My great-great-great-grandfather, Nathan Smith, was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1770. His mother died when he was six or seven years old and he was sent to school in Dublin. At the age of 23 he emigrated to the United States. Here is part of his story, as told in excerpts from a manuscript written by his grandson, James Foster, around 1890.
He sailed from Movill Bay in the year 1793, and landed in Philadelphia after a voyage of thirteen weeks on the water. The ship was commanded by a Captain Lovell. Grandfather was prostrate with yellow fever at the time. The ship was condemned and forbidden to enter the harbor. The Captain swore he would land Smith...there or somewhere else worse. Grandfather was taken to the hospital in a very feeble condition, so feeble that he did not expect to recover. But a woman attending the sick cheered him up by telling him she was going to have him for her second husband!
Both Porter and I are fortunate in having many ancestors who were amongst the first Europeans to come to this country. Whether it’s a fortunate situation in general may be up for debate, but for one doing genealogy research it is an undeniable blessing. For one thing, those early New Englanders kept good records! I didn’t know how good until I tried to find ancestors in Pennsylvania, where keeping birth records wasn’t generally required until the 1900’s. Even next-door neighbor New York isn’t nearly as easy to research as New England, and the further west one travels, the worse it gets. Except for California, that is. California may not be so good with history, but its modern-day records are more open than most. As a person concerned with privacy this makes me nervous, but the genealogist in me is grateful.
The second reason for being happy to have early New England ancestors is that so many other people have researched those lines already. In many cases, all I have to do is find the right books. That’s not as easy as it sounds, but it is what has enabled me to trace our lines so extensively. (More)I'm trying to digest and document the genealogical data I gathered during my recent visit to the NEHGS Library in Boston. There's much too much to handle all at once—and too many other duties calling—but I am focussing at the moment on getting into publishable form some significant progress I made on one of Porter's lines.
This line includes the first set of Welsh ancestors I've found for Porter. He's happy with them, even though he worries that Wales is uncomfortably close to Ireland. He's afraid I'll eventually find Irish ancestors in his tree—not that he has anything in particular against Ireland, but because he will no longer be able to blame my quirks on my Irish blood. :)
These Welsh ancestors are making my head spin. I have Welsh lines, too, but haven't yet tried to carry them back beyond the immigrants. This line of Porter's goes much further into the past, well into the time—which actually isn't all that far back—when Welsh names followed a patronymic system rather than having fixed family surnames. So I am struggling with names like Gruffyd ap Einion of Gwyddelwern ap Gruffyd ap Llewellyn ap Cynrig ap Osbern Wyddel of Cora y Gedol. Granted, one gets a lot of genealogy worked into a name that way, but entering it into standard genealogy software is a bit of a challenge.
I think I'll go clean the house.After all the travelling we did in the last quarter of 2008 and in January of 2009, I, the homebody, was really ready to enjoy a few months with nowhere to go. But "the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley," and in this case I'm thrilled.
Ever since we moved away from Boston, I'd been waiting for Porter to get a job assignment back there so I could stay with him while doing research at the New England Historic Genealogical Society Library on Newbury Street. He's been all over the country, but never to Boston...until now. (More)
One of my great-great grandmothers, on my mother's side, bore the name Juan Fernandez Pritt. In various census records she is listed as Penandis, Permandus, Joana P., Juann P., Joanne, and Pernandis E. Even though one of the most thorough researchers in the area found her listed as Juan Fernandez in the Weston, West Virginia courthouse, who can blame him, and others, for assuming that was an error and calling her Joanna? Even her middle name would be in question because of the census data.
I'm convinced, however, that Juan Fernandez is her correct name, although she was no doubt called by one or more nicknames throughout her life. The name in that form shows up in a published biography of her eldest son (my great-grandfather), and also on his official death certificate, bizarre as it seems for a child born in the backwoods of West Virginia, with no Hispanic relatives in sight. (More)Trying to catch up on my e-mail backlog, I came upon the World Names Profiler through my NEHGS newsletter. "The site plots 8 million names, using data that comes from electoral rolls and telephone directories around the world. Covering 300 million people in 26 countries, users can see where certain surnames originated, and where they have migrated to."
Here, for example, is the Wightman distribution map. (More)No time for something more thoughtful at the moment, but I saw this and can't resist passing it on. Check out this genetic map of Europe, and read the New York Times article that goes with it.
I recently read the answers to a genealogist's request for people's "top three genealogical regrets," and discovered that I am not alone. Hands down, the greatest frustration and sorrow reported was over not recording stories and asking questions of those who died taking irretrievable history with them. I'm far from the only one who developed an interest in family history too late to get easy and accurate answers to the family mysteries that are now taking so much time and effort to unravel, and which may never be made clear. From bare-facts birth, death, and marriage information, to photographs of people and places once dearly loved by those whose love made us what we are, to the unique, intimate, and irreplaceable stories of a family's daily lives, thoughts, feelings, and culture—these personal connections with history all too often mean little to the young, engrossed as they are in the here and now.
Even those fortunate young people who take an interest in their elders' tales are rarely forward-thinking enough to make sure the stories are recorded, nor do they often know at the age of 20 what questions they will wish answered when they are 50. It must, therefore, be the responsibility of the older generation to assemble, record, and save what information they can, keeping it safe "against that day" when their children, or grandchildren, or great-grandchildren will be grateful for their efforts. (More)Earlier this month the Seattle Times ran a heartwarming genealogy story by Jan Burak Schwert about her husband's accidental meeting, in a German pub, of a man who shared both his interest in genealogy and his great-great-grandfather. The meeting itself was not planned, but the ground well-prepared, since they were in Germany, and that particular small town, searching for information on his ancestors. ("You fly down the street on a chance that you'll meet, And you meet—not really by chance.") Despite the dilution of so many generations, the two looked like brothers.
I'm not likely to have such an experience in a small, foreign town, since I must go back one generation further still to find my first ancestor not born in this country, and I don't think anyone would look at me and say, "Irish." Nonetheless there's something wonderful about connecting with long-lost relatives, even first cousins. :)Today's NEHGS eNews includes the following lovely passage written on July 4, 1632 by New England Puritan leader John Winthrop. (The website version the eNews link will take you to is currently a few issues behind, but will eventually catch up to the one to which I refer, which is Vol. 10, No. 19).
Say what you want about the difficulties of family separation, and the desirability of reunion, and I will agree with you. But I marvel at the arrogance, duplicity, bullying, and blackmail from a leader who was loved and respected by so many. (Actually, it reminds me of a modern-day religous leader some of us know. Let the reader understand. Perhaps more strong, innovative leaders than we'd like to believe are a curious admixture of high intelligence, charismatic personality, stubborn will, and arrogant self-righteousness.)I have much difficulty to keep John Galloppe here by reason his wife will not come [to the New England colony]. I marvel at the woman’s weakness that she will live miserably with her children there, when she might live comfortably here with her husband. I pray persuade and further her coming by all means: if she will come let her have the remainder of his wages, if not, let it be bestowed to bring over his children, for so he desires: it would be above £40 loss for him to come for her.
I won't pretend anything other than a highly selfish interest in my dismay at the decision by the Catholic Church to forbid digitization of their parish records. I disagree with the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), but genealogists and other historians owe them a great debt for the records they have kept and assembled over the years, records which they make freely available to people of all faiths.
Anyone who has tried to find their European ancestors knows that the parish baptismal records are critically important, often the only record of someone's birth. This is not an issue of privacy concerns, as the records of interest are for several hundred years dead. (More)Our newly-found Smith Genealogy manuscript, which I mentioned in a previous post, is proving a treasure not only of facts but of stories. Here's one about my great-great-great grandmother, Margery Irwin, who was the author's grandmother.
Grandmother was born east of the mountains we think, in Lancaster County, Pa. She was brought west of the mountains when five years old, packed in a wallet on a pack saddle. Grandmother on one side and her sister on the other and a bottle of milk and skillet with them.
As with much of my life, my genealogcial work goes in spurts; I love to get deeply into a project and run with it until the demands of life pull me, reluctantly, away—or until I get heartily sick of it and must set it aside for a while. Genealogical research is not all success and great discovery; documentation and data entry are mostly tedious gruntwork, and mining for new data produces much more gangue than ore. I'm now at a stage where what's needed most is organization and the above-mentioned gruntwork, so naturally I'm finding other projects more attractive.
Thus it is amusing as well as delightful to find myself showered last week with more new data than I can do justice to in a month. Perhaps it's a case of casting one's bread upon the waters, for it began when, as part of my e-mail backlog reduction project, I organized and cleaned up my data on the descendants of Louisa Curtiss and Benjamin Wells for someone who had requested it. (That was one of the e-mails from 2005!) In the process I happened upon a piece of information that led to a major breakthrough in my Rice line, about which I will write later. (More)I've added a new category to this blog: Genealogy. This won't be the first post, as I've reclassified some earliers ones to which that designation applies. I haven't said much yet about this hobby of mine, but this may be the best way to keep family members up to date on what I'm discovering. While you're waiting for another Christmas CD, that is. :)
If this is the first of my genealogy posts you see, click here for a is a quick summary of why I found myself, against all odds, caught up in a hobby that is not only delightful and challenging, but also would have shocked my younger self.
