Lift Up Your Hearts!

Our census form arrived.  In a word:  B-O-R-I-N-G.

It's a good thing for future genealogists that we have so many other forms of record-keeping, because they won't get much from the 2010 census.  Name, sex, date of birth, race in excruciating detail if you're Hispanic, Asian, or Pacific Islander (Dominican? Hmong? Fijian?), relationship to head-of-household (now inoffensively called "Person 1" — also in excruciating detail, distinguishing, for example, between biological and adopted children, which genealogists will love, if no one else).  That's only if you're one of the first six people in the household.  For Persons 7 through 12 they don't care about your race or exact relationship.  And if you're the 11th child in the family?  Apparently you're out of luck, but I suspect that may be covered by the "we may call for additional information" caveat that goes with the questions for Persons 7 - 12, since there's also a place to indicate the total number of people in the household.

I wrote before about the interesting information in previous censuses, but I'll repeat it for this occasion.

• 1820 - Not much besides a breakdown by age range, color, slave/free/citizenship status, and whether in agriculture, commerce, or manufacturing.
• 1830 - Was anyone in the household blind?
• 1850 - A big year for genealogists—the first time everyone was listed by name, rather than merely by head-of-household.  Place of birth was also added.  Other questions concerned value of real estate owned, school attendance, literacy, and whether or not the person was "deaf, dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict?"
• 1870 - Were the person's parents of foreign birth?
• 1880 - Another good one for genealogists, as they started asking where the person's parents were born, and also marital status.  The sick/disabled status was expanded and broken down instead of being lumped together.
• 1890 - Lots of great data for genealogists here; unfortunately all but a very small number of these records were destroyed in a fire.  The racial breakdown for this census was "White, Black, Mulatto, Quadroon, Octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian."
• 1900 - How many years married, how many children born to mothers, how many of those still living—through this census I found my grandfather's sister.  Lots of questions about employment and living situations.  Also year of immigration, and naturalization status.
• 1910 - Mother tongue of person and his parents; number of years of present marriage, and whether the marriage is first or subsequent.  Is the person an employee, employer, or self-employed?
• 1930 - The race question gets more specific:  Enumerators were to enter "W" for white, "Neg" for black, "Mex" for Mexican, "In" for American Indian, "Ch" for Chinese, "Jp" for Japanese, "Fil" for Filipino, "Hin" for Hindu, and "Kor" for Korean. All other races were to be written out in full.
• 1940 - April 1, 2012 is the date genealogists are waiting for:  the 1940 census data will finally be released.  (There's a 72-year wait for reasons of privacy.)  It should be fascinating, as it includes many detailed questions about the family's housing situation, including lighting, sanitary facilities, heating, number of rooms, and much more.  Unfortunately, these detailed questions were only asked of five percent of the population.
• 1950 - This is getting closer to home, but we won't see it till 2022.  I wonder what they had to say about our house, if we were lucky enough to win the 5% sample lottery.
• 1960 - I'll be in this one!  I hope I live to see it.  Alas, for most of us this will be a really dull census, as most households were only asked for age, sex, race, and marital status data.  B-O-R-I-N-G!

Sometimes the questions say as much about the nature of the country as do the answers.

Article 1, Section 2 of the U. S. Constitution lays the groundwork for conducting a periodic census in order to provide proportional representation in the House of Representatives.

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.... Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons....

This was modified somewhat by the 14th Amendment, to wit

Representatives shall be apportioned  among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.

This week we received in the mail, not the census form itself, but a letter from the U. S. Census Bureau informing us that the form would be delivered soon.  In it we are told the reason we should "fill it out and mail it in promptly."

Your response is important.  Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need.  Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.

How did we get from determining appropriate representation in the Federal government to getting our "fair share" of governmental programs that we "need"?  Surely this inversion of John F. Kennedy's Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country borders on travesty.

Then again, I know that the true value of the census is not representative government, nor the people's pork, but to provide future genealogists with information about their ancestors.  I used to think the census takers asked too many nosy questions.  Funny how one's perspective can change.

I had to watch it, since my genealogical organizations, websites, and contacts kept bringing it to my attention:  NBC's new genealogy show, Who Do You Think You Are?  My reactions?  Mixed.

Each week, apparently, the show will present an investigation into the family history of one person.  Supposedly these are famous people; I haven't heard of any of them, but that helps me concentrate on the data, which I find more interesting anyway.

As I watched, I tried not to take the jaundiced position of expert amongst novices.  Not that I'm an expert in genealogy by any means, but I do know a whole lot more than I did when I began nearly eight years ago, and had to make a point of remembering those initial days of knowing nothing and being amazed by everything.  Not that making new discoveries ever gets routine.  But I would be very dull on a show like that, since I react to such revelations with "that's interesting," or maybe "that's really cool," but do not keep repeating, in an overly loud and dramatic voice, "Oh my God!" and "That's un-be-LEEV-able!"

The hyper-dramatic approach was not limited to the featured guest, but part and parcel of the show, and that did drive me nuts, even more so than the constant commercial breaks, which at least provided an opportunity to get the dishes done.  There is about 15 minutes of really excellent material in the show, and if they hadn't stretched it out to an hour, it would have been great.  It was fun to follow the research that led to the 49-er ancestor in California, and the accused witch in Massachusetts.  Enough fun that I may watch the next episode, but now that I know you can watch it on Hulu, I won't feel obligated to plan my life around 8 p.m. on Fridays.

On a personal note, the best part was seeing my Boston home-away-from-home, Li'l Writer Guy's sanctum sanctorum, the sixth floor reading room of the New England Historic Genealogical Society's library.

Recently I let my Ancestry.com membership lapse, on the grounds that they had doubled the cost.  It's a wonderful resource, but I couldn't let such an increase go unprotested, and was in a period of life when I couldn't use it effectively, anyway.  The membership had been costing me $150/year, which I had decided was worthwhile to keep the service available no matter how much or how little I used it.  I've not yet decided that it's worth $300, but have been hoping Ancestry will have a special membership sale sometime when I can rejoin.  The question now hangs in the air:  Will Who Do You Think You Are? encourage Ancestry to offer such a sale?  Or will it inspire a flood of new demand that will keep the price high?

UPDATE:  The Second Edition of Phoebe's Quilt, corrected and expanded, is now available.

My sister-in-law found it in a trunk: an old, handmade quilt. Each block was inscribed with a name, often a city, and sometimes a Bible verse. The cities and many of the surnames were familiar, but no name was identifiable as that of someone in the family. Who were these people? Whose quilt was it, and when was it made? And how did it end up in Prudence's trunk?

Far be it from me to resist a genealogical puzzle, especially when it can be turned into a Christmas present:  I would use my genealogical resources to decipher the quilt, and turn my research into a book to put under the tree.  Little did I know how much of my life this little project would consume; I'm certain the quilt itself was completed in less time.

Did I say completed?  I doubt I've ever used that word in a genealogical context unless accompanied by "not" or "never."  But Christmas will come whether or not we are ready, and thus I was saved from my perfectionist tendencies.  The project is as done as it is going to get, barring a second edition.

The owner of the quilt was Phoebe L. Scovil, the daughter of Sylvester and Phoebe (Burr) Scovil, who later married Horace Andrew Bonfoey.  It was made in Haddam, Connecticut, in approximately 1849.  The signers, with their full names—even if they married after the quilt was made—were (maiden names in parentheses):  Laura Jane (Prior) Baldwin, Eliza (Burr) Bonfoey, Susan Clarke Bonfoey, Anna Brainard, Clarissa (Thomas) Brainard, Aaron Burr, Amelia M. (Bonfoey) Burr, Elizabeth (Brainerd) Burr, Flora Betsey (Burr) Burr, Rebecca (Bulkley) Burr, Sarah (Johnson) Burr, Willoughby F. Burr, Hannah A. Cory, Louisa (Bailey) Dewey, Adeline F. (Cory) Elliot, Susan M. Flagg, Ann T. (Wright) Gardner, Amelia Bullock (Abrahams) Gay, William Gay, Nancy Smith (Brainerd) Guy, Clarissa (Loveland) Harris, Abba E. Holmes, Almira T. (Hubbard) Hubbard, Lucretia Hubbard, Thankful Hubbard, Mary Ann Hyde, Mary S. (Wright) Hyde, Elizabeth G. (Hyde) Kelsey, Esther Maria (Scovil) Leete, Jane W. Miller, Julia Miller, Phebe A. (Harris) Newton, Cynthia (----) Priest, Joanna Lane (Burr) Prior, Charlotte (Spencer) Redfield, Elnora F. (Bidwell) Roberts, Adalaide (Holmes) Robinson, Cynthia Scovil, Esther Maria (Burr) Scovil, Frances Louisa (Bonfoey) Scovil, Phoebe (Burr) Scovil, Phoebe (Spencer) Scovil, Sarah A. Scovil, Eliza Ann (Smith) Smith, Jane A. (Tryon) Smith, Susan Virginia (Scovil) Stone, Sarah (Burr) Thomas, Albertie Tryon, and Sarah Maria (Wilcox) Wilcox.

Genealogical discoveries are meant to be shared, so for all interested family members, and also because there may be others researching the people represented here, I've attached a pdf of the book:  Phoebe's Quilt.  I would be grateful to hear from anyone who knows more about the quilt signers, and would also be glad to hear from those who catch the mistakes which I know must have escaped our proofreading.  There's always that second edition....

Like many people, I have mixed feelings about Facebook, finding it simultaneously useful and annoying.  But here's a funny thing about Facebook, as reported by Eric Schultz, who is the Chairman of the Board of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and writer of The Occasional CEO. (The NEHGS library, both online and in person, is one of my favorite and most helpful resources for genealogical research.)

This last summer, in the midst of its 164^th year, NEHGS had the single greatest month of membership growth ever.  Ever.

The reason?   Facebook.

Yep, that surprised the board, too.

If you were given an unexpected two weeks in New York City (actually 8.5 weekdays), how would you spend them?  Not the way I did, it's a safe bet.  While I did manage one or two obligatory tourist trips (more on that later), most of my time was spent at the New York Public Library—you know, the place with the magnificent lions out front, where everyone goes who wants to film something in a library because it's so beautiful.  Though in truth I never saw the main part of the building.  I made my home in Room 121, the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy.  One of the best resources in the world, a perfect complement to my beloved New England Historic Genealogical Society Library in Boston.

As with February's research trip to Boston, this was an intense time.  I estimate I spent 40 hours of those eight and a half days in the library itself; it turned out to be more blessing than bother that it didn't open till 11 a.m., as I needed the morning time to prepare.  The library is less than half a mile, a mere eight minute walk, from the Times Square Hilton hotel where we stayed, and what a pleasure it was to sling on my backpack, descend via the Hilton's two elevators to 42nd Street, walk past Bryant Park, and enter the cool, dark research room with its intoxicating smell of old books; then to re-emerge—after gentle prodding by the librarians, who reminded me that the building was about to close—and reverse the trip with a head swimming with new data, and my sweet, hard-working husband and a late dinner to look forward to.

Researching, writing, sitting for hours at a desk poring over books—that which was anathema during my school years gives me such great pleasure now.  Who'd have thought?

I never could keep cousins straight.  First cousins—the children of my parents' siblings—I understood, but I was lost when it came to second and third cousins, let alone those with the "removed" designation.  Not that I cared; it was rarely an issue for me.  When genealogy entered my life, however, family relationships suddenly needed to be a whole lot more specific.

After much puzzing over confusing definitions and tables, I gained enough head-knowledge to create the following algorithm.  My gut instincts in the matter are still a bit fuzzy, so I fall back on the strategy of the confused high school algebra student and rely on formulas.

To Calculate the Family Relationship Between Person A and Person B

Find C, the common ancestor between A and B.

Let N = the number of generations from A to C

Let M = the number of generations from B to C.

1. If N = 0, A is the (M – 2)^th great grandparent of B, where the 0^th great grandparent is defined as “grandparent,” the –1^st great grandparent is defined as “parent,” and the –2^nd great grandparent is defined as “self.”
2. If M = 0, A is the (N – 2)^th great grandchild of B, where the 0^th great grandchild is defined as “grandchild,” the –1^st great grandchild is defined as “child,” and the –2^nd great grandchild is defined as “self.”
3. If N = 1 and M > 0, then A is B’s (M – 3)^th great grandaunt/uncle, where the 0^th great grandaunt/uncle is defined as “grandaunt/uncle,” the –1^st great grandaunt/uncle is defined as “aunt/uncle” and the –2^nd great grandaunt/uncle is defined as “sister/brother.”
4. If M = 1 and N > 0, then A is B’s (N – 3)^th great grandniece/nephew, where the 0^th great grandniece/nephew is defined as “grandniece/nephew,” the –1^st great grandniece/nephew is defined as “niece/nephew” and the –2^nd great grandniece/nephew is defined as “sister/brother.”
5. If N > 1, M > 1, and N = M, then A and B are (N – 1)^th cousins.
6. If N > 1, M > 1, and N < M, then A and B are (N – 1)^th cousins, M – N times removed.
7. If N > 1, M > 1, and N > M, then A and B are (M – 1)^th cousins, N – M times removed.

It's a little nerdy—okay it's a lot nerdy—but it works for me, and I've never seen anything like it, so I post it here in case it may help someone else.

A common theme over at the Front Porch Republic is a respect for place: for home and community, for not only eating locally but being locally, staying in (or returning to) one's hometown rather than venturing off to "better" places.  The article Root Hog or Die is where I chose to ask a question that has been bothering me about this approach to life, much as I like some of the ideas.

I’ve moved enough times in my life to know I hate it. (The only time I didn’t was when moving from an apartment to our first house, just a few blocks away.) I grieve that my present grandchildren live an 18-hour drive away, and some future grandchildren are likely to grow up where I can’t visit them without a passport. Our extended family makes a point of getting together at least twice a year—but that’s not the same as being able to drop by my nephew’s house for an impromptu cello concert, or to comfort my grandson when he is sick.

That said, I want to ask a question that has bothered me ever since I first encountered the stay-home ideas here at the FPR. Having done extensive genealogical research, I know that the best thing my maternal great-grandparents did for me was to get out of their West Virginia town. Among those who remained, the incidence of “father unknown” on the birth records is depressingly high.

Moreover, I noticed that each of my hated moving experiences provoked growth in my life and that of others. In my own (highly-rated) high school the brightest, most interesting students were almost always those who had come from elsewhere, not because of any deficiencies in the local population, but because the non-locals had a wider range of experience from which to draw. I like to think our different perspectives brought enrichment to our fellow-students as well.

I wish we could have it both ways. Home, as my friends and family will assure you, sometimes with exasperation, is my favorite place to be—wherever home happens to be at the moment. I wish my entire family were no more than an hour’s drive away instead of spread across the country and the globe. But living, at least for a while, in Japan, and Costa Rica, and Switzerland, and Italy, and yes, Pennsylvania, Florida, Washington, Massachusetts, and many other states, in small towns and suburbs, in cities and on farms, has brought such richness to our family that I wouldn’t have it otherwise.

How does the philosophy I see here at the FPR allow for such enrichment, such growth, such joys?

If there's a good response I'll include it here in the comments.

What is my home? Eastern upstate New York, where I grew up?  Eastern Pennsylvania, where I also grew up?  Western New York, where our children were born?  Florida, our home for most of the last quarter-century?  My two parents and four grandparents were born in New York, Washington, West Virginia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Florida—representing the middle and three of the four corners of this continental United States.  How far back do I go to find my "family" home? Do I go back to England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Germany, France, or the Netherlands?

These ruminations were sparked in part by what I learned recently about the Swiss system of citizenship, which perhaps reflects, at least in principle, the rootedness extolled at the FPR.  Swiss people are not citizens of Switzerland, per se, but of their family’s home town, which may be neither the place they were born nor a place they have ever lived.  Children and wives take on the citizenship of the father/husband, which probably would make me a citizen of Quidnessett, Rhode Island, if not of somewhere in England. Mindboggling.

Ancestral lands or no, "home" to me would ideally have all family members (children parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings, in-laws) living close enough together for casual visits, mutual support, and tremendous Memorial Day picnics, while at the same time providing for all the enrichment of life that comes from extended immersion in other cultures, both the cultures of foreign lands and the alien cultures in our own country.  (If you doubt we have alien cultures in our own country, you've never experienced the contrast between New England and the South, let alone Middle America and California.)  So it's impossible:  but what kinds of attitudes and actions could bring us closer to the ideal?

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!

Apparently he did not take her up on the offer.

After his recovery, he came to Lancaster County, Pa. where he taught school and boarded with a Dutchman.  Here he first learned to mow with a scythe and snath.  He then came to Fayette County where Connellsville, Pa. is now or near there, where there was a forge owned by a Quaker by the name of Langdale.  Grandfather asked permission to see his books and showed him some mistakes that he had made.  He then employed Grandfather to clerk for him.  He also taught school in the neighborhood.  The scholars would bar him out and make grandfather promise a treat before they would let him in.

On January 29, 1801, Nathan Smith married Margery Irwin.

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 a skillet with them.  Grandmother was a woman of sterling character, never afraid to back a friend or face a foe.

Grandfather was very mild in his disposition and polite in his deportment.  He delighted very much in reading.  In the latter part of his life the Bible was his great companion and Erskine’s Sermons was a favorite....[He] wrote a very nice plain hand, [and] sometimes in winter evenings would teach a writing school at his own house.  I heard Grandmother telling that on one of these evenings, in which they were writing, some drunken fellows came and attempted to break up their writing school and raised a fight.  She said she beat one of them over the back with the shovel-handle and drove the intruders away.

Grandfather purchased a farm in 1809 in South Huntingdon Township, Westmoreland County, Pa. where he resided till the year 1822 when he traded farms with his son Henry and move into East Huntingdon Township where he remained until his death.

While visiting Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania this past summer, I copied my Nathan Smith's entries from the tax rolls for the years 1811-1819.

• 1811:  100 acres, 2 horses, 1 cow; tax paid, $0.59
• 1812:  100 acres, 2 horses, 1 cow; tax paid, $0.60
• 1813:  100 acres, 2 horses, 1 cow; tax paid, $0.60
• 1814:  114 acres, 2 horses, 2 cows, 2 stills 100 gallons; tax paid, $0.84
• 1815:  114 acres, 2 horses, 2 cows, 2 stills 100 gallons; tax paid, $0.84
• 1816:  114 acres, 2 horses, 2 cows, 2 stills 100 gallons, something illegible; tax paid, $0.88
• 1817:  100 acres, 2 horses, 2 cows, stills 175 gallons; tax paid, $1.04
• 1818:  100 acres, 2 horses, 2 cows, stills 175 gallons; tax paid, $1.04
• 1819:  100 acres, 2 horses, 2 cows, stills 175 gallons; tax paid, $1.04

The dollar was worth something back then.  They were taxed on land and farm animals, and later stills, but not, I note, on their house.  When I think of stills I picture illegal moonshiners in the backwoods of Appalachia, but in the days of poor transportation, distilling grain into alcohol was considered a practical means of getting one's surplus to distant markets. This would have been a few years after the Whiskey Rebellion, but nonetheless gives that otherwise dry bit of Western Pennsylvania history new meaning to me.

Grandfather was a delicate man, while grandmother was a stout, hearty woman.  She could take a hand reaping along with the men.  They had six children.

"Delicate" clearly did not mean weak or unhealthy.

Grandfather packed salt on the mountains, I think from Carlisle, Pa.  He attended church at Tyrone Presbyterian Church in Fayette County, where he and his wife were members.  Grandfather...died March 25th, 1850 in his eightieth year.  Grandmother died May 18th, 1867 in her ninety-first year.  Both are buried at Tyrone Cemetery, Fayette Co., Pa.

        

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.

Finally, as Gary Boyd Roberts of the New England Historic Genealogical Society has stated, "Living Americans with 50-100 immigrant ancestors in New England …can expect to find a royally descended forebear."  Why is it good to have royal blood?  It’s not for bragging rights, although I’ll admit some sort of perverse interest in finding myself descended from the villains of Robin Hood (King John), Becket (Henry II), and Braveheart (Longshanks).  I find it best to take refuge in what C. S. Lewis said in Prince Caspian, when Caspian expressed regret for not coming from a "more honorable lineage."  Aslan told him, You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve, and that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth.

The most important benefit of having royal ancestors is that it makes history much more interesting.  I never could abide history as a school subject, but finding a connection between the two makes both history and genealogy come alive.  One reason for my research is the hope that it will help our nephews and grandchildren to see historical figures and events as the real lives of real people.

From the standpoint of research, however, the best thing about royal descent is that those folks made history, and even those who didn’t keep records of the hoi polloi kept track of their noblemen.  How else would I be able to find ancestors as far back as the 6th century, and how cool is that?  And again, someone else has done the work that I would never do, even if I could.

What has been somewhat amusing about my research is that while I discovered multiple paths to royal ancestors in my line, I had found nothing for Porter, despite Gary Boyd Roberts’ assurances.  He, however, has multiple Mayflower lines, while I’ve found none of those for myself.  During my recent trip to Boston I rectified the former omission.

The key to the Wightman connection turns out to be Ursula Perkins, born 1812, died 7 August 1889, married Elbridge M. Wightman in 1829 and lived in Bristol, Connecticut.  The only information I had about her parentage was that she was the daughter of “Mark and Polly Perkins.”  Recently I decided to try to push her line back a bit further.  Skipping details of the research that led me to these resources, I discovered The Descendants of Edward Perkins of New Haven, Conn. by Caroline Erickson Perkins (Rochester, New York: C.E. Perkins, 1914), and Yale Genealogy and History of Wales by Rodney Horace Yale (Beatrix, Nebraska: 1908).  In the latter I found a Polly Yale who was born May 26, 1793 and “[m]arried Mark Perkins, July, 1811, and lived in Oneconta [sic Oneonta], N.Y.  He died Sept. 30, 1813.”  Her parents were Thomas Yale and Polly Beckwith.  So far, the facts were consistent with what I knew about Ursula.

In the second book I found a Mark Perkins, son of Elijah Perkins and Lydia Sperry, baptized in 1788 at Woodbridge, Connecticut.  Four brothers and sisters were baptized at the same time, so his actual birth year must be somewhat before this.  Unfortunately, the book stops short of naming a wife for Mark, so there was no obvious reason to connect him with Polly Yale.  However, there’s an LDS record that names a Mark Perkins who married a Polly Yale and died 30 September 1813 in Oneonta, New York.  The LDS sources are of varying reliability, but it was an encouraging find.

Most indicative was the cemetery records of Old North Cemetery in Bristol.  There I found:  Thomas Yale, who died 18 February 1814, age 52; Polly, his wife, who died 17 April 1795, age 25; and Anna, his relict (widow), who died 15 September 1830, age 70.  All these are consistent with the Yale book, so I am confident I have the right family here.

Also in the cemetery is Elijah M. Perkins, who died 30 September 1813 at age 31; the records note that he is buried in the Thomas Yale lot.  Considering the death date, it takes very little imagination to believe that this is not the Elijah Perkins noted above as Mark’s father, who could not have been 31 in 1813, but rather that Mark’s full name was Elijah Mark Perkins and that he was brought home from Oneonta to Connecticut for burial in the lot of his wife’s father.

Furthermore, also in the Thomas Yale lot is Polly Yale, wife of Thomas Peaslee, who died 23 April 1870 at age 77.  The age is consistent with the Yale book’s birthdate for Polly.  I’m convinced that Polly Yale Perkins, left a widow with an infant, married again in Oneonta, to a Thomas Peaslee, returning to Connecticut to be buried—census records suggest that she may have outlived her second husband and returned between 10 and 20 years before she died.  All this is speculation; remember what I said about New York records being less than stellar?  So far I've been unable to find a death record for Mark Perkins (nor one for Elijah, who apparently moved to New York as well), nor a birth record for Ursula Perkins, nor a marriage record for either Thomas Peaslee or Polly (Yale) Perkins.  Nor can I find any evidence of a Thomas Peaslee who fits well into this scenario.  I haven’t given up, but as these records are not essential to the present purpose—finding Porter’s royal ancestry—I’m giving it a rest.  That Polly Yale was Ursula Perkins’ mother I have no doubt.

Someday I hope to arrange all the generations in easily-readable, printable form, but that’s a task I’m not willing to tackle at the moment—real life calls—so here is all most of you will want to know, anyway.

The generations to Ursula Perkins from Thomas Yale and Anne Lloyd, English immigrants to the New World and each a “gateway” ancestor to proven royal descent:

Thomas Yale = Anne Lloyd

Thomas Yale = Mary Turner

Thomas Yale = Rebecca Gibbards

Nathaniel Yale = Anna Peck

Abel Yale = Esther Cook

Abel Yale = Sarah Jerome

Thomas Yale = Polly Beckwith

Polly Yale = Mark Perkins

Ursula Perkins = Elbridge M. Wightman, Porter’s great-great-great grandparents

I believe these are their pictures; if anyone knows differently, please let me know.

Our relationships to various historical figures; interested parties can calculate their own relationships from there.  Note that this shows only the closest relationships; in many cases there is more than one line to the same ancestor.

Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor:  Porter's 37th great-grandfather, Linda's 37th ggf

Alfred the Great: Linda's 36th ggf

King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine (Becket, The Lion in Winter, buried near and namesake of Château de la Motte Henry in France): Porter's 23rd great-grandparents, Linda's 25th ggp

King John (Lackland) of England (the Magna Charta guy, Robin Hood's enemy—Jonathan may not take this one very well): Porter's 22nd ggf, Linda's 24th ggf

King Duncan I of Scotland (killed by Macbeth): Porter's 27th ggf, Linda's 29th ggf

Saint Margaret of Scotland: Porter's 26th great-grandmother, Linda's 28th ggm

William the Conqueror (1066, Norman Conquest): Porter's 26th ggf, Linda's 28th ggf

There’s a lot more, not only royalty (because they were all so interrelated) but people with names like Ælfweard and Ælfgifu and Gruffudd o’r Rhuddallt ap Madog Fychan ap Madog Crupl, and all sorts of people who no doubt would be at least as interesting as those above if only I knew more European history.  If there’s a relative out there who’s studying any part of European history, let me know, and I’ll see if there’s someone on the list to make it more personal for you.

[Li’l Writer Guy is politely requested to close the books for a while, because what’s past may be prologue, but what’s present is too persistent to be ignored for long.]

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.

Last week there was an important class being held just outside of Boston, which Porter wanted to attend.  Unfortunately, IBM has had a freeze on educational travel for quite a while.  There's a way to appeal for an exception, but the process can take time.  In this case, Porter learned at 5:00 on Friday afternoon that if he would take care of the airfare and car rental, and do what he could to save money on hotel and meals, he could go.  That meant leaving in less than 48 hours!  He's used to travelling on short notice (though not usually that short), and I guess it's a testament to how much more travelling I've been doing myself recently that I was able to manage it as well.  Those of you who know me know that flexibility and decision-making are not my strong points, but how could I pass up a trip to Boston (even mid-winter) when I could fly on his Southwest companion pass, stay in his hotel, and spend a week at my favorite library?

We even managed to fit in our weekend commitments, such as dinner with friends (Friday), a gardening class at Leu Gardens (Saturday), and church (Sunday), without panicking over preparation time missed.  We managed to get two of the last seats on the one Sunday flight still available, and were winging our way to Providence while most of the rest of the country was celebrating Super Bowl Sunday.

One friend asked if we purchased our winter clothes for the trip.  We didn't, but it was fun remembering that both the boots and the gloves had come from Boston in the first place.  :)  Despite the heavy clothes, we still managed to fit everything into carry-on luggage only—further evidence of having had more air travel experience.  We're not up to Rick Steves' standards yet, but much better than we were.

I've used this post as an opportunity to learn a bit about making my own interactive Google maps, so you can see some of the locations and travel routes here.

View Larger Map

Porter's class was in Bedford, which turns out not to be convenient to any part of Boston's good public transportation system.  No hotel approved by IBM was within walking distance of a reasonable station, so Porter graciously braved the Boston rush hour traffic to transport me to and from the Anderson/Woburn RTC station on the Lowell line.  The Anderson RTC is relatively new—too new to be on any of the maps we had from when we lived there—spacious, pleasant, and warm. The last feature turned out to be particularly important this week, for although the temperatures had moderated from the bitter cold snap of the week before, this Florida girl still finds below-twenty temperatures a bit nippy.

On our way from the Providence airport to Bedford, we drove through Norwood, checked out our old apartment (they've built a whole new house in the formerly-vacant lot next door) and other landmarks, and ate at the Thai Thani restaurant:  it's small but pleasant, and one of our favorite in-town places to eat when we lived in Norwood.  Because of the Super Bowl we were the only customers.

Our first hotel, a DoubleTree, was only a few minutes from the class site, but Porter found a Radisson in Chelmsford for $50 less per night.  For Diamond members like Porter, Hilton properties often provide enough gratis food for both breakfast and dinner, so we had thought we might justify the more expensive hotel by saving on food expenses.  However, this was definitely not that kind of DoubleTree.  The breakfast was okay, though nowhere near the sumptous fare of the DoubleTree we stayed at in Scotsdale, Arizona.  But dinner?  We made one meal out of the potato chips, cookies, and oranges that were provided, then packed our bags and moved to the Radisson.  As it turned out we also saved a little on meals there, though the hotel provided nothing, because from then on we skipped breakfast in order to get me to the train station before the notorious Boston rush hour traffic became totally unbearable.

Monday—while we were still at the DoubleTree—I spent in our hotel room, because the NEHGS library is closed on Mondays.  True, there's plenty more I could have done in Boston, but it was good for Porter to be able to concentrate totally on preparing for his class instead of driving me around, and good for me to have a full day to prepare for the rest of the week.  I spent the day glued to the computer, flipping between my database and the NEHGS Library catalog, making a list of the resources that I thought might be helpful.  Having neglected genealogy for the better part of the past year—and knowing that even with four days ahead of me there would never be enough time to begin to cover all I wanted to—I needed to maximize my efficiency.  Besides, the intensity of diving into my work as soon as Porter left the hotel and not coming up for air till he returned was good preparation for the following days.

After breakfast on Tuesday Porter took me to the station, where I bought my tickets and climbed aboard the commuter train to Boston. Natsukashii!  When we lived in Norwood I would take the Franklin Line into Back Bay or South Station, but the Lowell Line into North Station was similar enough.  There have been some changes since our time, however: the subway tokens have given way to a more modern, card-based fare system.  At North Station I purchased a 7-day unlimited subway pass; for the number of rides I actually took I didn't quite get my money's worth, but the flexibility made the $15 purchase worthwhile.

The Green Line T was always my least favorite of Boston's subway lines, and that's one thing that hasn't changed.  But my first ride was pleasant enough.  As I exited the Copley station I was blessed by gently falling snow.  By evening the snow was not such a blessing, but it made for a very pleasant walk to the library.

It seems incredible that it was four years ago I wrote the following:

[Li'l Writer Guy] rather likes to imagine he’s seated in some academic cloister, inhaling the intoxicating scents of polished wood, leather, and books old and new. On the table before him are the paraphernalia of his profession: stacks of books, pads of paper, writing implements, bookmarks, his laptop computer. Lost in thought, he stares out the window, but he’s not seeing the cityscape. Now and then he rises, and paces between the table and the stacks. At the end of the day, he reluctantly packs up, puts on his coat, and steps into the outside world, blinking owlishly and realizing dimly that time has not stopped for others as it has for him. (Any resemblance of Li’l Writer Guy’s fantasy land to the New England Historic Genealogical Society Library is not coincidental.)

And yet my return to that fantasy land might have been after an absence of a mere week, had not the photocopy system changed in the interim so that my card was no longer good and I lost whatever value had been stored in it.  I'm sure it was less than $5, however, so I wasted no time on regrets but set right to work.

The above description pretty much covers it.  I set up my computer at a desk on the sixth floor, now thoughtfully equipped with surge-protected power strips and free wireless internet access.   Occasionally I stopped to admire the falling snow out the window, but mostly tripped back and forth among the desk, the stacks, and the copy machine.  The main difference between imagination and reality is that in the fantasy version there is plenty of time and I'm not desperately scooping up as much data as I can carry.  Someone asked me what, in particular, I was researching.  The answer is, nothing in particular—and yet everything.  By virtue of the power of exponential expansion, a mere 10 generations back gets one person over 1000 ancestral lines to investigate.  Perhaps someday I'll come to the library for the purpose of doing an intense investigation of one or two questions, but for now I'm still at the stage where there are hundreds of books that might shed light on my family.

At about 4:50 the lights began to flicker, and I realized that I was off by an hour in thinking the library closed at 6:00.  I sent Porter a hasty Pidgin message and scrambled to pack up.  Reversing my morning's travels, I ended up back at the Anderson station where I had a fairly lengthy wait for Porter to arrive, as the beautiful snow had turned into a storm sufficient to snarl the already dense rush hour traffic.  Since by the time we arrived at our new hotel Porter had been driving in the dark and the snow for over an hour, we elected to eat dinner at the hotel dining room and then crash into bed.  It was a portent of things to come—so much for the plans I had had to accomplish things unrelated to genealogy in the "off hours."

On Wednesday we wasted no time on breakfast, but went straight to the train station.  The traffic on 495 was fine, but we weren't on 93 very long before it slowed to a crawl.  I made the 8:30 train, however, and was soon picking up where I had left off so hurriedly the day before.  Most of this day was devoted to one particular line of Porter's, and I believe I made an interesting and exciting discovery, but I'll say no more yet because there's still work to do before I'm satisfied of its authenticity.  The library is open till 9:00 on Wednesdays, so I stayed late, though not till closing.  The traffic was much better, due to both the later hour and the improved weather—although it was quite cold (in the teens), the roads were clear of Tuesday's snow.  We ventured across the street from the hotel for some decent, though not spectacular, Chinese food at Hong & Kong's before collapsing into bed once more.

Thursday we left a little earlier, and the traffic was so much better I caught the 7:38 train.  A good thing, too, as the rest of the trip was delayed, first by the breakdown of a train ahead of us, then by multiple breakdowns on the Green Line.  By the time a Green Line train came there were so many people waiting that the trip would have made a sardine claustrophobic.  As we approached the Arlington station I remembered having looked at the map and wondered why the NEHGS travel directions specified going to the Copley station instead of Arlington, so I happily exited the car one stop early and found that it was, indeed, a better choice.  I walked into the library two minutes after it opened and once again set to work.  The day was pretty much the same except that I didn't even notice this time that I'd missed both breakfast and lunch, I was working so intently.

At closing I took a different path, walking to the Back Bay station where I caught the Franklin line to Norwood.  That would have been really natsukashii except that the train was so crowded I had to stand up the whole way, making it impossible to look out the window and wax nostalgic as we passed the old, familiar stations.  The reason for this trip was to visit some friends from our Norwood church.  Porter joined us soon after I arrived, and we had a great time re-connecting.  If I have any regret about this trip it is that we did not have time to see several other people we would like to have visited.  Guess we'll have to come back.  :)

Friday was the last day, and a short one as Porter's class ended at 3:00.  Although the Green Line was still delayed, I arrived at the library before it opened, so I ordered a cup of tea at TeaLuxe across the street, which our friend Madeline had introduced me to at one of my first visits to the NEHGS.  After that it was full speed ahead once more.  There wasn't enough time; there never is.  But I was ready to leave, feeling saturated with data and having $46.75 worth of copied pages to digest upon returning home.  (My original plan had been to enter the newly-acquired data each night after dinner, but that went by the board the very first night.  I have many weeks' worth of work ahead of me.)

If my goodbyes to the NEHGS were a bit on the sentimental side, my Green Line farewell was made with much less reluctance.  At least on my part—the T itself was perhaps unwilling to let me go, as five trains came in the outbound direction before one going my direction.  At least that one was going as far as North Station.  Part of my quarrel with the Green Line on previous days was that most of the rush hour trains went only as far as Government Center, two stops before North Station.  I never did see a train that would have taken me beyond that; what those going to Science Park or Lechmere were supposed to do, I don't know.  At any rate, this one—so crowded I rode just inside the door, well in front of the while line everyone is supposed to be in back of, and hoping no sudden jerk would impel me out of the car—did get me to the station, where I caught my final Lowell train.  This time when he picked me up at Anderson, Porter took 128 to the Mass Pike, thence to 395 and 95 and finally to Old Saybrook for a delicious dinner with PJS and B&A.  If the primary purpose of this trip was for Porter's class, and the secondary for my genealogical research, the most important one was to visit family.  We spent Friday night in Granby with DSTB, where we delivered a box full of the most amazing and diverse collection of bottle caps that ever thrilled a nine-year-old boy.  We all had fun sorting them on the kitchen table.

We were joined Saturday by PJS for a day of game playing.  Of course Uncle Porter and the boys played PlunderChess and Lord of the Rings Risk, but I really enjoyed Hoopla.  Another highlight was attending a Suzuki cello group lesson at the Hartt School of Music. After dinner we headed for Salem, where we really had time for nothing but a night's sleep, going back to Saybrook early in the morning for the 8:00 service at Grace Episcopal Church.  We checked out a few things related to our upcoming marriage celebration, and truly enjoyed meeting and hearing the rector, Father Charles.  It's a beautiful church.  We had chosen the 8:00 service because it was Rite I, and because we had a brunch date at 10:00, but unlike our church's Rite I service, this one had no music at all, which made it feel a lot less like worship.  Perhaps this summer we can attend a later service.

I loved experiencing the cold and snow of Boston, and I loved even more the weather gift of this day: a touch of spring.  The sun was out and the temperatures above freezing, so ice was melting and the ground gave out the most delicious scent of warming earth.

After brunch and some more visiting time—though again not with everyone we wanted to see—it was time to drive back to Providence and catch our Southwest flight home.  We walked in the door about 8:30, exhausted and happy.

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.

It took only a few minutes of searching to reveal several women with the same odd appellation.  Why would anyone name a little girl Juan Fernandez?  Someone else asked, and answered, that question here, in the case of Juan Fernandez Bennett and Juan Fernandez Cuffee.

Why would someone name a beautiful African American girl, who ultimately graduated from Philadelphia Medical College in 1888, “Juan Fernandez” Bennett? What kind of name was that for a girl? Family research revealed that Dr. Bennett’s grandmother, known as Johanna F. Cuffee, was originally named Juan Fernandez Cuffee. Apparently William Cuffee, her sea-faring father, named his daughter for the Juan Fernandez Islands off the coast of South America. These islands were the first place that ships set into port after the harrowing experience of rounding the Horn. 

Was there a seafarer amongst my great-great-grandmother's forebears?  What I know so far of her ancestry has her roots firmly planted in the mountains, but there's still room for an old salt, or perhaps an unusually literate hillbilly, somewhere in the family tree.

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.

(Click map for larger image.)

The site also tells me that "Wightman" belongs to the "European-Other Western" group, that's it's an English language name of the English subgroup, that it is most frequently found (relative to overall population) in the United Kingdom, followed by New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and Canada, and that the most common first name coupled with Wightman is John.

Check it out.  It seems to have a limitation when it comes to umlauts, however.  "Stücklin" produced no results; "Stuecklin" occurs infrequently and only to any degree in Germany and Denmark.  However, "Stucklin," without the umlaut, is truly a Swiss name, with very small additional populations in France and the United Kingdom.  The top three cities?  Basel, Binningen, and Riehen.

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.

Fascinating!  I'm very much looking forward to the new genealogical DNA tests that will come from this.