and their family love in Whitman, the next

town over now and she teaches English at a local middle school.

She is more than just a sister, she’s a friend!

The photo at the top is from her christening and the adults are

her godfather Gaetano Cappadonna (Aunt Emily’s dad) and her

godmother Anna Hyler, one of our cousins on the McFarland side

of the family.

I hope all these ladies have many more happy birthdays to come!

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 9

Just a few thoughts for tonight:

First, for those from outside the area who wonder how big a deal
Patriots’ Day and the commemoration of the battles of Concord
and Lexington might be around here, take a look at the calendar
posted over at Boston 1775 by J. L.Bell

Second, I found a map of Andover in 1692 that show the locations
of all those Abbotts and Chandlers and others that are in my line
and in Tim Abbott's as well. It includes a handy name key to go
with the numbered houses. If you have ancestors from there,
check it out!


Finally, I‘m really beginning to like the Google Books site more
and more. I could get lost for hours just looking through the old
books like William Cutter’s and looking for entries on my ancestors.

A CAUTIONARY TAIL...ER...TALE

My family has always had…well…rather unique pets.
No, I don’t meant exotic animals but the usual dogs, cats,
and birds.

And then there was Phil’s rabbit. Easter usually brings
it to mind when I see stories about folks buying chickens,
ducklings and bunnies for children.


Phil is the youngest of us three kids and I was 17 years
old when he was born. At some point or another when he was
around 6 or 7 he wanted a bunny. I’m not sure if my folks bought
it or if I did. At any rate, Dad converted an old dog house into
a rabbit hutch by placing it under the shade of one of the weeping
willows along the driveway and then putting a chicken wire pen
around it.


My contribution was making it possible for Phil to walk his
rabbit. I went to the local pet store and bought a small harness
that was meant for a small dog or cat and a leash. You must
understand that by this time I was out of high school as was my
sister and there was no danger of kidding from schoolmates about
seeing our brother walking his rabbit across the front lawn as the
school bus pulled up to let us off in the afternoon.


The rabbit (whose name sadly I forget) wasn’t too thrilled
about the walking part but seemed to enjoy eating the dandelions
it found on the front lawn.

A bit later I went off to a summer job as a camp counselor but
returned home in June for my parent’s 25th Wedding anniversary.
At some point or another I wandered over to look in on the rabbit.
He seemed very relaxed just inside the door of the doghouse.

In fact he looked very, very relaxed.

I went looking for Phil. “The rabbit’s sleeping.” he told me.

I went looking for Dad. “The rabbit’s sleeping, Dad.”

The burial took place sometime after all the guests left for the
night.


We only had one other rabbit after that some years later and that
one escaped before it could… er…sleep.

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 8

It seems that Jonathan (E)Ames and his wife Elizabeth
Blount didn’t leave New England entirely.


Another edition of the Essex Antiquarian with an Ames
genealogy mentions the murder and that Jonathan Sr.
sold his farm in “the spring of 1770 and removed to
Londonderry N.H.”


There are records of marriages for the two daughters:
Sarah married a William Foster in 1763, and Elizabeth
married a Benjamin Barker in 1774.


So far, no further trace of Jonathan Jr. nor to the child of
Ruth Perley (E)Ames



I also forgot to mention that the person who wrote the piece
about the death of Ruth Perley (E)ames for the Antiquarian
was named Sydney Perley who was the editor and main
contributor to the publication.


No doubt he first heard the whle story through an older
relative.

MOM & THE COUSINS

The other day at the bookstore I heard a familiar voice say "Billy!"

Well, only those who knew me as a kid or who are related to me
use that name and when I turned around I saw two of my cousins
had stopped in to see if I was there.

Actually they're my second cousins, Nancy and Margie, daughters
of my grandmother Agnes' sister Peggy.


Yikes, that's so convoluted!


Anyway we talked a bit and I told them I'd started this blog and
that I had scanned some pictures they might like to see. Neither
of them are online themselves but I got the email addresses
of two of their kids who do and I promised I'd send the pictures
along to them.


This picture is one. Left to right it's Nancy, someone who may
be either cousin Anna or cousin Peggy, then Margie and then my
mom Anne. It was taken outside of the same triple decker that
appears in the wedding photo of my parents I've published
here.


Mom spent a lot of time with her cousins when she was younger
and they were as close as sisters. Both Margie and Nancy were
in Mom's wedding party and Nancy is my godmother. And both
of them went on to long happy marriages and large families.

I'd just thought I'd post this here too before I crawl off to bed!

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 7: THE AMES MURDER 4

In the list of witnesses called during the trial of Jonathan
Eames and his mother Elizabeth there is listed “Elizabeth,
wife of Richard Kimball.” There is a marriage between an
Elizabeth Secton or Seeton of Lunenberg and Richard Kimbal,
at Lunenberg, recorded in the Boxford Vital Records that took
place on 23 Jan 1750(1751). She would have been slightly older
than Ruth Perley Eames but closer in age to her than the senior
Mrs. Eames. It’s my guess she is the “Mrs. Kimball” who raised
the suspicions of the townsfolk over Ruth’s mysterious death.


As I’ve said previously, after their acquittal the Eames family
eventually sold their farm and left town. It must have been a
difficult time for Jonathan Eames Sr. who doesn’t seem to have
figured at all in the trial. I’ve been hunting around on the net the
past few nights but have yet to come up with where the family
eventually relocated.

So far I’ve been searching for any Essex County traces but they
might have gone further away than that. A few generations
before the children of the executed Mary Townes Estey had
moved either out of Essex County or left Massachusetts entirely.
Elizabeth Eames had a brother living in Farmington, Me. Perhaps
that was far enough away to escape the scandal’s shame?


The “not guilty” verdict would seem to be puzzling given the
apparent belief by their neighbors that Jonathan and Elizabeth
had murdered poor Ruth. But there was no solid physical evidence
to prove their guilt and perhaps memories of the innocents who’d
been sent to their deaths at Salem the century before might have
played a part. The Eames had been held up to public scrutiny and
afterwards were so shunned that they removed themselves from
the town.

In the end that would have to satisfy their accusers.

Finally, I do have to say that finding out that a relative, even a
distant one, was defended by John Adams …wow…how cool is that?

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 6: THE AMES MURDER 3

So, just how are suspected murderers Jonathan Ames Jr.
and his mother related to me?


I checked the Vital Records of Boxford Ma. 1685 to 1849
page at the Essex County Ma USGenWeb Site. Under the
births I found nothing under Ames but under Eams I found
a baptism for “Jonathan, s. Jonathan, bp. Sept. 11, 1743”.


In the marriages I found under Eames a marriage for Jonathan
and Elisabeth Blunt of Andover, at Andover, Apr. __, 1738.
The older Mrs. Ames or Eames was referred to as Elizabeth in
the Essex Antiquarian Article, so it seemed likely this was her
and her husband Jonathan (E)Ames Sr.


Next I Googled “Jonathan Ames”+ “Elizabeth Blunt”+ Boxford.
I got only 5 hits, two from the Payne-Joyce Genealogy Website.
It lists Elizabeth as the daughter of William Blunt and Sarah
Foster and her date of birth as 26 Sept 1714 in Andover, Ma.
On 10 Apr 1738 she married Jonathan Ames, the son of Joseph
Ames and Jemima Hoyt at Andover, Ma.


This was interesting. I have Hoyts in my lineage. I moved up
another generation.


Elizabeth’s father William was the son of William Blunt and
Elizabeth Ballard. And Elizabeth Ballard was the daughter of
William Ballard and Grace Berwick, and so sister to several
figures in the Salem Witch events, such as Joseph Ballard.


And finally, Joseph (E)Ames was the younger brother of my
ancestor John (E)Ames, son of Robert (E)Ames and Rebecca
Blake, the accused witch. His wife Jemima Hoyt might be a
relative in my line through her grandfather William Barnes.

As I suspected, while not a direct ancestor Jonathan Ames was
a relative and it turns his mother Elizabeth Blunt was as well.


I’ve some other points on this which I’ll go into next time.

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 5: THE AMES MURDER2

Jonathan Ames Jr.married Ruth Perley on Dec 19th, 1768 and
took his new bride home to live in his parents house which might
very well have been the same one built by Robert (E)Ames. The
story goes that as often happens with newlyweds the bride and
mother in law didn't seem to get along very well. But the couple’s
first child was born in May in 1769 and there was no sign of
anything out of the ordinary until the morning of June 5th when
a neighbor, Mrs. Kimball, came to call on the young wife and was
informed by the elder Mrs. Ames that Ruth was ill.



Despite Mrs. Ames’ objections Mrs. Kimball insisted on seeing
Ruth and found the young woman in agony and frothing at the
mouth. The illness has begun at 7 am in the morning and within
four or five hours Ruth Perley Ames was dead. The funeral and
burial was swift and the townsfolk of Boxford became highly
suspicious of the cause of the young bride’s death. They petitioned
for a coroner’s inquest and on July 10th the proceedings began
looking into whether Ruth had been poisoned.


It’s not my intention to recount the whole story. It can be read
here in the article from the Essex Antiquarian. But I did want to
point out some interesting aspects of the case. It’s probably the
last recorded instance of the medieval custom of “ordeal by
touch” in New England if not in America as a whole. Briefly, the
accused was made to touch the corpse’s neck with the index finger
of his left hand. If the touch caused the body to bleed at the point
of contact then the accused was guilty. There had been insufficient
evidence presented so far and apparently the townsfolk or one of
the jury proposed that Jonathan Ames and his mother be put to
the test with the exhumed body of Ruth Perley Ames.


Both Jonathan and his mother refused to take part in the ordeal
and so were taken off to jail in nearby Salem where a grand jury
indicted Mrs. Ames for murder and Jonathan as her accessory.
On November 9th Jonathan’s sister Elizabeth was also arrested
as an accessory and the trial began in Superior Court on November
14th.


The account of the trial reads almost like an episode of Law &
Order. The Crown was represented by Jonathan Sewall. The
accused was represented by Sewall’s old friend and fellow law
student, John Adams. By this time Jonathan had turned King's
Evidence against his mother and accused her of killing Ruth by
poisoning her with “rats bane”. There were four judges who
heard the case, three of whom seemed to feel the evidence was
sufficient for a guilty verdict. The fourth judge was unconvinced
due to the uncertainty of physicians as to whether it had indeed
been “rat’s bane“ (or arsenic as we now call it ) that had killed
the victim and also because it was not certain who administered
the poison in the first place.


The trial lasted late into the night and the jury got the case at 2am
on November 15th. At 9am, they came back with a verdict: Not
guilty. The Ames family was freed but would soon after leave town.


So, what relation is Jonathan Ames to me? What of the identity of
his mother, known only in the Antiquarian account as “Elizabeth
Ames”? Where did they all go to when they left Boxford in
shame? And what of Mrs. Kimball?

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 4: THE AMES MURDER

I was surfing through the US GenWeb’s Essex County site
the other night and came across a reference to a murder
in Boxford Ma. It happened in 1769 and involved a Jonathan
Ames who was accused of murdering his wife Ruth(Perley)
and involved testimony by a neighbor, a Mrs. Kimball.



This got my attention quickly. My 3x great grandmother was
Arvilla Ames and she was a descendant of Priscilla Kimball.
The Ames or Eames line is one of my favorites because the
family has been part of interesting events in New England
Colonial history. Robert (E)Ames, whose ancestry is unknown,
married Rebecca Blake who was one of those convicted of
witchcraft in the Salem witch hysteria. She later was given a
reprieve and the couple lived out their lives in the town of
Boxford.


Their son John married Priscilla Kimball, the daughter of
Thomas Kimball and Mary Smith The Kimball family was
living in Rowley Ma. when they were attacked by Indians on
May 2nd ,1676. Thomas was killed and Mary and their five
children, including Priscilla, were taken captive for forty-one
days before the chief of the Pennacook tribe persuaded the
raiding Indians to release their captives.


Priscilla grew to adulthood and married John Ames. They
hada farm in Boxford but they sold it in March of 1715 or 1716
and moved to Groton, Ma. John was standing one day at the
front door of what is referred to as “his garrison” (Was this
simply a fortified farmhouse or a trading post sort of building?)
when he was shot by an Indian on July 9th, 1724. He is said to
have been the last man slain by an Indian in Groton although
there appears to be some debate over that.


The Indian who was presumed to be the murderer was killed
in turn by Jacob Ames, John and Priscilla’s second oldest son.

So as you see, the Ames and Kimballs had gone through some
trying times already. When I ran across the reference of an
article in the Essex Antiquarian on a murder involving Jonathan
Ames and someone named Kimball, I had to look into it to see
how it related to my family genealogy.


Which I’ll go into next time!

WHEN IN BOSTON by Jim Vrabel

As it says in my profile, I’m a bookseller and that gives
me the chance to find books that help my genealogy
research or just catch my interest because of my love of
history. I’ll be posting some of them here in hopes they
will interest others as well.

Here’s one:

March 22, 1630
John Winthrop sets sail from Southhampton, England
aboard the Arbella for New England. Sometime during the
voyage he writes “A Modell of Christian Charity” in which
he says the Massachusetts Bay Company’s new colony
should “be as a Citty upon a Hill”.

March 16, 1631
The first recorded fire in Boston history occurs when Thomas
Sharp’s wooden chimney causes his thatched roof to catch fire.
Lt. Gov. Dudley orders no further construction of buildings in
this manner.


March 22, 1802
Two men are ordered to stand in the State St. pillory for
punishment after destroying a vessel to collect the insurance.


These are paraphrases of some of the entries in Jim Vrabel’s
"When in Boston: A Timeline & Almanac”. Most of my
ancestors didn’t live in Boston but they surely would have
been aware of events in the largest city in New England and
the capital of Massachusetts. So this book caught my interest
when Mr. Vrabel was at my store for an autograph session in
2005. I can imagine how eagerly fresh gossip and news on the
latest events would have been listened to at church meetings
or taverns, especially during the Revolution.

The book is divided into blocks of mostly 25 year intervals
and types of events are divided into several categories ranging
from Population/ Immigration to Sports and each is marked in
the text by a small icon next to the entry. The icon for Disaster
/Tragedy for example is a flame symbol. (You’ll be surprised
how many times early Boston had major fires which destroyed
whole areas.) Entries range from a few sentences to several
paragraphs and make fascinating reading.

If I have one criticism of the book it would be that some sort of
quick index for events organized by the months would have been
nice but I realize that would have been gilding the lily.
The book is available from Northeastern University Press for
$24.95 in soft cover and if you have New England ancestors it’s
well worth the price.

JONATHAN WEST OF UPTON MAINE

I first found this on the Oxford County Maine site
celebrating the county’s Bicentennial, but it now
appears to have been taken down. I’m not sure
who the person was who rediscovered the excerpt
while doing research at the Agassiz Museum at
Harvard University so if anyone reading this
knows their identity, please let me know so
I can give them credit.

I’m fairly certain that this could be my great
grandfather Jonathan Phelps West. While the
birth year is three years earlier than his (1834),
he was born and lived his entire life there.
A cached version of the website is here
and mentions several Abbotts.


"Jonathan West spent his entire life in Upton, having
been born on East B Hill in 1831. In his youth Lake
Umbagog was much less extensive in summer than it
is at present. It was then bordered in many places by
natural meadows where the farmers cut large of coarse
hay which they took off with horses and wagons, for the
ground was quite dry and firm except in early spring,
when it was flooded for a few weeks. The forest trees
growing at high water mark and for some distance back
of this, were chiefly white pines. They fringed the banks
of the Cambridge, the Androscoggin and the Magalloway
Rivers and sometimes occurred on highground, but not
very generally or numerously. Most of those near the
water were cut and rafted off by the lumbermen between
1840 and 1850. Very little clear white pine was wasted but
spruce trees were accounted no value and whenever the
encumbered land was desired for farming purposes they
were almost invariably piled up and burned, after being cut
down.


"When Mr. West was a boy, moose were numerous,
although less so than in earlier times. There were only a few
deer and the first settlers had found but few. Caribou
occurred plentifully in certain locations. The Canada Lynx,
the fisher and the sable were common. The otter was perhaps
the most abundantof all the fur-bearing animals (except the
muskrat) which frequented the shores of the lake and that of
its connecting rivers. Partridge abounded in the forest.Wild
pigeons visited the clearings in enormous numbers sometimes
"darkening the sun" as their winged phalanges came between
it and the eye of the observerand doing much damage to the
farmer's grain. They appeared chiefly in spring and autumn
but Mr. West has never known more than a few scattered
pairs to breed anywhere about the Lake.He remembers when
the lake attracted innumerable water fowl, among which
were many Canada geese.

"According to Mr. West, Metalluk was a St. Francis Indian,
banished from his tribe because of some offense of a political
nature committed when a young man. After leaving Canada
he lived for many years about the lower lakes of the Rangeley
chain having a permanent camp at the Narrows on Richardson
Lake and one used less regularly, yet not infrequently on the
island in Lake Umbagog that bears his name. He was a
thoroughly "good" Indian, honest, upright, truthful and very
kind and friendly, in his dealings with the early settlers, all of
whom liked and trusted him. When they were hard pressed
for food he often brought them trout and moose meat, for, like
most of his race, he was an expert fisherman and hunter. He
frequently accompanied them as a guide and assistant during
their excursions into the forest and whenever he visited the
settlement of Upton he was cordially welcomed at their
houses. He stood in much fear of their dogs, however, and
Mr. West remembers that when he came to his father's
house on east B Hill he was accustomed to call from the road
requesting that their dog be tied before he would enter their
door. His only vice was drunkenness, to which he was hopelessly
addicted. But he was invariably mild-tempered and inoffensive
when under theinfluence of liquor."

The Bards of the Lake Umbagog Region of Maine
Professor William Brewster 1907

GENEALOGY GOOGLE FRUSTRATIONS

I’ve just been googling the word “genealogy” and had
to stop as frustration set in.


I check the Google blog search engine once or twice a
day, sort of trolling for sites that might have a family
name that might be related to those on my own tree,
or for sites that have tips and hints that would help me.
And I have found several.

But what I am finding also is an increasing number of
junk sites(I won’t use the word I actually call them)
that are just a list of random words or phrases thrown
together that show up because the word “genealogy” is
among the list.I never visit one of these sites since I
suspect they are meant to lure you a someplace where
you can be hit with a cookie or for some other nefarious
but no doubt profitable purpose.

Obviously these internet phishers are taking advantage
of the popularity of online genealogy research.


I limit the google search to either the “last hour” or “last
twelve hours”. Even so, out of the 378 sites listed for the
last twelve hours, most of them were those “junk sites”.



Frustrating.

DAD, THE BLACKFEET, & ME

This is my dad again, Floyd Earl West Jr. but he was known
to everyone as “Bud”. I think he was in his forties or early
fifties when the picture was taken and judging by the string of owl lights
next to him it was taken up at the trailer camp in Meredith N.H. where we
spent summers.




Dad had a dry sense of humor and could keep a straight face
while putting one over on you. I first found that out when we
moved from the Boston suburb of Malden back into the
city’s Dorchester neighborhood. At some point or another
before that I’d seen something about Indians in Maine and I
asked Dad if we had any Indian blood in us.




“Ayup, we sure do.” In later years that “ayup” would have
tipped me off; Dad hardly ever used that in conversations.




“We are? What tribe are we from?”



“I'm a Blackfoot.”



I was eight years old. He was my Dad. I believed him.



So, when we moved into the apartment on Capen St. and I
was trying to fit in with new kids, I told about how we were
part Blackfoot Indian from New Hampshire. One of the other kids
said the Blackfeet didn’t live in New Hampshire and I ended up in
my first fight.



Of course when I got home my folks wanted to know what
happened and so I told them.



Mom looked at Dad. “BUD!”



And most likely he gave her that smile he’s wearing in the picture.
"What?”




“You are NOT a Blackfoot!”



“Sure I am. I never wash my feet.”



That was when I found out about Dad’s idea of a joke. The story
has been told a lot over the years. As far as I know there are no
American Indian ancestors in my family tree. And it's really

a very bad pun.



But I also have to confess that some fifteen years later I said to
my kid brother “Did you know we have Indian blood?"

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 3

I’ve added a number of links to other genealogy blogs tonight.
All of them are bloggers that are in the Carnival of Genealogy
#20 and whose entries are fascinating. It’s worth the reading
if you haven’t seen it as yet.

It’s funny how this list progressed. I found the Boston 1775
site first which led me to Chris Abbott’s Walking the Berkshires
and Randy Seavers’ Genea-Musings. Randy’s site led me to the
Carnival of Genealogy and Jasia’s Creative Gene, and that
led to the others.


What they all have in common is how well written they are and
how they present their own genealogy research. I’ve already
picked up some helpful ideas from them.


Now if I can only figure out how to post coherently in those
tiny comment boxes….

SCANNING

I've been spending some time this afternoon scanning
things from the albums. This may take awhile because
I find myself looking at things a bit before I actually
put them in the scanner!


I read somewhere (on the 24/7 Family History Circle
site I think) an idea about scanning groups of photos
collage style and it made sense, so thats' how I've
been doing it lately. Some items, however, are too
large.


Here's one I just did. This is actually two telegrams
that somebody, either my Mom or Nanny, taped
together in the album exactly as I've scanned them.
They were sent to my Mom the day after I was born.
(I was born around midnight.) The top part is from
Dad sent by Western Union. The bottom half is
from Nanny and Uncle Ed.


It seems strange now to think how telegrams have
been replaced by telephones, text messages and email.

I wonder what will come along to replace them?

ONE CONUNDRUM PARTLY ANSWERED

I just received an email from my cousin Diana. She
tells me that her mom, (my Aunt Dot) says that
“Gram's name was actually Cora Berthella Barker
although Gram always swore that it was Bertha!”

I guess Gram just didn’t like the “ella” part of Berthella
and used a woman’s prerogative to drop it.

Diana also tells me there was another Bertha West
living in the area, a wife of a West cousin in Errol N.H.,
so I’ll have to look into that, too!


But there's still that Clora....

CONUNDRUMS

I ran into one of those examples of “Things to Watch
Out For In Online Genealogy” tonight and it involves
my West grandfather.

Over on the FamilySearch website under the Pedigree
Resource File heading there are several entries for a
“Floyd J. West” whose birth date and place match my
grandfather’s. The trouble is, his name was Floyd E.
(Earl) West. The contributor also lists his marriage to
a “Clora Berthella Barker” instead of Cora Bertha
Barker. We appear to be related through the marriage
of my great granduncle Paul Leroy West or his brother
John Cuvier West to relatives of the submitter.


I can see how he might mistake an old fashioned
written “E” for a “J“, though.


So, how do I deal with this? There’s no date for when
the entries were posted, so I’ve no idea if the submitter
is still alive. There is an address there however so I’ll
try writing to it.

I had a similar experience a few years back when I first
made some tentative steps in online genealogy. I found a
website for a related family and there was an entry for
Grandpa West who was married to “an unknown person”
and it lists the children as only my aunt Florence and an
uncle Stanley who died in infancy. I emailed the owner
of the website but it remains unchanged. I have to wonder
if there might be some personal reason for the way it gets
the date of my grandparent’s marriage correct but
refers to my grandmother as an “unknown person”.


What’s that saying? Caveat emptor?

CORRECTION

Sometimes something can be staring you right in the face
and you still can’t see it.


I posted the entry about my maternal grandparent’s divorce
and included the jpeg of the actual divorce decree and then I
went off to the Laundromat for my weekly visit. It was just
after I’d moved my clothes from the washers to the driers
and was watching my clothes whirl around that I sudddenly
realized: I’d gotten it wrong.


My grandfather had not divorced my grandmother.

She had divorced him.


There it was, right in black and white and I hadn’t gotten it
right. It doesn’t really change anything, of course, although
it had to have made things even more difficult for Aggie. Bad
enough to be a divorced Irish Catholic woman in the 1930’s,
but to be the one who filed for divorce in the first place?
There would have had to have been repercussions not only
with the family but with the Church as well.

So. in the interests of fairness, I’m correcting the mistake in
the original post.

Edward Francis White Sr. might have deserted his wife and
two children in the height of the Great Depression but he did
not divorce his wife.

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 2

It's been a long day with a nasty little Spring snowstorm and
a tiring commute home. I tend to whiteknuckle drive on
unplowed roads and then collapse into a heap once I hit
the living room chair.

So I've been pretty much brain dead tonight. But the trip
home did bring to mind something that I don't think many
of us Baby Boomers and younger folks think about.

How did they clear the snow from the roads before the
coming of the snowplowed equipped trucks?

Here's one answer at the Maine Memory Network site
with a picture:

http://www.mainememory.net/bin/Detail?ln=13190

EDWARD F. WHITE SR. AND THE SSDI

I mentioned the Edward F. White I found on the SSDI at
the Family History Site the other night. The birth date is
right and the place of death is here in Massachusetts, but
the Social Security number was issued in New York.

Still I think this is my grandfather for several reasons.

This is my grandparents’ divorce decree dated 22nd November
1935. In it I learned that my grandmother claimed that Edward
“of parts unknown” had “utterly deserted” her and the children
for “three consecutive years.”

The Social Security System became law in that same year, 1935.
I posted earlier about the World War I draft card for Edward that

I found at Ancestry. He worked for the New York, New Haven,
and Hartford Railroad at the time he registered so it’s possible he

might have returned to railroad work or found work elsewhere as
a steamfitter, the occupation he’d listed on the Federal Census.

The “parts unknown” then might very well have been in New York.

I just realized as I typed this post that the date of the decree, 22nd
November,1935 is fifty years to the date 22 November, 1985, my
Dad’s death.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN ABINGTON

I mentioned the Abington St. Patrick’s Day Parade
last night and that my Mom helped in the start of it.



Some background information first: Massachusetts is
reportedly the most Irish out of all the states, with
roughly 24% claiming Irish ancestry on the last census.
Abington is in Plymouth County where 31% of the
population is of Irish descent a tie with neighboring
Norfolk County for the highest percent among the 54
counties where Irish Americans are “the largest observed
ethnic group”. Abington itself is 33% Irish American
according to the 2000 Federal census.



John L. Sullivan, the Boston Irishman bareknuckle boxing
legend, retired to a farm here in West Abington where he
died in 1918.



With all this Irish heritage it seemed strange that there was
not a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in town.



Then 28 years ago Jack Bailey, a local garage owner was
at the VFW and took a $10 bet from another Post member
that he couldn’t start a parade in Abington. He enlisted the
help of some of the other members and wives, among whom
were my mother and some friends. Of course Mom would
have had to help! What else could a red-haired green-eyed
Irish lady do?



That first parade was on the spur of the moment. Luckily Mr.
Bailey had a tow truck and a flatbed as well, so those were
decorated with green streamers and signs. I brought a cassette
boom box with a tape of traditional Irish music that Mom and
others of the ladies sang along to as they rode on the back of
the flatbed truck. There may have been more cars involved but
I only saw the trucks as I was going to work when I dropped
off the music and so didn’t actually see that first parade myself.




28 years later it’s one of the biggest in the state. They held on
this past Sunday the 11th this year to avoid conflict with the
bigger celebrations in South Boston over this coming weekend.
The parade’s gone from a cassette boom box to 10 marching
bands this year and hundreds of marchers and spectators.


And Jack Bailey won that $10 bet.

BEDTIME GENEALOGY

I’m in one of those periods where I tend to crash into
a nap after I’ve come home from work and eaten dinner.
Eventually I do wake up and log on the computer for a
bit but as a result any genealogy work or writing comes
in spurts. But I have done a few things I’ll mention now
briefly before I head off to bed for the night.

Randy Seavers over on Genea-Musings has blogged about
the various resources he’s used in researching the genealogy
of a lady named Cornelia Bresee and it reminded me I had
new information available since the last time I tried some
of them.


For example, the SSDI over on Family Search. Using the
birth date of Grandfather White, I believe I found a match
with an Edward White who died in Billerica Ma. in 1981.
While the Social Security Card was issued in New York that
might not exclude him from being the right man for reasons
I’ll explain in a later post.


Also, since I still have a minimal free Ancestry membership,
I posted a query to the McFarland message board with all the
information on my McFarland great grandparents. I already
belong to a Rootsweb West families group and a query to the
White board there had resulted in finding out more about the
Whites. I’ll make queries to the Ancestry equivalents in the
next few days as well.


I did get one reply back the day after I sent my query but there
doesn’t seem to be a connection there yet.


So that’s it for tonight. I want to post the story about how my
Mom helped a friend start the St. Patrick’s Day Parade here in
Abington but I’ll have to do that tomorrow.

WINIFRED MCFARLAND

As I mentioned earlier, Aunt Winnie had already died
before I was born but her presence is still felt in the
family in a way most genealogy researchers find their
ancestors are remembered



These are among the oldest pictures in the family album.
Only two pictures of my grandmother Agnes McFarland
are older and these are the only ones with her younger
sister Winnie. I think the girl on the running board with
her is Aggie but that’s a guess on my part.

I think Mom once identified the two men as Uncle Mike
and one of the other uncles. The cap on the car roof had me
wondering briefly since one bit of information about my
Grandfather White was that he had worked for a time as a
chauffeur. But both men look older than the girls and I know
my grandparents were close in age when they married.I’ve
no clue to the identities of the other two girls or of the man
and woman walking up the road in the background. The only
thing I can say with a bit of certainty is that they seem to be
enjoying a day out in the country some time in the 1920’s.

Winifred McFarland was born in 1901 the 12th of 13 children.
(Only 8 made it to adulthood.) I know very little about her. She
appears as a 9 year old on the 1910 census. On the 1920 census
she was a 19 year old office clerk. By 1930 her father had died
and her older brothers and sisters were married and moved out,
so Winifred was the only one left living at home with her mother
at 950 Parker St in Boston. Winifred was listed as a stenographer
at a "chemical drug" business.

Winnie was only forty years old when she died on January
15th, 1940. I wasn't born until 1948, so I never met my grandaunt
But her boyfriend Jack Coyne visited us often because my
grandmother lived with us and I believe Jack and Aggie
stayed good friends until Aggie died.

Winnifred's death came at a time when her siblings were past having
more children and the next one was too young as yet to marry and
start raising families. I was the next child born, but my Uncle Ed
and Aunt Emily were the first to have a daughter, and so my cousin is
named Winifred White. (There was another Winifred McFarland, a
daughter of my Grand Uncle Mike, who was born back in 1917)

And so Grand Aunt Winifred is remembered through her namesake.

JOHN BARNES

I don’t know about other folks tracing their genealogy
but I have some favorites on the West side of the family.
It’s a bit unfair, I know, because there’s so much about
the Whites and McFarlands that I’ve yet to discover.
The majority of Dad’s ancestors were “salt of the earth”
people, ordinary folks dealing with the daily struggle to
survive. But there are a few rare souls who stand out
for one reason or another. Among these are some who
did things that made me (and probably their friends
and neighbors) wonder “What WAS he thinking?”


Case in point: John Barnes of 17th century Plymouth,
Massachusetts,


I found John while researching backgrounds of Mayflower
ancestors a few Thanksgivings back at The Plymouth
Colony Archive Project website. I discovered other later
ancestors listed there and John was among them.


He lived between 1633 and 1671, apparently a prosperous
merchant and citizen most of that time. All that seemed
to changed in 1651 when his first wife Mary Plummer
died. By 1653 John had married a woman whose name is
recorded only as Joan and began a long spiral down from
respectability, most of which is attributed to drunkenness.


In May 1648 he was granted permission to brew and sell
his own beer in Plymouth. There were a few incidents of
fines for public drunkenness during the next few years
but they were much more frequent after he married Joan
who was herself quite a contentious woman (and from
whom the Barnes line is descended). The details can be
read at the Plymouth Colony Archive Project, along with
John’s will and other information about his life.


It wasn’t the sad story of John’s trouble with alcohol that
struck me when I first read his story. It was the manner
of his death.


John lost his license to brew and serve beer and in 1661
the General Court forbade any one from selling or
serving him beer or liquor at all. This seemed to help
because he had only one recorded drunken incident after
the Court took that drastic measure. Judging from the
inventory of his estate at his death he was still fairly well
off by March of 1671.


This is where the “WHAT was he thinking?” comes into
the story. One day in early March, 1671, according to
the Plymouth Court Records, John Barnes stood at his
barn door and stroked his bull. The bull took exception
to that, turned, and gored John Barnes, giving him a
wound which caused his death approximately a day and
a half later.



Among those on the coroner’s jury who ruled on his death
was another ancestor of mine, Samuel Dunham.



Dad had passed away long before I first read the story
of John Barnes’ death but I I had no trouble imagining
what a Maine country boy like him would have said
about it:


“Damn idiot. That’s what happens when you pet a bull!”

TOMATO SANDWICHES AND UNCLE FRANK

By the time I was born in 1948 all my mother’s McFarland
Uncles were in their mid-fifties or older. Two of them had
already passed away before I was old enough to know them.
Uncle Frank and Uncle Tommy were still around and I have
memories of both, although more of Tommy than Frank. Of
the Aunts only Aunt Peggy was alive and I remember her
very well. Aunt Winnie had died but was not forgotten for
reasons I will mention later.


Uncle Frank was 62 years old when I was born so my earliest
recollections of him come from when he was about 70. Frank
had two children and split time living in Andover with his son
John and in Hanson with his daughter Mary, but occasionally
he spent a week with us in Dorchester. By this time he was
grey-haired and heavy set and used a cane when walking. It
was on one of those visits that Uncle Frank taught me how
to make tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches. This was a big
deal for me since the only time I’d ever used a knife was to
slice whatever was set before me at meals. I’d never actually
cut something up to MAKE a meal. It was the best sandwich
I’d ever tasted.


The next day I decided to make one on my own and I thought
it went pretty well until my Mom saw it. She asked where I had
learned to cut a tomato and then went off in search of Frank,
not for the reason you might think, though.


Awhile later, Uncle Frank came out to the kitchen and explained
to me about cutting thinner slices so I wouldn’t use up an entire
tomato in just one sandwich.



Frank only stayed with us a few times in Dorchester. We lived
on the third floor of a triple-decker apartment and the climb up
the three flights of stairs probably would have been difficult at
his age. Most of the rest of the times I saw him were at Andover
or Hanson during the various family functions. Somewhere I've
packed away an old copy of Zane Grey’s Lone Star Ranger that
I was given on a trip to Andover. I’m not sure if it was Frank’s
or if it had belonged to his son John.


Frank passed away at the age of 82 on September 21st, 1968.


Tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches are still my favorite, by the
way, simply because an old man spent some time to show an 8
year old boy how to make one.

TEMPUS AND GENEALOGY

As I said the other evening, I want to save as much as I can
of my memories and the family history as well. While I’m not
planning on keeling over if I can help it, I know that none of
us live forever. My brother’s sons are still young and some of
us older folks might not be around when they reach adulthood
to tell them more about theirgrandparents. So, I’m blogging
my memories here along with stories about the people on the
family tree. I’ve posted the tree to Ancestry as well as copying
it to both cd and dvd. I’m scanning photographs to discs and
also saving them online at Snapfish. And of course I‘ve printed
out the genealogy.


I think of all I don’t know about the generations that came
before on both sides of the family and I want to preserve what
I do know and learn for the next.


Tempus, as they say, fugits.

SLOW NIGHT ON THE GENEALOGY FRONT

It’s one of those nights where I’m too tired to do
much genealogy blogging. My eyes have that burny
feel and the brain isn’t functioning on all cylinders.
I did manage to upload those photos I’ve scanned
to Snapfish. It’s free and I want to get as much of
the family pictures and genealogy saved as possible
for reasons I’ll go into tomorrow night.

An addendum to my entry on the portrait of Clara
Ford Ellingwood. This is her line of descent from
Henry Phelps showing where it ties into the Abbott
and Dunham lines. She and my great-grandfather
were 7th cousins through their common descent from
from Henry Phelps and Eleanor Sharp


Henry Phelps m. Eleanor Sharp
Edward Phelps m. Elizabeth Adams
Samuel Phelps m. Sarah Chandler
Samuel Phelps m. Hannah Dane
Hannah Phelps m. Ephraim Abbot(t)
Mehitable Abbot(t) m. Jonathan Abbot(t)
Zerviah Abbot(t) m. John Ellingwood
John Ellingwood Jr. m. Rachael Barrows
Asa F. Ellingwood m. Florilla Dunham
Clara Ellingwood m. Philip J. West

CLARA FORD ELLINGWOOD

As I mentioned below in my initial post on this blog, it was my Dad’s sister Dorothy who first started exploring the family treeand it was the information she sent us over twenty years ago nowthat got me started with my genealogy passion. I’m grateful forthe pedigrees and family charts she researched and then copied to send to the rest of us. And I’m glad I held on to them all these years, to say the least!

The other day her daughter, my cousin Diana, emailed us a copy of a picture from Aunt Dot: a copy of a portrait of Clara Ford Ellingwood, my great-grandmother. It’s been in the possession of a Cousin Ruth since Grandpa West’s death back in 1970 and recently she had a copy made which she sent along to my Aunt.The copy was in color but Aunt Dot recalls that the original on the wall at Grandpa’s was sepia tone so I suspect it has been colorized with a graphics art program somewhere along the way since 1970. I’ve made a sepia toned copy and that’s what I’ve posted above.

I think the resemblance to my Dad is there but I may be seeing

what I’d like to see.

It’s through Clara that we are related to many old New England

settlers such as the Dunham and Abbott families and others

back to the Mayflower.

So once again, thank you, Aunt Dot!

OF TWO MINDS

I find myself suddenly conflicted.

I am a bookseller by occupation and a book reader my whole life
and as such I’ve always held a negative viewpoint on books online
and hand-held ebook readers. I've always maintained, and still do,
that there is nothing like the feel of a real book in your hands or
of entering a library or bookstore and browsing the shelves. And
even though the price of paper has caused the books’ prices to
rise as well, it is still possible for nearly every citizen of the United
States to easily and cheaply obtain books.


But with my interest in genealogy has come an appreciation for
things like Google’s Book Search. Earlier tonight I was reading Tim
Abbott’s “Walking the Berkshires” post about the Witch Hysteria in
Andover. Tim's a descendant of Elizabeth Phelps Ballard and I've
Phelps ancestors as well. I Googled my Phelps ancestor who lived
in the same time and found Genealogical and Personal Memoirs
Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts by
William Richard Cutter on Google Book Search.


The book has been scanned and from it I was able to determine my
ancestor Samuel Phelps was the brother of Elizabeth and learned
some new things I hadn’t known about him. This is a book I might
not have been able earily find in the local libraries or
even order cheaply at the bookstore.


I still hold a doubtful view on the so called “ebook revolution” but
I find myself with an appreciation of how useful a thing it is to have
old books such as Cutter available on the Google Book Search. I
know I’ll use it again.

I’ll just have to let my bookseller half deal with the guilt!

WHAT I FOUND AT ANCESTRY.COM

I mentioned a few nights ago about a trial membership at Ancestry
During that time I was able to find things I hadn’t seen before,
primarily the World War One Draft Registration Cards for my four
McFarland grand uncles and my grandfathers. I also downloaded
some copies of Federal Censuses. While I found these items and
had the family tree uploaded, I don’t think I can afford to pay the
cost of full membership so regretfully I didn’t subscribe.

I'll continue to make do with the free genealogy sites for now.

Here’s what I learned about the McFarlands:


Tom lists his occupation toolmaker at A. A. Crafts at 125 Summer
St.in Boston. For dependents he lists mother and there's a word in
front of that I can't decipher. His physical description is Medium
height, Slender build, with Brown (or Blonde?) hair and Brown
eyes. At the time he filled out the card he was living at 950 Parker
St. in Boston.


Frank was living with his family at 50 Cotton St. in Medford. He
lists his occupation as "bottiling" at the Moxie Plant at 69 Haverhill
St. in Boston. His eyes were Gray, his hair Dark Brown; his height
and build were given as Medium.

Robert was living with his family at 121 or 126 Paul Gore St. His
occupation was shoemaker at the Thomas J. Plant(?) Shoe Co. at
what looks like the "corner of Centre and Bickford Streets" in
Boston. His height and build are Slender, his eyes Light Brown and
his hair Black.


Mike was living at 946 Parker St in Boston with his wife Mary and
he was a shoe worker but at George A. Keith Company at 288 A St.
in So. Boston. His height was given as Tall, his build Medium, his
hair Dark and I think that it says Brown for the eye color.



Then there are the cards for both my grandfathers.

Floyd Earl West gives his occupation as farming in Upton, Me. His
height is listed as Short, his build Medium, his eyes Blue and his
hair “D. Brown” He claimed an exemption from the draft due to
an injury to his right arm and shoulder; on the disability line he
adds “right arm weak”. But whatever the injury was it healed
because Grandpa West did get drafted a year later and was
inducted(?) on 29 Apr 1918. He reached the rank of Pvt 1st
class in November of 1918 and served as part of Company K, 303
Infantry. He never made it overseas and I think I recall Dad
saying Grandpa had been stuck at Fort Dix N.J. during the
outbreak of the Spanish Influenza. He was honorably discharged
on 12 Mar 1919. So far Grandpa West is the only one out of this
group that I've found to have actually served in the military
during World War I. But the McFarland brothers were all in
their late twenties or older and Grandpa White might have been
exempted due to his occupation.


Finally, my mother’s father, Edward F. White lists his occupation
as “helper” on the “N.Y., N.H., & H. R..R. & Co.” by which I take it
to mean the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. The
business address is given as Union Station in Harftord. He gives
his home address as 41 Philbrick St in Roslindale Ma. and lists as
closest relative his mother “Lena White”. His height is Tall, build
Medium. His eyes were Blue and his hair Dark Brown.

The information on Mom’s father is of interest because frankly,
there’s so damn little we know about him. For example. we’d never
heard mention of his working for the railroad. And this is the first
mention I’ve had of his mother as “Lena”. Up until now, I knew
her as “Pauline”

So much I don’t know!

So much to learn!