We will fly in to Glasgow and drive out to the Firth of Clyde and stay at the farm where I have begun all of my tours through Scotland. Nothing better to start off with than the warm welcome and hearty Scottish breakfast that awaits us there.

We’ll head North along the Clyde and then veer inland a bit until we cross over the Clyde and find ourselves at the southern tip of Loch Lomond. We’ll follow the shoreline for a bit and then wander East and North, stopping in Ballachulish and Glencoe on the shores of Loch Linnie. We will go and hike Glencoe Estates where our wee bits of land are part of the conservancy, and have a wee dram at Oban Distillery.

Back to the East a bit, and up along Loch Ness to Urquart Castle, and then still further North along Cromarty Firth, Dornach Firth, and up to Wick near Sinclair’s Bay. A ferry ride across the Pentland Firth (An Caol Arcach in Gaidhlig, meaning the Orcadian Strait; and the “Fjord of Pictland” to the Old Norse) and we will wander the Mainland Island of Orkney.

Returning South and East, we will cross the Moray Forth to Inverness and then head to Nairn. After a couple of days, we will again be on our way to wander through Aberdeenshire and find our way to Arbroath at the mouth of Brothock Burn.

We will spend a few days in Stirling and Edinburgh (by train from Stirling) and then head North again to Pitlochry and our favorite Edradour Distillery. A day in Glasgow will follow, and then it will be to home with us.

We have a list of castles, standing stones, and favorite taverns for food and drink in between each of our overnight stops, and open hearts and minds to what else presents itself. The one thing we have enjoyed the most is staying off the main roads and wandering through the countryside.

It will be a couple of months before the adventures will begin. Stay tuned….

This post is part of ROOTS - a series that originates on BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo – see what others are posting on the topic.

Roots: they are the stories that ground you, the food that returns you, the music that comforts you, and the people who know you. Everyone has roots that influence them, even if they don’t consciously know them or can’t access them.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013 – Prompt:

Are you interested in genealogy?  Do you have a family tree constructed?

I have always found family trees fascinating.

I have several trees from different branches of our family available. They are not consolidated, and I realize that it is a passionate work if you want to dedicate yourself to it. It has certainly become easier thanks to modern technology and swift access to online database. Also contacting those who dedicate themselves to researching and collecting data is much easier now. But it is still awfully time consuming, so you need to set aside some time if you want to do it properly and seriously.

What I am mostly passionate about is relationships. I believe in connections. I believe in networks. I realize that our way of thinking is largely influenced by who we are connected to and how we connect. There are connections in our ancestry that we are absolutely not aware of, but they are still there, they are in our DNA and they do have an effect on us, mostly in physical traits of course, but they may have more than that as an influence to who we are and how we relate to our environment.

When I started a family of my own, little did I know about the family I was going to give my children and I gathered lots of documents because I felt it was important for them to know the history of their paternal family. Since their father left us when they were very little (in 2002) and we were divorced in 2004, I am glad I still have those documents with me, at least, it gives me a little bit of solace that I can pass them information if they ever want to learn about that side of their heritage, even though it will never make it up for having built a relationship with their father as they grow up.

Now, I am not an historian, and I simply stored those informations, as well as the other information scattered from the other branches of my family. I believe it would be time for me to sort all this out and put something together neatly and try to see if I can build a tree for myself, that does not go only one way. For the moment, if I follow what I got, I can go back to circa 1700 on my paternal lineage, because a historian did a fabulous work and published the result of his research in a 95 page document retelling the influence and destiny of a Jewish family from the Eastern part of France (Lorraine), mine. I learned a lot thanks to this document.

I watched Who Do You Think You Are? A NBC series that aired in 2010 and followed a celebrity on a journey to their family tree and heritage. The obvious partnership of the production with Ancestry.com made it a little constrained at times, – and annoying in my personal taste – but otherwise I enjoyed the concept and found it pleasant to follow, even if at times I found it too shallow: I learned histories that I was not familiar with and enjoyed seeing how they were portrayed in a very vivid, if not dramatic way. The fact that it was celebrities was not that useful for me, and I felt like some of the connections were fabricated for the sake of the production, but all in all, the stories were real, from real people who went through these amazing dramas in their lives, and it was such an interesting way to understand how history and geography have an impact on our ways of seeing our destiny.

I understand that the series, that was cancelled by NBC, will start over on TLC end of July this year. Ancestry.com is still sponsoring, so I don’t believe it will be as exciting as the concept promised in the first instances (don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Ancestry.com, but their marketing is appalling, if you want my honest opinion, and I like sponsors when they are more subtle in their call to actions). Also my interest in celebrities is extremely limited, but hopefully their ancestry has diverse backgrounds enough that it will keep me fascinated enough!

A handmade Family Tree of my children’s paternal lineage as scribbled by their paternal grandmother on a kitchen table in 1999

On the topic of online genealogy sites, besides Ancestry.com which I cited already, you have Geni.com that is now part of MyHeritage.com and also Tribal Pages! Free accounts are limited, and paying accounts go from $2.00/month to 10 times that fee, so the range of service is pretty wide!

See my other posts of the series:

Three generations away

Generations

Random facts about my judaism

To me, what makes any family a family isn’t the ancestry, isn’t the genes and certainly it isn’t because people live together. What makes a family a family is their core Six Pillars: Morals, values, ethics, integrity, honor and honesty. Because family members have the same parents or have a filial relationship, they share or are taught the same Six Pillars. This is vitally important. Imagine a world in which everyone has the same Six Pillars as you do. How would such a world be? Of course. They’d be no war, no major disputes, everyone would understand everything that you do without having to explain it and everyone would be friends.

Given that one’s family are most likely to have the closest Six Pillars for any given individual, protecting and helping to insure the well-being of family members would benefit any person. This is why, in theory, when our backs are against the wall, we are taught to gravitate towards our siblings and our parents, and we are taught to help our siblings and our family members when they are in trouble, precisely because we are supposed to share our Six Pillars and the prosperity of people who share our Six Pillars should benefit us in the long-run.

However, what happens if one or more of our family members don’t share our Six Pillars? In fact, what if they are the antithesis to our Six Pillars? Certainly, these family members would not only not be helpful, but also a major hinderance in our life, particularly if they are actively sabotaging our lives or living off the generosity of our nature. Then, why should such people be given any consideration? Just because they have common ancestry and genes with us? No, this cannot be and it would not be right. If “family” is worse than your worst enemy then there should be no consideration for this so called “family” member. This is Just and fair.

In contrast, even if someone has no common ancestry with you, if they share your Six Pillars and are a support to your life, all consideration should be provided and given to the stranger, because they will be of help and support to you and your life and vice-versa. This person, though unrelated, would be more “family” than the family member whose a drag in your life.

The bottom-line is that being “family” is no excuse for being an ass with the “ones that you love” and it isn’t a license to do whatever you want with your family. And, family isn’t family if you don’t have common Six Pillars, because it is the Six Pillars that bind you as family, not your genes. Why? Because without common Six Pillars, blood doesn’t mean much.

For more please read my books, “… Under the Constitution with Liberty and Justice for ALL,” available at 50% off at http://www.CreateSpace.com/3978962 and “The New Constitution for Modern America,” available at http://www.CreateSpace.com/4281897.

It has been around since I was born.

I played in it as a child.

I felt my son’s first kick in the womb there.

And now my son sits there.

There in the red chair.

I hope to be doing more of these. I have stacks of photos to go through and of course add to them with my new grandson.

Born – offspring of ancestry created by a creator.

Again – something that happened more than once.

Christian – Part of Christ

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ ” (John 3:3 NKJV)

Like Nicodemus, we ask why must we and how can we be born again? We may also ask what is the kingdom of God and why can’t anyone born just once, see it?

We are physically born once. We are ancestors of the man named Adam that God created from dust. God breathed life into Adam. God created woman from Adam. Every other human being came from parents that were physically alive and descendants of Adam and Eve. Although We received all of our genes and our life from our parents, our traits may or may not be similar to our parents, since some of our genes are recessive. We are created in the image of God, but born subject to original sin as our parent and ancestors were.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they instantly died spiritually and began to die physically. Like our parents and their ancestor before them, we are born with original sin, spiritually dead, and physically dying.

“but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ‘ Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’— So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Genesis 3:3-7, 22, 24 NKJV)

Two trees. The tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, and the tree of life. God knows what good and evil is. He alone fully understands the difference and thereby can wisely choose to be good and not be evil. If the world only contained Good things, there would be no evil. Everything God created was Good. He said so. Wanting the knowledge of evil without the wisdom of God, is a deadly thing. God is good. To want evil is to desire ungodly things. God mercifully forbid eternal life to Adam and Eve, so that they wouldn’t live forever without God and His goodness. Love is godly and good. Lust is ungodly and evil. Death is the absence of God’s breath of life. Only those who continue to possess God’s breath of life, possess everlasting life. I believe this breath of life is also called His Spirit. His Spirit is Good. We must be redeemed and sanctified to possess His Spirit. Jesus died to redeem us. We must be reborn spiritually (regenerated) to see evil as God sees it. Once we do, we will want to repent of all ungodliness. Once we repent, Jesus died in our place and was our propitiation for God’s wrath. Jesus is the last Adam. We legally become adopted as Adam originally was a sinless son or daughter of God, sinless (without evil) as Jesus is. When God looks at those redeemed by Jesus, He sees only the perfect sinlessness of Jesus.

The kingdom of God is ruled and protected by God. Evil doesn’t exist there.

Did you know that God predicted that the Church would abandon the devil?

“And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15 NKJV)

Notice that the Seed of the woman is capitalized, but the seed of the serpent isn’t. There are many seeds of the serpent, Satan, the prince of this world. There is but one Seed of the women that will bruise the head (authority) of Satan. That person is Jesus Christ. The only ones to escape the control of Satan are those in Christ Jesus – the true body of Christ- the Church. The rest remain condemned.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. ‘He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.’ ” (John 3:16-21 NKJV)

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12, 13 NKJV)

Born spiritually of God, by God, for God.

Many claim to be Christian.
Fewer claim to to be reborn new creatures in Christ.
But far fewer are truly Born Again Christians who cannot tolerate evil anymore that God can. Although we may and do fail to meet God’s perfect standard, God’s standard (law) is written on our heart and we desire to be good as God!

Don’t be deceived. Only those who want to be the obedient, will be. They are the redeemed body of Christ.

In Jesus’ name and by His power,

AZ4Christ.wordpress.com

This post is part of ROOTS – a series that originates on BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo.

Roots: they are the stories that ground you, the food that returns you, the music that comforts you, and the people who know you. Everyone has roots that influence them, even if they don’t consciously know them or can’t access them.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 – Prompt:

Go back three generations and tell us about where your family lived.

I was born in Paris, France.
My father was born in Paris, France.
His mother too.
My mother was born in Algiers, which at the time of her birth was a French department.
Her mother was born in Toulouse, France and her father was born in Algeria.

Algeria is more mysterious to me because I never visited, and also because the country changed so much after it became independant, in 1962.
My family had already left the land, earlier, already in 1953 or 1954 before the war there started. The land they owned was seized, and certainly all the hard work my grandfather labored there got lost, but certainly not his kindness, his patience and all the memories he left me, even if he passed on when I was very little.

My grandfather was a tanner, and I still have a satchel that I used when I went to grade school that I was told he made (I supposed he prepared the leather for it, but had it made by a maker). I am very fond of leather, its smell, its feel. I also have my grandfather’s desk. Actually, I am writing on it right now. I don’t know how old this desk is, but it must have been built more than a century ago…

On the contrary, my father’s family lived in a place that I am very familiar with.
I have walked the street they lived many times, and passed it driving even more.
I have looked at the door, a typical heavy Parisian black door, but I have never passed its threshold.

My grandmother was arrested by the Gestapo and deported as a Jew in 1943. She never returned home.

On April 27, 1946 the building caretaker, wrote this note to certify that my grandmother had been arrested on July 30, 1943 at her place of work and never reappeared nor gave any news until that day.

This piece of paper probably entitled my father to some rights. Eventually, my grandmother was declared “dead for the motherland”.

I wear her wedding band. Because she was divorced at the time, she was not wearing it, and this is the only memory I have left from her, that I carry all the time with me. Inside the wedding ring there are her initials and her estranged husband. LH TG: the first two initials happen to be also mine. There is the date May 17, 1925. I can hardly take it off my finger now.

The desk and the ring are part of my surroundings, and they keep reminding me of those who are not here anymore, and places and stories I barely knew, and certainly never lived. They have a lot of power though, and they do shape who I am.

See the other posts of the series:

Generations

Random facts about my judaism

Cahir Castle

I remember telling my friends at school that my grandma told me I was an Irish princess and yes, they laughed their little third grade faces off at me.  I was devastated.  But as I grew up, I realized that almost everyone in my area of the world can trace some of their lineage back to Ireland and almost all of them can link themselves to a castle or the ruins of a castle in Ireland.  Didn’t matter.  Some days, I still tell myself that I’m an Irish princess.

My aunt (my mother’s sister) was so proud of her Irish roots.  She also had once endeavored to do a family tree of my maternal grandmother’s family.  She got pretty far back, I want to say something like 8 generations and ended up with relatives in France and Ireland.

My mother’s aunt (my grandfather’s sister) did a family tree of my maternal grandfather’s side and she went back to her grandparents but not too much further than that.

When our daughter was about two, maybe three, the Husband decided he wanted the Daughter to see where she came from.  I knew that my own heritage was pretty straight forward.  Irish, Polish, and Italian.  The Husband was more of a mix though.

He signed up for Ancestry.com and began to not only do his own family tree but also did a lot of mine.  It was fascinating the things that he found.  Records from churches, towns, all of the things they say you find on the commercials.  It was pretty cool though.

He traced my family back as far as their countries of origin.  Then, because the international version of Ancestry.com is that much more expensive, he stopped.  On my father’s side, my grandfather’s parents, my great-grandfather came from Poland and my great-grandmother came from Italy. That makes me third generation American on that line.

He didn’t find out too much about my father’s mother’s family and since my father hasn’t said a word to me in over twenty years, I don’t know that I will ever get any of that information.

My mother’s mother’s family was interesting.  There were things that my aunt had found and my Husband found also that said that half of the family was French.  My aunt got back almost 8 generations into France before they came to Quebec and then moved to Fall River to work in the factories during the industrial revolution.  Then the rest were all Irish. I am not quite sure of how far back this line went but I know it went pretty far.

The family bible from my mother’s grandmother also contains a ton of documents that go back pretty far.  The handwriting is still fairly legible and contains all kinds of dates: marriages, births, deaths.  There are tin photos in there too of men and women with stern looks on their faces.  I still don’t quite understand why people didn’t smile then.  It’s interesting to piece together these small snippets of my ancestors and to discover what is out there linking me to the past.

I can’t wait to keep chipping away at this mystery of where our family came from.  A princess needs to know these kinds of things!

This post was written as part of the June NaBloPoMo.  This month’s theme is Roots.  Today’s prompt was “How many generations can you go back in your family?  What do you know about your oldest ancestors?”

I spent a couple days in Washington, D.C. last week and had a good ol’ time.  D.C. is only a hop, a skip and a jump from New York (four hours on Bolt Bus), but I hadn’t actually visited Chocolate City since Obama’s 2009 inauguration. Why? No reason. Just hadn’t gotten around to it.  But I’d been meaning to get down there for a while and finally decided to just buy a ticket and go.  Delightful decision.  *Pats self on back * Here’s a little recap of the awesome bits of my trip. Dig in please…

Genealogy
Those of you who know me for realz or who follow me on Twitter, know that I am a HUGE genealogy geek. One reason that I wanted to get down to the District was to take a picture of my great-great-grandfather’s name on the African American Civil War Memorial.  Mission accomplished. I “found” my great-great-grandfather a couple years ago and discovered that he was a Civil War veteran.  Earlier this year I got his 100-page pension file from the National Archives.

I literally squealed when I got that thing of beauty in the mail.  It felt so real and important to have an ancestor with records in the National Archives. My family. I got those records with the intention of learning more about my ancestor’s life post-war and I did. But, I ended up being completely intrigued by his wife. This woman, my great-great-grandmother, buried her youngest child (a toddler) and then a couple months later buried her husband and was left with 13 children  to raise on the meager salary of a washer woman in rural Kansas.  It took her over a year to get her late husband’s pension, but she finally got it. Talk about strength! Sounds corny, but I literally think about her whenever I’m feeling blah or not wanting to trek to an event because it’s faaaaar or finding it hard to put in that work for a deadline. If she did all of that, surely I can successfully navigate my relatively easy-going life.

As far as my Civil War vet ancestor James H. Stewart, he was also a very special person. Though he was born in the 1830s, he was never a slave. His parents were never slaves. They were free “mulattos” from North Carolina. He was already a free man, but he decided to leave Indiana and go all the way to Massachusetts (55^th Regiment) to fight for freedom in the Civil War. That’s a stand-up dude.

When I ran my fingers across his name on the memorial, it wasn’t a particularly emotional thing at the time. I was hot, I had walked from the White House (more on that later) and I knew his name would be there. But later, I thought about the fact that I was likely the only person who had EVER gone to that memorial specifically for his name. This hero, this man who fought for freedom and spent four weeks in a military hospital, has been all but forgotten.  I can’t have that. Part of this genealogy obsession for me is that I want to not only remember my ancestors, but to honor them. I salute them. Their perseverance is the reason that I’m here today. I’ll be writing more in-depth about the whole ancestry thing in the near future.

Homies
Another reason I was in D.C. was to kick it with some of my favorite people. I got to hang with a bestie/former college roommate and her guy, a friend I met in NY years ago who now lives in the DMV and another college buddy. Good times, good times. I also met up with an awesome individual who is a potential mentor and definitely someone with whom I want to stay in contact. Cute drinks, good food, great conversation—all of those things were part of the kicking it portion of my trip.

City Love
I love cities. I love studying and experiencing cities. Give me a warm, sunny afternoon and a walkable city and I’ll be one happy woman. That’s exactly what happened in D.C. I stayed at the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue and T Street NW, just a few blocks from Dupont Circle. (Awesome shower, by the way.) I know D.C. can be sketchtastic, so I asked a friend of mine who lives in D.C. if it was a safe for me to walk around that area. His response? “At worst you would have to be worried about being glitter bombed.” Niiiiiiiiice! I was terribly excited about the prospect of being glitter bombed, but sadly it did not happen. Boo.
I did, however, walk around quite a bit. I never took the Metro. I walked everywhere.  Walked from one meet-up to the next. Walked from my White House selfie to the African American Civil War memorial and so on and so forth.  On that walk from the White House to the memorial, I inadvertently came upon a neighborhood that wasn’t quite hood, but hood-ish. Like, the landscape changed from big shiny buildings and people in power suits to liquor stores and check cashing spots and more ummm “interaction” with folks on the street. Your typical light-weight street harassment. Since I live in Harlem, I felt right at home!

One thing I noticed though when I had a solo brunch in my hotel’s vicinity was the whiteness of it all. Chocolate City my ass. I was hella in the vanilla part of town. I was the only chocolate to be found. I’ve read that D.C. is segregated on some metro-Detroit level ish and my little couple days there backed up what I read.  That’s crazy pants. But that’s also part of the reason why I’m interested in digging into D.C. more and getting a handle on that place.

I’ll be back D.C. I’ll be back.

A graphical representation of my DNA!

It says I’m 81% European Jewish (no surprise there), 8% Persian/Turkish/Caucasus, and 6% Finnish/Volga-Ural. I had no idea about the last two. My main complaint is that “European Jewish” is such a broad group – according to the results, it includes Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and other Jewish populations – although if you go by the map representation, it looks mostly Ashkenazi (Eastern European). That’s a little confusing. I was hoping the results would be more specific. It also provides a list of people who are possible DNA matches and may be long-lost cousins, which is interesting, but I’m not really sure how that works. I also thought it was funny that the first line in their “European Jewish” page is, “The bagel was brought to and popularized in the United States by Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants.” Really? Is that the most interesting factoid they could come up with?

In any event, the test was worth doing and has definitely made me think more about my ancestry. I’ve started creating a family tree, also through Ancestry.com, and I’m planning on asking my relatives to help me fill in the branches.

When I was entering my Dad’s family into my Family Tree Maker software, I synced it to my Ancestry account.  Things weren’t matching up with my great-great-grandmother.  Her husband wound up with 2 wives…both born on the same date.  Yeah.  That’s not right.  One woman was Mary Jane Wilson.  The other was Jennie M. Wilson.  Huh.  Jennie M.  Well, that’s got to be her.  That’s MY name!  Well, a “hint” in Ancestry led me to look at another member’s family tree.  It turns out that he is my 2nd cousin – born the same year as me!  He is my Dad’s uncle Theodore’s grandson.

Well, he had her listed as Mary Jane Wilson.  I had seen her a few places (including census records) as Jennie.  Long story short, her given name was Mary Jane Wilson.  She preferred the name Jennie.  So, she switched it.  I’m not sure if she ever legally changed her name, but there it is.  Jennie M. is the name on her tombstone.

So, I contacted this guy via Ancestry’s messaging.  I was sooooo happy when he got RIGHT back to me!  He said that his grandmother had a lot of information.  He would send me the scans of her charts.  (Me – hyperventilating at this point.  Little did I know what was to come.)  He emailed me not only the genealogy charts that she typed up, but a 9 page document that was written by her granddaughter, Lois, on Mary Jane / Jennie’s life story!  I got the email as I was heading out to an event at work that I was in charge of.  Oh – my – word.  Seriously?  It was all I could do NOT to read it while I was driving.  I skimmed it before I left, though.  I was later to the event than I should have been.  Hey, what can I say?

So, here is my (abridged) story of Gammy (some in my words, some from the original document) - my great-great-grandmother who was the mother of the woman for whom I was named.  I edited out a lot of things so that it’s easier reading for you.  But, if you’d like a copy of what I have, let me know!  I’d be more than happy to send it to you!

Gammy was born as Mary Jane Wilson on 6/16/1858 and baptized in the Lebanon Presbyterian Church in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania (out near Pittsburgh).  She was #6 in a family of 9 children.  Only 4 of them lived to middle / old age.  She later changed her name to Jennie M.  Her father owned and operated a successful coal mine out there (more on that later).

As a teenager, she was sent to school in Pittsburgh and boarded with a family while she was there.  She received a better education than most women did in the late 19th century.  She married Nathan Dennis Jones when she was 26 years old.  They moved into a small house on her father’s property.  Anyone was welcome at her parent’s “big house” for holidays…from the penniless widow with small children to women with no family at all.

In the spring of 1892, “Jennie”‘s (as we’ll call her, now), mother passed away.  Jennie was 34.  Just 3 weeks later, her 4th child, Earl, died at age 7 months.  Later that summer, Jennie and her father (who were both grieving) took a trip to Kansas.  Her mother-in-law came to watch the other children so that she could go.

She had 6 children in just over 10 years:
Emma Marie:  9/26/1885 – 11/20/1982 (97 years)
James Wilson:  6/3/1887 – 10/14/1967 (80 years)
Jennie:  7/22/1889 – 10/24/1975 (86 years)…the woman I was named for.
Earl Stanley:  9/16/1891 – 5/1892 (7 mos)
Frances Corinne:  5/4/1893 – 9/20/1920 (27 years)
Nathan Paul:  12/14/1895 – 8/24/1958 (62 years)

When she was 40, she became very ill.  Her daughter, Emma (who was 12 years old at the time), had to take care of the four younger children.  The youngest, Paul, wasn’t quite 3 years old, yet.

Around 1900, Jennie’s father sold the coal mine and retired to live the rest of his life in leisure, attending bank board meetings and chatting with folk who came to pay the interest on the mortgages which he held.  All of the men in the family had to seek other jobs.  This included Jennie’s husband, Nathan.

Three or four years after he lost his job at the coal mine, Jennie’s husband left the house one morning, supposedly to look for another job.  He never returned.  Nothing was ever heard from him again.  No body or grave was ever found!  Her daughter, Emma, who was around 18 years old at the time, recalls that on the evening of the very day that her father disappeared, a rap came to the kitchen door.  A male voice said that he had seen Nathan and that he would not be home that evening.  Apparently, no one ever asked any more questions.  No investigation was ever made.  It was suggested that either Jennie or her father had an inkling as to what might have happened.  However, nothing was ever mentioned in the family about the crisis.  No clues were ever given.  It was as if it had never happened.  Jennie’s niece, Susan, who was around 12 years old at the time, remembered Jennie’s going over to the “big house” the morning afterwards weeping and saying to her sister, Emma, “Nathan did not come home last night.”  She was left with five children to provide for, educate, and comfort.  Susan said that Jennie’s daughter, Emma, nearly collapsed with a nervous break down.  Jennie was around 45 years old.

Shortly after this tragic event, Jennie’s father, James Wilson, died in September, 1904 from complications resulting from a broken hip sustained when he fell through an open trapdoor in the first floor of the First National Bank of McKeesport.  He was there to attend a Directors’ meeting.  Jennie was 46 years old.

Family members believe that Jennie’s husband, Nathan, had originally been in love with Jennie’s sister-in-law, Rachel.  But, since she was married to Jennie’s brother, Billy.  But, they say that it was clear that Nathan loved his children very much – and also probably Jennie.  Jennie and her children were provided for by Jennie’s father’s will.

Jennie eventually spent many days with her daughter, Corinne, who never married.  Family members say that she was a spoiled, willful young woman.  Eventually, Jennie moved out to Colorado Springs to be near her sister, Emma, with whom she was very close.  Then, Emma and Jennie and Emma’s family moved to Denver.  After Corinne died, Jennie moved back to Pennsylvania when she was 63 years old.  Here’s the house she bought (on the left):

1524 Kelton Avenue, Dormont, PA

Just 2 years later, in 1925, there was a new house being built just a few miles away.  She decided that it was a better location for her.  Here is the house that she bought and lived in until her death.

310 Edward Avenue, Mt. Lebanon, PA

Her son, Paul, and his wife lived with Jennie in this home from their marriage in 1929 until her death on October 12, 1947.  Her death was completely unexpected.  She had a cold and was weakened by the coughing.  This could be connected to the illness that she had in her 40′s.  She was 89 years old.  She is buried in the family plot in Richland Cemetery in Dravosburg, Pa.

So, that’s it!  Her daughter, Jennie, whom I was named for, was said to be a lovely, sweet woman.  I’d imagine she learned a bit about love from her mother.  She seems to have been a strong woman for all of the loss she suffered in her life.  Her children seemed to have been her life.  It is said that she was a woman of strong Protestant faith and patient.  I wish I had a picture of her.  Hopefully, I’ll find one one day!

What a treasure, huh?

-JMF

This post is part of ROOTS – a series that originates on BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo.

Roots: they are the stories that ground you, the food that returns you, the music that comforts you, and the people who know you. Everyone has roots that influence them, even if they don’t consciously know them or can’t access them.

Monday, June 3, 2013 – Prompt:

How many generations can you go back in your family?  What do you know about your oldest ancestors?

On my mother’s side, my grandfather was a Sephardic Jew and his name can be found in Chronicles (Chr I, 23-11) which kind of makes me pretty vain about it (being able to say that you trace my Yiddishkeit back to the Tanach, who would not feel a little proud about that anyway?). My maternal grandmother was coming from a prominent Lorraine family (ashkenaz) and they were already settled in Paris, France when citizenship was granted to the Jews right after the French Revolution(9/28/1791), so you can trace her family in the civil official registars back in 1792.

Random facts about my judaism

These are facts that I seem to have known always.
They are part of my family’s folklore, and being aware of the “mixed” origin (part sefardic, part ashkenaz) came later in my knowledge, when I became really interested in what my Jewish heritage was. Because it was not something that I remember being important when I grew up.

Obviously, generations before WWII did not mix up as much as they did after.

It feels like many generations lived in the same place for a very long time.
For instance in Paris.
And often in the very same area of the city, too.

Then, some of my ancestors, who were from Russia at the time of the czar, were probably forced to leave, as antisemitism was fierce and often deadly, but what transpired from the family folklore was never stories of pogroms, but rather the fact that this particular ancestor was a peddler, a very typical activity for an askenaz Jew of that time. I wonder what language he spoke when he made it to Eastern France, and if this is where he founded a family, or had left one behind.

I know more about my great-grand-father from my maternal side, who had been a Colonel in the French army at the time of the Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906). For those not familiar with French history, there had been a war between France and Prussia (at the time) prior to that period, and my family (that part of the family) was already established as Parisians, where the war had created a famine. The family folklore says that they had to eat rats for protein. I do not know if it was true or a myth. What I remember is my grandmother boasting about it for her father like if it was heroic. Seems pretty intense rather. But I am sure it was also a way not to speak about politics, which had been such a painful and sensitive topic. It definitely shaped a lot of our political sensitivities and outrage.

On the paternal side, I know of the ancestors who had to opt for the French citizenship: there was a time when residents of Alsace and Lorraine where caught up in territories claimed back and forth between Germany and France. They chose the French citizenship, because the Jews could have it. And they seemed to feel happier in France: there even was a saying “As happy as God in France”, because Napoleon was favorable to the Israelites, and obviously they were supporting him back.

Folkloric stories seem to stop at the beginning of the XIXth century for me.
My imagination goes back much further though, and I sometimes have very vivid visions of the village my ancestors would have lived in back in the XIth or XIIth centuries! These memories were created by my readings, of course, and a propension to invent or believe that it comes from memories passed in the genes, who knows after all?

F.T. “Fritz“ Peters is excluded from some lists of Canadian Victoria Cross heroes because 1) he spent his adult years based in either Gold Coast colony in West Africa, or England; 2) he served in the Royal Navy and with the British Secret Intelligence Service; or at sea with the Royal Navy; and 3) he rarely mentioned Canada as his nation of birth and boyhood.

A long-time friend and naval colleague, Commander David Joel, wrote in unpublished memoirs that he had heard that Peters returned to Canada for a time in the inter-war period, but he had not details.

The last record of Fritz in Canada was his father Frederick Peters` funeral in Victoria, British Columbia in August 1919, which Fritz organized and attended. His mother Bertha Gray Peters later wrote that her son Fritz would have joined the Royal Canadian Navy if there was one, but when Fritz enlisted at age 15 in 1905 the only navy to sign up with was the Royal Navy, which had a large profile in the Victoria region where Fritz resided due to its Pacific Station base in Esquimalt. The Royal Canadian Navy was still five years away from existence.
The latest publicly available censuses Fritz is on are the 1901 and 1911 censuses. Interestingly, he and his family are included in both the Canada census and the England census for 1901, when the family continued to be based in Oak Bay, B.C. but spent considerable time at Bertha`s stepmother Sarah Caroline Cambridge Gray`s community of Bedford north of London, where the children attended private school. Fritz was also counted twice in 1911, as his family included him as a resident of Esquimalt where they lived, and, as a sub-lieutenant on HMS Otter, Fritz was also included in the 1911 England census. He listed his nationality as Canadian, with “British subject“ in parentheses. Fritz listed his ethnic background as Scottish, as did all of his siblings except elder sister Helen, who said she was of English heritage.

Fritz`s Canadian origins are clearly stated in his Royal Navy file, and his best friends Swain Saxton, Cromwell Varley and David Joel were aware that he was Canadian. While it is true that Fritz did not mention being Canadian in his dealings with Americans in the Second World War, but tended to keep his personal life and background to himself as a matter of principle, and in sync with the top secret work he was involved in. Fritz`s letters home show that he detested self-promotion. Even if he were not involved in secret projects, he would not be showing off a c.v. or talking about his achievements because he thought such bragging was unseemly.

It is true that Fritz would have travelled on a British passport, because there were no Canadian passports until 1949 – seven years after his death. It is only in recent years that the concept of all Canadians being British subjects has faded away.

There are two other measures in which Fritz`s Canadianness stands out. Firstly, his ancestry goes back to an original proprietor of P.E.I., and three of his four grandparents (Peters, Gray and Cunard) were direct descendants of United Empire Loyalists who came to the Canadian Maritimes after the American Revolutionary War. If Canadian roots could be measured in loyalty and length of residence, Fritz was about as Canadian as you could get.

Secondly, Fritz deserves recognition as a Canadian because two of his brothers, Private John Francklyn Peters and Lieut. Gerald Hamilton Peters, died early in the First World War fighting with the 7th British Columbia Battalion. Another brother, Noel Quintan Peters, served with the Canadian Forestry Corps.

And Fritz was always proud to be a grandson of a Father of Confederation, Col. John Hamilton Gray. Fritz’s letters show that he spent time in London researching his grandfather and other Fathers of Confederation.

Also, the name of Fritz Peters is not found in British lists of Victoria Cross recipients from England, so if he is also not on Canadian lists he is overlooked in the overall picture.
If you talk to people in Charlottetown, they will tell you they are proud of him as a Canadian hero, particularly as he is the only P.E.I.-born recipient of the Victoria Cross.

So the answer is that yes, Fritz Peters was most definitely a Canadian.

…to the past….

For a few years now I’ve been working on family research and genealogy and these places — Ecchinswell, Kingsclere and Sydmonton came up quite regularly in my mother’s father’s peoples past (say that fast 3 times!). According to the census reports from 1841, 1851, and 1861 they were “ag labs” – agricultural labourers. I don’t know if they owned the farming land or if they were workers on someone else’s farm, but this is where they stayed all those years and quite likely it was where they were for many years before that, before census records were kept and information about the family would be found in Church, parish records and on grave stones and markers in the cemetery.

We did a wee drive through all of those spots, but it was in Ecchinswell that my great grandfather was born and lived until he left home to join the army. I had no idea what piece of land, or what farm would still exist from where they lived at the time. Going back to the census would give me the “address” but with things changing so much over 150 years, I would need to sit down with someone in a land registry office to help me determine exactly “where” they would have lived.

We did find the Church and stopped to have a poke around, even look at some of the stones but time, weather and erosion have left stones with no words, no dates, nothing, so quite difficult to know who is where. It was late in the day when we arrived and no vicar at the Church to ask for information or direction.

Standing in places where my ancestors would have been was an incredible experience. They could have had no notion of who was to come, what history would create and that in 150 years, a grandchild would come to visit. There was no tea and scones awaiting me…but there were these fellows. A better reception I couldn’t have asked for!

Still in all, it’s about family. It might not have been my family, but it’s family all the same.

Why wouuld normal people leave perfect weather in Sonoma County and head back to the Far East of states still in the grip of winter? One word: ancestry.com. Mr. T. got hooked several months ago and he is truly addicted. I didn’t quite understand the magnetic pull of searching for marriages of long-dead relatives(many he didn’t even know he had) or what great-great grandparent had which kids. He’s gotten so drawn into the Wisconsin branch of his family that he decided it would be a great idea to go look at graves of these dead kin.

Now I can understand family cemeteries and maintaining the war memorials in honor of the glorious war dead–especially those fallen soldiers in the War of Northern Aggression.

But these ancestors of Mr. T were Yankees and laid to rest in huge boneyards. Southern conversations about families generally start with the short version of the geneology such as, “Well, Ah believe it was your great-grandmother, you know, the one who married the boy from Columbia County back before The War, who then up and died leaving her with 6 youn’uns before she married your Mama’s 2nd cousin by Grandma’s half-sister.” Then you would get the actual story. “Who’re your people” was a question only asked of strangers–everyone in the family already knew the family line.

But Mr. T. did not have the advantage of a Southern upbringing so he had to hunt for last names and final resting places. While I would sleep in, he would be out visiting court houses and county offices looking for tidbits and locating graves. Then I would load up the camera gear and off we’d go to some remote boneyard in places like Superior or Duluth and we’d search for graves. Since no one had visited these graves in decades, he would bring along brushes and water and dig back the encroaching grass and clean up the stone. Then I would take photos. Pretty soon my interest lagged and I discovered even HDR photography can spiff up a neglected head stone.

The day Mr T signed up for ancestry.com was a turning point in addictions. He is fascinated. I am puzzled–Hello! They’re dead! You never knew them!

But he did get me probing into my own roots. All I’ve found out (so far) is none of my ancestors came to this country willingly. They were all thrown out or forced out of Scotland for various reasons. I guess the gene labeled “does not play well with others” still lives. But more on that later.

By the latter half of the century, steel had eclipsed cutlery manufacture as Sheffield’s predominant industry, fed by a global demand for railway stock and armaments, both of which helped to position the city as the world’s most famous steel manufacturing centre.  Cutlery making continued as an important industry through the nineteenth century, and was joined by tool making and other industries.

The steel boom was accompanied by soaring population growth.  In 1851, the borough had a population of 135,000; fifty years later, this number had almost trebled.  Much of the population increase was due to people marrying earlier – and therefore having larger families – but also to in-migration from neighbouring counties and countries such as Ireland. [1]

The huge expansion in industry occurred in tandem with major urbanization.  The centre of town was remodelled into a commercial district and new housing was developed for both the working and middle classes.

Industrialisation also brought unprecedented pollution.  Rivers were subject to both the removal of water and discharge of industrial effluent. Many were used as open sewers.  Not surprisingly, aquatic life in the Don almost disappeared and the river became a “stinking, barren channel”.

Where the more prosperous of Sheffield’s residents were able to move to wooded estates away from the workshops and factories, worker housing could be found cheek by jowl with industry, and often sharing the same yards.[2]

Standards of health and housing increasingly became the focus of commentators’ attention.

Penned in 1848, this report on sanitary conditions in Sheffield observed that “…the particles of soot floating about in the atmosphere (are) so numerous that people (are) prevented from having recourse to the most common method of ventilation by opening windows and doors; in many places the evil is so extensive that the inhabitants find the greatest difficulty in maintaining personal or domestic cleanliness…”[3]

Another report written in 1861 noted that “…a thick pulverous haze is spread over the city, which the sun even in the dog days is unable to penetrate, save by a lurid gaze, and which has the effect of imparting to the green hills and golden corn fields in the distance the ghostly appearance of being whitened by snow…”[4].

As the middle classes shifted west and north-west to the less polluted parts of town in the mid-nineteenth century, inner city areas – and the tenements in particular – attracted working class families.

Tenements – which saved space and building costs – were reproduced, with minor variations, in almost all working class quarters.  A standard “apartment” was one room deep, and built “back to back” with another, one facing into the street and another into the yard.  Behind each set of rooms was the staircase, and behind it the partition wall to the other house.  In such terrace housing, three walls of each apartment were common with adjoining apartments, and one wall, facing either into the street or into the yard, was freestanding and broken by windows and the door.  The terraces were built around courts to which the entrance was commonly gained by a narrow passage built under the first floor rooms to the depth of two apartments.

About half the houses opened inwards into confined yards which were generally unpaved and contained the toilets.  These had to serve the entire complex of buildings with each toilet possibly being shared between two and a dozen households.  Many houses were not connected to potable drinking water and had to rely on communal standpipe in the yard.  Residents living in houses facing outwards thus had to go out into the street, through a passage into the yard to fetch water or visit the toilets.  By 1864, Sheffield had 38,000 of these “back to back” houses. [5]

In the same year, a by-law was proclaimed prohibiting any further construction of this type of housing on health grounds[6], although much of it survived into the twentieth century.

At the close of the nineteenth century, little had changed.  This extract from JS Fletcher’s A pictorial history of Yorkshire sums up the author’s impression of Sheffield thus:

“Under smoke and rain, Sheffield is suggestive of nothing so much as of the popular conception of the infernal regions.  From the chimneys, great volumes of smoke pour their listless way towards a forbidding sky; out of the furnaces shoot great tongues of flame which relieve the sombreness of the scene and illuminate it at the same time; in the streets there is a substratum of dust and mud; in the atmosphere, a choking something that appears to take a firm grip of one’s throat.  The aspect of the northern fringe of Sheffield on such a day is terrifying, the black heaps of refuse, the rows of cheerless-looking houses, the thousand and one signs of grinding industrial life, the inky waters of river and canal, the general darkness an dirt of the whole scene serves but to create feelings of repugnance and even horror.”[7]

It was into this world that my grandfather was born.

Marriage certificate – Charles Spencer Coulson & Gladys Rose Barrowclift

Bride: Gladys Rose Barrowclift, aged 25
Groom: Charles Spencer Coulson, aged 28
Date: 8 June 1935
Location: The Register Office, Birmingham
Father of Bride: Samuel Barrowclift
Father of Groom: Spencer Coulson
Witnesses: W J Sleasby, C L Barrowclift

Barrowclift is a very rare surname.  Consequently, neither PublicProfiler nor British Surnames offer statistics on the number or distribution of people bearing this name.  Both websites suggest that Barrowcliff and Barrowcliffe may be name variants, but these two names are also very rare.  The most common frequency was 9 per million for Barrowcliffe based on 1998 data.

As the Barrowclift name combined with the groom’s middle name, Spencer, had made it easy to identify this couple, you might expect tracing the bride’s family would present little difficulty.  Aged 25 in 1935, I calculate that Gladys Rose Barrowclift was born ca 1910, so she should be recorded on the 1911 census.  If her age is misreported, I should find her father, Samuel.  So, a search on the surname likely will turn up both in a short list, won’t it?

WRONG!

A search on FindMyPast for just the surname yielded 2 results, a John and a Susan.  The nearest equivalent search on Ancestry, specifying exact matches on the surname only, yielded 10 results.  6 of these, the family of the John in the FindMyPast result, Charlotte, Florrie, Frederick, Bernard and Ernest had been indexed as Barrowcliff, but later corrected by users.  The other 4 results named Mary, Thomas, Joseph and Henry are a second family.  But, no Samuel or Gladys Rose.  I should fare better by widening the search to include variants of the surname, shouldn’t I?

Wrong again!

Alternative Search Tactics

Ticking the ‘include variants’ box on FindMyPast’s search, yielded the same 2 results.  Choosing the ‘Use default setting’ option on Ancestry also yielded the same result as before.

After trying some variants (e.g. Barrowcliff, Barrowcliffe) and wildcard searches (e.g. Barrowcli*), and getting hundreds of results, but no seeing any good matches on the first page, I started to wonder if Barrowclift was really Samuel and Gladys Rose’s surname.  The FreeBMD indexes confirmed I had the right name.  Gladys was born in the Oct-Dec quarter of 1909 (Birmingham district, vol. 6d, p. 6), and Samuel married either Sarah Louisa Higham or Mary Ann R Hughes in the Oct-Dec quarter of 1895 (Birmingham district, vol. 6d, p. 275).

Barrowclift might have been illegible or miss-spelt on the 1911 household schedule, or mangled in the indexes, so a search for Samuel and his wife on the 1901 census might prove more successful.  This approach found a Mary Ann R Barrowcliff living with a husband indexed as Tammy.  Examination of the census image soon confirmed this as the correct family.  I have a mental image of a burly Samuel displeased with being called Tammy.

Another approach, entering only forenames of several family members eventually did the trick with the 1911 census.

How accurate are the census indexes?

Extract of Census 1911 – Samuel Barrowclift & family

Compare the 1911 census above with the names in the indexes below.

Extract of 1901 Census for Samuel Barrowclift & family

Likewise, compare the 1901 census above with the names in the indexes below.

What do you make of the census images compared to the indexed names?  Is the error rate acceptable?

© Sue Adams 2013

During my recent visit to Prince Edward Island I had an opportunity to see, and copy, information and photographs gathering over the years by my relative (second cousin, once removed) Hugh “Pete“ Paton of Charlottetown. Pete is a grandson of Arthur Peters (premier of P.E.I. 1901-1907), who was the younger brother of Frederick Peters (premier of P.E.I. 1891-1897), who was Fritz Peters` father and my great-grandfather.

Several years ago Pete came across paintings of Thomas Horsfield Peters and his wife Mary Sharmen at a gallery in New Brunswick and photographed them. I was thrilled to see them, as they are the first of the pair that I have come across. For many years large framed photographs of their son, Judge James Horsfield Peters, and his wife Mary Cunard hung on a wall in my mother`s house. About a dozen years ago through internet forums I acquired images of Thomas Horsfield Peters` parents, the United Empire Loyalists James Peters and Margaret Lester.

The new images of Thomas Horsfield Peters and Mary Sharman fill empty spaces in the pictorial Fritz Peters family tree going back three generations. You can see that the only ones with blank spaces in the tree are Susan Duffus (wife of Sir Samuel Cunard, and mother of Mary Cunard); Lieut. William Bartley (first husband of Lady Pennefather, and mother of Susan Gray, wife of Col. John Hamilton Gray, P.E.I. premier and Father of Confederation); and Mary Burns (daughter of original proprietor Capt. George Burns and mother of Col. John Hamilton Gray). I do not have an image of the United Empire Loyalist Robert Gray (father of John Hamilton Gray), but I do have his signature featured in his box on the tree. I have photographs of Lady Pennefather`s second husband, General Sir John Lysaght Pennefather, who became young Susan`s stepfather.

One would think that there would be paintings of Susan Duffus Cunard because of the prominence of her husband as a steam travel magnate, but to date I have not been able to locate any images of her. She died at age 33 after having nine children with Sir Samuel. As a prominent Loyalist who formed an led a regiment in the American Revolution, there should be paintings or sketches of Robert Gray, but I have not come across any.

Click on the family tree image below, and it will be much bigger on your screen and easy to read.

We will be staying at some B&Bs where we have stayed before (why change a good thing?), and we are trying new ones based on…well, frankly, based upon the name (Ravenswood) or the location (Ballachulish). Once we have that all set, we will start to fill in the itinerary of what we want to do and where we want to go.

Be assured: heather, highlands and whisky will be involved.

Through the years Dee and I have discovered we do indeed share a common ancestor and are “at least” seventh cousins. (Ironically, I am also a third cousin once removed to her husband.)

Several times a year, Dee and I get together for a “Grundy County” excursion. And it doesn’t take much to justify an excuse, er, solid reason … Over the years we have done a variety of activities:

*sorted books and helped catalog them for the Ostfriesen Heritage Collection

*visited museums and historical sites in Grundy County

*repaired family tombstones

*speculated if a particularly prominent stone may have been used as a hiding place for homemade liquor during the ear of Prohibition

*hosted two German families who have a keen interest in genealogy

*traced the history of two families that have tombstones in remote areas (there are still some mysteries accompanying this one!)

*solved a few of our own genealogy puzzles, involving half-siblings, reluctant relatives, correspondence with family connections “across the pond”

*found an entry in an abstract book proving my great-grandfather actually lived in Grundy County

*made an ancestral trip to Germany which can only be described as the trip of a lifetime

*and, most importantly, ALWAYS having lunch and sampling the many fine eateries in Grundy, Hardin, and Butler Counties. It’s usually during lunch we swapped tales of our research and some of the humorous encounters we’ve had along the way.

Thanks, Dee, for being such a wonderful “genealogy buddy.”

After poking around on the web a while, searching out old newspapers by town and location, I just stumbled upon a great site! It is The Library of Congress Chronicling America. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
It is a site with scans of historic newspapers and best of all it has been indexed so you can actually search on a name, place, date, whatever. They have papers from 1836 – 1922.

I just selected in the state I wanted, I used the entire date range and put in the family member’s last name. Holy cow! I got so many hits I could not believe it! I went back to my family tree to verify the town and looked only at those newspapers. I found loads of little stories about my ancestors – celebrating anniversaries and birthdays with lists of guests, family members and gifts received (that was interesting because for one anniversary everything the couple received was pearl handled!). There were also mentions of good standing in school, poems recited during town celebrations, who came to visit and what crops were grown and how much harvested. I am hoping to find some obituaries that name names, but I still have a lot to look through.

The best thing was looking for the disappearance of that g-g-g-grandfather and lo and behold, I found it! In this case I put his full name. It turned up 8 pages. Two did not apply, but the story was in two consecutive issues of the paper and nearly matched the transcription I have. There were also 4 notices placed by the widow and her solicitor trying to get anyone who had a claim on his estate to come forward. Now I have a copy of the actual newspaper page, along with the source date (Newspaper name, location, publication date and volume as well as the link back to it at the Library of Congress.) Thanks goodness no one came forward to claim the estate as the widow went on to run the family farm and raise 9 kids on her own.

Try it! You may get lucky too! If not, then have fun reading the advertisements for the medicinal cures!

My mother’s mother’s mother’s father (I think it was) came from Norfolk. We still have family there, though the relationships are distant, and we’ve stayed in contact over the generations. My great-grandmother trained as a nurse in Canada and then went back to Norfolk for a time to nurse an elderly relative; then my grandmother and grandfather, when Granddad was stationed in England in the 1950s, re-established the connections. My parents, in their turn, have visited about every 20 years: first in the early ’70s as newlyweds, then in the early ’90s with my sister and me in tow, and again on this trip.

The Grange, home to Peter (Granny’s second cousin, I think) and Dill and their daughter Judy, and our home-away-from-home.

The Grange (and the surrounding village) has been a sort of touch-stone for us all, if you will. My parents even had a custom cross-stitch kit made for me after our visit, and I carefully stitched the textures of thatch, brick, and stone.

Here’s the finished cross-stitch, which I stitched up when I was 14. (Thanks to my father for the photo!)

That said, the Grange was only purchased a few generations ago. (I felt a little cheated when I learned that it only traces back to the point where my own branch of the family split off, so it was never technically home to MY ancestors — until I realized that any home that had been in the family for well over 100 years here in Canada would be a remarkable thing, and worth celebrating! Funny how the perspective on time changes so drastically in an ancient place like England.)

We did, however, get to see the house where my great-great-grandfather was born:

Mill House!

He and his 13 other siblings all grew up in this home, working at the associated windmill (which no longer exists).

Another view, showing the outbuildings and stables that have been gradually grafted onto the house. Not a huge place, with 14 kids, eh?

We had some challenges trying to find the house. We knew the name of the village (er, hamlet), but not the road, and of course houses aren’t numbered for ease of navigation in rural England. Thankfully, we spotted a Royal Mail van, and Dad asked the postman for directions. He knew the house, but couldn’t think of how to explain the twisty turny directions, so he told us to follow him, and drove us all the way (a couple of minutes, but a complicated route)!

Mom walking down the road a little way.

No one was home, but we explored the house as well as we could from the road.

The garden beside the house, with fragrant lilacs and idyllic English-country-garden charm…

Dad walking along the path, to one side of the house, that presumably led to the windmill.

The view across the road, with blooming rape (canola, to Canadians) and one of Norfolk’s many, many medieval churches in the background. (As always, click through to Flickr to see the photos bigger.)

Back at the Grange, we got to spend some time with the living members of our family, not just the places our ancestors must haunt.

We were greeted by the official welcoming committee of Rosemary (the wire-haired miniature dachshund), Dottie (a terrier of some sort), and Charles (the cat). These three creatures are the best of friends, and even groom each other!

Rosemary (top), Dottie (bottom), and Charles (right)

The humans came out to welcome us too!

Peter and Dill’s granddaughter, Amy — who is my fourth cousin! — and her daughter, Emily, with Rosemary inspecting the toy selection.

The lovely Dill, who was every bit the gracious hostess and the country lady.

Dill and Judy made a lovely dinner for the extended family (including Judy’s brother, and their cousin and his wife) which was capped off by two of the most quintessential English desserts puddings I can think of: bakewell tart and summer pudding, served with pouring custard and lashings of heavy cream. (There was also delicious apple strudel, but I can’t claim that it was especially English.) Some things are worth the extra insulin!

Bakewell tart

Summer pudding

Custard

Summer pudding with cream

There is more to come about this portion of the trip, including a village that’s falling into the sea, and a truly spectacular car, but that will have to wait until the next post. Remembering those desserts has me looking for a snack… or an exercise routine!

For those who’ve already read Part 1 of Fanny’s Story, the next few paragraphs provide background family events that occurred between the censuses of 1851 and 1861, before Fanny moved to live with members of another family in Chelsea.

By 1861 there are no records to be found of three of Fanny’s sisters, and her fourth sister, her only living brother and her father have all died.  Later, in 1864, the death of Sophia Yates was recorded in the Drury Lane area, but unfortunately as I found no records of any Sophia Yates alive three years earlier (in the 1861 census) I was unable to establish which of Fanny’s relations called Sophia had died.  I imagine it was Fanny’s mother as no middle name was recorded, but it could have been her younger sister Sophia Louisa Yates. Either way, this death was the only evidence I found that at least one of her relatives, her mother or her sister, must still have been alive when Fanny moved to a (slightly) new address.

Fanny’s life in Chelsea from 1861

In 1851 Fanny was living with her sister Phoebe in Manor Street, Chelsea.  Some time after her sister died in 1859, but before 1861, Fanny moved just two doors down the road to lodge with the Tilling family. It seems likely that she was invited to become a lodger at her neighbours home not least because their family circumstances had changed too.

Marriage Record of Ann Read and William Tilling. Click the image to enlarge. Click the link below to go to source at ancestry http://trees.ancestry.co.uk/tree/32129888/person/20362968404/media/1?pgnum=1&pg=0&pgpl=pid

The Tilling Family of Manor Street, Chelsea.

William and Ann Read were married in St James Piccadilly in 1819.  At that time Ann presumably could not write as their marriage record bears her mark, not her signature.

William was a milkman and he and Ann spent their first years of married life in paradise….Paradise Row, Chelsea that is! 

Paradise Row, Royal Hospital Road, built in the 1690s and photographed shortly before demolition in 1906. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=28691

Paradise Row, Chelsea in 1906

Their first child Ann was born in 1820 followed a year later by a son, William. In 1823 a third child Joseph Earl Tilling was born and in the same year William (senior) became a greengrocer. In 1825 the family moved a very short distance to Calthorpe Place, Chelsea. Some time between this move and the next, fairly major changes seem to have occurred. By 1839 the family had moved, once again only a short distance, but this time to a newly built street. Their new address was 30 Manor Street Chelsea and William’s occupation had changed from greengrocer to appraiser! (Some years later his widow’s occupation is given as ‘house agent’).

Was William Tilling involved in the building and selling of the houses in Manor Street Chelsea?

Unlike her husband who was born in Chelsea Middlesex, Ann Tilling née Read was born near the New Forest in West Tytherly, Hampshire (1793).  Ann had several brothers and sisters, but the one of particular interest to us, along with Ann herself, was Jane Read. Jane married and had a large family with John Derrick, a shipwright on the Isle of Wight. We will meet Jane Derrick later in this story when her children are grown up and she is a widow. There will be more members of this family to meet as we go along but for now that’s enough to remember!

So, in 1851 when Fanny was still living with her sister, William and Ann Tilling were living up the road at number 29 Manor Street. (In 1848 they were still at number 30 Manor Street, so in the three years between, they either moved house or the street numbering system changed). Their unmarried daughter Sarah Tilling was still living with them but all their other children had left home. There was one other much younger Sarah Tilling also living with them in 1851 – William and Ann’s grandchild. Presumably she was either Sarah’s daughter or niece.

By 1861 when Fanny became a lodger at number 29 Manor Street, circumstances for the Tilling family were as different from 1851 for the Tillings as they were for her. William Tilling had died and Ann his wife had taken in other lodgers along with Fanny (Fanny’s occupation was now dressmaker).

Fanny Yates the lodger

The other lodgers in the property at 29 Manor Street were William Christie, who was 24 and ‘a shopman at a bazaar’, his younger brother Frederick of 22 was a bookbinder, and Lucy Smart, who was 78  was ‘a funded proprietor’. 

Ann Tilling’s occupation was now  ‘house proprietor’ and Sarah Tilling her unmarried daughter of no occupation was still living with her.

About five years later, at the age of 27, Frederick Christie the bookbinder and lodger at Ann Tilling’s house married Sarah Tilling, her unmarried daughter, in the parish church at Battersea, Surrey. Sarah’s father was interestingly described as a Broker on the record of their marriage, and Frances Harriet Yates (Fanny) and Joseph Earl Tilling (Sarah’s brother) were witnesses.

The census in 1871 started using odd and even listings for houses in Manor Street when previous censuses had shown consecutive house numbering. Whether this was the reason for yet another street number change or whether the Tilling household all moved to a house a couple of doors down, I don’t know. Whatever the reason, in 1871 Ann Tilling and Fanny were recorded as living at 32 Manor Street, Chelsea and Ann’s occupation had become house agent (estate agent). Living with them was Sarah and her new husband (and ex-lodger) Frederick Christie and presumably their 2 year old child, Sarah Ann Louisa Christie. Also living in the property was Ann’s widowed sister Jane Derrick (remember her – shipwrights wife, Isle of Wight?). Ten years before Jane had been living with one of her son’s and his family, at least on the day of the census. In 1871 she was in Chelsea and not listed as a visitor. Both widowed sisters were now in their seventies and perhaps enjoyed each others company?

The really exciting bit of the story is about to break!!

1871 census Manor Street Chelsea Click the image to enlarge. Click the link to go to source at ancestry http://trees.ancestry.co.uk/tree/32129888/person/18189594630/fact/62493416046/media/1?pg=32771&pgpl=pid

In the 1871 census Fanny Yates relationship with Ann Tilling changed from ‘lodger’ to ‘cousin’.

Fortunately, as storyteller, I have the advantage of being able to look into the future and can tell you that two years later, in 1873, Edward Cavendish Yates married Priscilla Jane Mecham which, if Fanny Yates were Edward’s mother, would indeed make Ann Tilling and Fanny Yates distant cousins.

There’s a bit more of the story to explain yet, but it will have to wait till next time. Thanks for reading and please do leave a reply if you’d like to comment or have anything to add.

Edward Cavendish Yates (Junior)

Just thought I’d leave you with a picture of Edward Cavendish Yates Jnr. who was Fanny Yates’ eldest grandchild.

Sadly I don’t have a picture of the E.C.Yates who was her son, my great grandfather. If you do, I’d be delighted if you’d contact me or leave a reply below.

Next: The story of Frances (Fanny) Harriet Yates and her family – Part 3

This picture was one of my father’s treasured photographs (yes, that is then Vice-President Nixon in his bathing suit). When this picture was taken, my father was a PFC in the Marines, whose role was a military police office, stationed in Hawaii.  On this day, Vice-President Nixon and his wife were being escorted to the beach by secret service. My father told me he approached Vice-President Nixon, and asked him if could get a photograph. Upon his request, one of the secret service men firmly told my father “No.” What happened next was the favorite part of my father’s story. Upon hearing the secret service man tell my father no, Vice-President Nixon said it would be OK, and then asked that secret service man to take the picture. My dad was thrilled, and he has shared this photograph, and the memory, with anyone who would listen. On that day, Vice-President Nixon, by allowing this photograph to be taken, gave my father one of his favorite memories, and story, of his life. Thank you, Mr. President.

Pictured left to right:  PVC Daniel Miro, Unknown, Mrs. Pat Nixon, Unknown, Vice-President Richard Nixon, Unknown.