The Slovak Yankee

William Wentworth of Dover, N.H.

There is new scholarship on William Wentworth, worth reading:

The  English Ancestry of William Wentworth of New Hampshire: Male Line Ancestry for Five Generations by Terry J. Booth, Paul C. Reed, and Nathaniel Lane Taylor, The American Genealogist 90 (2018): 161-74, 263-79. 

Edmund Greenleaf of Ipswich, England and Newbury and Boston, Mass.

There's been new scholarship on the ancestry of Edmund Greenleaf.  His origins remain the same but he has lost what were known to be his parents.  His parents are now unknown.  His wife's ancestry, however, remains the same, going back two generations in England.

See: Corrections, Deletions, and Additions to the Origin of the Greenleaf Family in England by Patricia Law Hatcher, The American Genealogist 90 (2018):254-60.

This is suprising since it redefines the Pillsbury Ancestry of Mary Lovering Holman, normally a really good source.

 

Alma, New Brunswick

After everything has been researched and there's no more mountains to climb, one of the things left to the genealogist is travel.  Now I like to travel anyway and since 2014 have been in Alaska, Turkey, Mexico, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Peru, Ecuador, Barbados, Morocco, France, Wyoming, Egypt, Jordan, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, France again, Thailand and Cambodia. But interspersed among the many exotic locales are some of genealogical value.  My mother wanted to see the tides in the Bay of Fundy and I suggested Alma since it's on the coast and my great-great-grandmother was born there.  I could easily explore gravestones there.

So we took the car up  from Maine  across the border and went to  Alma.  Alma is a charming coastal town.  Not very big, it's main occupations are fishing and tourism.  We stayed in a pleasant Airbnb right in town.  Now we went up in May after Mother's Day (US). Unfortunately the season doesn't begin in Alma until Victoria Day weekend, which was the next weekend.  Consequently almost everything was still closed.  There was nowhere to buy breakfast.  Several restaurants were open for lunch and dinner however.  There is no library, historical association, or town hall.  There is an Albert County museum, but again it was closed off season.  Luckily we motored all the way to Moncton and used the library facilities there and secured DF Christophers book on Cemeteries of Albert County.  We then got to see several old gravestones of my ancestors.  Some were already in Findagrave, but two were not.

We had a good time there and I would go back if it were in season.  Alma sits at the entrance to the Fundy National Park.  It has but one road, Route 114, a two lane highway.  But there's good local beers at the Holy Whale Brewery in town.

 

Genealogy Lingers

Last year I downsized from my four bedroom house to a two bedroom condo.  Consequently all things genealogical in nature: books, files, notebooks, etc. were boxed up and put into storage offsite.  I now have a great reason not to answer email questions.  I can't.  All my research is offsite.

Still, that doesn't mean genealogy has stopped.  Just recently I went to Kansas for a visit, making it my 50th state to see.  Michael has Kansas ancestry, so I decided to do some additional research on his lines.  I emailed the records person for Leavenworth County, Kansas and she was delightful.  She took my information and copied three probate files from the 1870s.  I paid $30 for the copies and they were ready when I arrived in person to pick them up.  Each of the files had key documents for Michael's ancestry.  Two were probate administrations and the other was a will.  Quite nice.  Very legible handwriting and the copies were good.  All in all, an A+ for execution to get that information.

Then in Kansas we visited the grave of his great-great-grandmother:

I love this tombstone since it gives so much information.  Mother Jane L. Clark, wife of M.R. Clark born Brown Co., Ohio, on July 22, 1822 died May 13, 1893. 

After our Kansas trip we went to Philadelphia where we found the grave of Michael's great-great-great-great-great-grandfather: Dr. Gerardus Clarkson:

The good people of St. Peter's church in Philadelphia were most helpful finding the stone.   They had an index and gladly looked it up for us on the fly.  Gerardus Clarkson's wife is buried next to him: Mary (Flower) Clarkson.

All in all, some nice genealogical moments.

Paul John Hollick 1937-2017

I have so many dead ancestors I hardly think about it.  But recently I had to add my father to that list and that has been weird.  I did all the genealogist things to do.  I have filed his death certificate in my documents as well as his obituary.  I've added him to Find a Grave.  He's all set now.  My genealogical software has been updated.  He now is in the same category as my great-great-great-grandparents.  But, of course, to me he's not in that category.

The most important ancestors are always your parents.

 

 

Cutting The Ties

As this week meanders from 2016 to 2017, a momentous happening will occur.  As of December 31, 2016, I will let my membership in the New England Historic Genealogical Society lapse.  I've been a member for 26 years.  Over the last ten years, I've not done much research on my own family.  I still used the library at NEHGS and certainly was glad to receive their publications.  But now basic membership is $90 per year.  And all you get for experienced genealogists is 4 issues of the Register and 4 issues of American Ancestors.  I've decided that's not enough anymore.  First of all the Register has changed.  It is no longer a New England journal but a national journal.  So the likelihood of my ancestors appearing in the Register from here on out has collapsed to near zero.  The Great Migration Project is done.  They've published their last original book and any further works are merely derivative based on what's been published already.  I hardly use the library anymore.  And living in Boston that was a big plus for membership.

I've already ended my member in all other genealogical societies except for the New Hampshire Society of Genealogists of which I am a life member.  Some time in 2017 in between world trips, I'll box up my research and books and find a storage rental for them.  It's time to downsize and genealogy is not going to make the cut in my new world.

The Hooker Siblings

There was a time when between the New England Historical & Genealogical Register and The American Genealogist, every other year or every third year there would be an article on my ancestors.  That's not been happening lately.  In fact, I think it's been close to six years since an article appeared on my ancestors.  Well, today was the day.

In the July 2016 issue of The American Genealogist is an article that has the now found baptisms of Mary and John Hooker, children of the Rev. Thomas Hooker.  Mary is my direct ancestor (as is her sister Sarah). 

“Two Children of Rev. Thomas Hooker of Hartford, Connecticut” by Deborah A. Hart Stock and Robert Charles Anderson, The American Genealogist 88 (2016):219-221.

The Burnham Brothers: The Final Word

It's been six years since I posted several things about the Burnham Brothers of Ipswich, Massachusetts.  As I pointed out then, none of them were on the ship Angel Gabriel.  I noticed someone looking at that posting this week and I was reminded that the Great Migration Directory came out last year.  Using that work you can show the following:  assuming that Robert Charles Anderson is an expert on this time period, we can see that John Burnham came in 1637 and his brothers Thomas and Robert arrived after 1640 since they are not in the directory.  Clearly, none of them were on the ship Angel Gabriel which landed in 1635.  Therefore, we can put this trope to bed once and for all.  

But genealogy is never that easy.  This trope will outlive me.  It's in print and that's all that matters to people.  There are too many hack genealogists out there and not enough scholars.

My Burnham descents are here.

The Stranger in my Genes

The Stranger in my Genes by Bill Griffeth (Boston, Mass.: NEHGS, 2016) is a great read.  I got the book and in two days I was done.  It's not long (180 pp.) but a real page turner.  Ostensibly it's about genealogy, but that's not true.  It's about dysfunctional families.  It is true that none of what happens in the book would have happened had it not been for genealogy.  It is because of genealogy that Bill, the author, takes a DNA test which sets in motion the contents of the book.  For those of us involved with genealogy who have already taken a DNA test (I've taken two), we can breathe a sigh of relief that this did not happen to us.  In fact, the NEHGS weekly newsletter recently had a poll about DNA testing and I could truthfully report that my results were boring.  They completely backed up what I knew on paper.  But Bill, gets the surprise of his life to find out his father is not his real father.  And consequentially half his genealogy is wrong.

I also watch Genealogy Roadshow on PBS and I note that 70-80% of the queries on that show revolve around the "I didn't know my parent and/or grandparent."  The researchers then use genealogical tools to fill in the person's knowledge of this very close family member.  Again this is not genealogy, but dysfunctional families.  These people need a genealogist less than a psychologist to help them work out their identity questions.  But with genealogy becoming the number one hobby in the U.S., this is what genealogy has become.  (I would define genealogy as proving relationships in the distant past).  The key there is distant past.  You didn't know Grandpa who was in WWII, then that's a communication problem between Grandpa, your parent, and you.

I must say though that I called my mother up after finishing the book and told her, in no uncertain language, that if my father was not my real father, she could keep that secret to her grave.  I didn't need to know.  But, of course, I already know how I came to be in this world.  There's no family secret about that.

Interrelated Presidents

Did you know that of the 43 men to be president, 30 were related to another president?  That's 70%.  That's a high number.  In Ancestors of American Presidents (AAP), there is an extensive set of charts showing how all the presidents are related.  Now, of course to do this, some rules were broken.  The two most important presidents are Washington and Lincoln.  In order for Washington to be connected to someone else, we have to delve into his gentry English ancestry.  George was born in 1732 (the earliest of any president) and his eight great-grandparents are immigrants to Virginia.  That means there are only 8 possible families for his to connect with others.  (This is not impossible.  Did you see this season of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.? Senator John McCain is a Washington descendant).  Likewise, Lincoln's mother's parents are unknown, so half of his ancestry is blank.  So AAP provides several possible theories of ancestries for Lincoln.

The 13 presidents not related to anyone else are: Jefferson, Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Buchanan, A. Johnson, Arthur, McKinley, Wilson, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton.  And at least, Wilson, Eisenhower and Reagan married women with ancestries that tie to the other presidents.  Most of these non-related presidents are of Scotch, Scotch-Irish, and Irish extraction.  If we could do those genealogies back to 1600 like we can with colonial English ancestry, many of those presidents would be found to be inter-related as well.

The two most related presidents are the Bushes, Sr. and Jr. with 18 different presidential connections between them.  This is not surprising since the Bushes have equal amounts of New England, Middle Atlantic, and Virginian ancestry.  

The closest connection that is non-lineal is between James Madison and Zachary Taylor who were second cousins through the Taylor family.  [Obviously the Adams's and Bushes are the closest related as father/son, then the Harrisons as grandfather/grandson].  The Roosevelts were fifth cousins by blood and nephew/uncle by marriage.

With this election we have the possibility of yet another close connection: husband/wife (if Hillary Clinton is elected).  Neither she nor her husband are related by blood to any other president.