The Slovak Yankee

Ipswich Deeds Volumes 1 and 2

For those of us with Essex County, Massachusetts ancestry (and even lower New Hampshire) it has been long known that some of the deeds were not filed in Essex County in Salem.  There are five volumes of deeds, probate, and depositions called the Ipswich Deeds.  It has been around in microfilm for years.  However, just lately George Freeman Sanborn, Jr. transcribed the first two volumes and published them as a book. 

The  book is organized by volume and page number (which differs from the pagination of the book) and is completely name indexed.  The names of the grantors, grantees, witnesses, and names of the people in the property description is all indexed.

I can find entries for Thomas Bradbury, the Burnhams, William Story, Renald Foster and others.  My ancestor John Ferniside of  Boston witnessed a deed in 1659.

This work is essential for northern New England genealogy.  I can't wait for volumes 3, 4, and 5.

Ipswich Deeds Volumes 1 and 2 Transcribed by George  Freeman Sanborn, Jr. Introduced, indexed, and prepared for publication by Ian  Watson (Charlottetown, PEI, 2023). Printed by Lulu.com

 

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.

The Great Migration Directory

The Great Migration Directory: Immigrants to New England 1620-1640 A Concise Compendium by Robert Charles Anderson, FASG (Boston, Mass.: NEHGS, 2015).

I love books.  I am a trained librarian and was a genealogist when all there was was books. It's not often these days that a new genealogical book comes up for sale.  But such a time is now and the Great Migration Directory is well worth your attention.

This work is just what its title explains.  It is a concise compendium of all immigrants to New England from 1620 to 1640 inclusively.  Every entry is about a paragraph long and includes English origins where known, date of immigration, places of residence in New England, initial record, and secondary works on the immigrant.  So, this is literally a directory.  You use this work to find other works on you immigrant ancestor.  The premier work that is cited for immigrants from 1620 to 1635 is the Great Migration Series by the same author.  Those works give detailed biographical information on each immigrant.  Indeed, I already own those works, so why did I buy this one?  Well, for the citations for immigrants from 1636 to 1640 of course.  That's what is completely new and unique to this work.

A few wonderful things in this directory.  First of all, the Burnham brothers are forever proved not be on the Angel Gabriel.  Indeed, Thomas and Robert don't appear in the work at all, only John Burnham who arrived in 1637 appears.  So we can put that trope to rest.

The entry for Richard Pinkham includes my article on the Pinkham family, so forever people will refer to my reconstruction of this family.  That's cool.  So is the fact that matrilineally I am a descendant of a Great Migration immigrant.  I hope I'll live to 2040 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Richard Pinkham signing the Dover Combination.

The book is not cheap.  It cost me $58.00 with my NEHGS membership discount.  But it is hardbound and certainly worth the price (in my eyes).   If you can't afford this, make sure your public librarian buys one for the town collection.  It's your tax dollars, get what you need.

Someday someone other that Robert Charles Anderson will take up the Great Migration Project and start to publish volumes of biographical sketches for the immigrants from 1636 onward.  It should be noted that it took Anderson 20 years to do 1620-1635 which is roughly half of all the immigrants of that time period.  Until then we have this directory to help guide us.

 

The Genealogy of Harry Potter

Naturally I've already seen the Deathly Hallows, Part I.  It's hard to believe its been over three years since I finished reading that book (in two days).   I spoke briefly about how genealogy has been incorporated into fantasy world literature before.  However, the movie versions of these books must leave out those things.  Movies are visual and based on the actions of the characters.  Movies always falter a bit with long explication.  So, if you are only a Harry Potter movie fan, you are missing something. [SPOILER ALERT: if you are just a movie fan, you may wish to stop reading now.]

For instance, Ron Weasley and Sirius Black are third cousins through the Black Family.  Both are great-great-grandsons of Phineas Negellus Black, headmaster of Hogwarts.  That also makes Ron and Draco Malfoy, third cousins, once removed.   Nymphadora Tonks (Dora Tonks) is Draco's first cousin despite their being on opposite sides in the war against Voldemort.  It isn't apparent in the movie that Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy are sisters (the third sister being Nymphadora's mother).  And thus far, it isn't clear that Harry Potter and Voldemort are cousins through the Peverel family either.  

I did enjoy the fact that J.K. Rowling used medieval English family names such as Lestrange and Peverel in her world.  I really do descend from both families.

Slovak History and the Baláž Family

I'm presently reading A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum (it's hard not to chuckle at the thought of Prof. Cherry Tree).  Get the 2nd edition (2005).  It's the best English-language history of Slovakia you can get.  It is a bit of a slog to get through.  It certainly falls in the category of great books that are hard to read.

However, I was quite interested to read "The Protestant faith spread from the mining centers to the landed gentry through the efforts of such people as the brother Peter and Nicholas Kostka, Francis Revay, and the Turzo, Radvansky, and Balas families." (p. 67)  My great-great-grandmother was Zuzana Baláž.  Her paternal grandparents were Juraj Baláž and Elisabetha Siska according to their sons' baptismal and marriage records.  However, I can't find their marriage nor baptisms.  In any case the similarity of Baláž and Balas is striking and since my ancestors were all Slovak Lutherans, I am now interested to find a genealogy of that particular family.

My great-aunt (a bit loony) thought Baláž (pronounced Balajz) was French and related to the writer Balzac.  That's one family story I can definitely refute.  I often wonder if I should get rid of that letter of hers that mentions it?  Why not snuff out misinformation?  And yet, it is a letter in her handwriting . . . .

The Johnstown Flood

The New York Times has said that "We have no better social historian" when speaking about David McCullough.  I have to agree.  I enjoyed reading John Adams and Truman.  If you have any ancestors in the American Revolution then 1776 is required reading for the genealogist.  I was fishing around for a book to read a while back and decided, in the wake of the Gulf Oil Spill to read McCullough's, The Johnstown Flood.  I highly recommend it.

I'm depressed, not by the loss of life in Johnstown, the actual number of which is not really known but stated to be 2,209, far more that the sinking of the Titanic and slightly less that the 9-11 attacks.  No, I'm depressed by the fact that this story could be contemporary and we, as human beings, learn nothing.  We have better toys, but essentially we are the same as in 1889.

The parallels between the Gulf oil spill and the Johnstown Flood are striking.  The arrogance of the wealthy, the drive to make money, and the hubris in the face of nature.  And back then, like today, they had a 24-hour news cycle to fill too, only with newspapers.  Pittsburgh itself had four major daily papers with morning and evening editions.  The New York World was selling 75,000 copies per day during the height of the reporting of this disaster.  

And in the wake of the disaster, the anger of the survivors and the country first fell on (wait for it): immigrants!  There were untrue stories that Hungarian workers were robbing the corpses and many were beaten for just being out and about.  And of course, there were the religious zealots who said this was God's punishment for the sins of Johnstown.  Naturally, the town's only brothel was on the hill at the outskirts and survived.  One Johnstown resident noted that if God had been punishing Johnstown, he had bad aim.

After the disaster, the blame was firmly given to the owners of the dam, the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a resort whose members included Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick.  But no one collected a dime in any of the civil suits lodged.  Those people were still too powerful at that time and their lawyers argued convincingly that this was an act of God.  That was true, insofar as the powerful rain storm was concerned, but man's foolishness in making the dam three feet shorter to accommodate wagons and not having a drainage system to keep the water level in check, went a long way to making sure the dam would break.  And when it did, 20 million tons of water came down a valley so narrow it acted like a sluice and destroyed everything in its path for 13 miles.

Publishing a Genealogy Book

There are many different types of genealogy books.  I have no idea what it's like to self publish any book.  Nor do I have any idea what it's like to publish a family history book, an all-my-ancestors book, or a single-name study.  Although for the last one I have some idea having written extensive articles on the Pinkhams and Yeatons.  I can't believe it would be fun.

In 2006 upon our return to Massachusetts I decided in lieu of a job to compile a book I had wanted to see for a long time.  In 1997 I had written an article for the 75th anniversary of TAG on the state of genealogical research from a librarian's perspective.  In this article I said that what was needed was a reference book that indexed all-my-ancestor books as well as journal articles and other compendia.  PERSI didn't do it.  Library catalogs didn't do it.  In 2006 I did it.  I actually rather like my book.  Those in the know, regard it highly which pleases me.  However, it was a painful experience and a truly disappointing one as well.

I never actually counted the hours I spent researching the book and thank God, I didn't.  I'm sure that I ended up working for much, much less than minimum wage.  I'd be appalled if I knew the precise figure.  I made up my mind to not go back further than 1980 because I didn't want older works to be in the index.  I was afraid I would index some article or book that had been proven wrong.  Thus the years covered were articles and books published from 1980-2005.  That may have been a mistake.  Certainly, now I would have probably gone back to 1950 so there would be continuity from Donald Lines Jacobus (who did such a work) and my work.  My work overlapped the book by Meredith Colket (who went to 1985), but his work was for the Founders and Patriots Society and their focus was too narrow to include the amount of people who came over in the early 17th century.  I realize now that you can't kill bad genealogy.  It's on the Internet and will live forever, so every researcher for him- or herself.

I did the work and I wanted a few things "my way."  One was: I wanted a reasonably priced book in soft cover.  The NEHGS has a bad habit of publishing everything in hard cover at a starting cost of $40+ per volume (and many times more than that).  My last purchase of the Great Migration series was $60+.  So, I got my soft cover and price of $19.95.  I thought that was important.

Next I wanted a title that reflected what I thought the book was.  Sadly, the NEHGS gave that title to a collection of Gary Boyd Roberts essays: The Best Genealogical Sources in Print.  That's certainly what my book was, but it was too late.  I was then advised not to use the word index in the title.  I'm not certain if that was a mistake or not.  The title ended up as New Englanders of the 1600s, with the subtitle: A Guide to Genealogical Research Published Between 1980 and 2005.  I'm not sure if that was correct or not either.

Certainly, I should have done the marketing myself and that was my fault.  I allowed the NEHGS to do that, because I thought they knew what they were doing.  Certainly I would have given review copies to all the journals I indexed, and I don't think that was done, since the work was reviewed in only four journals.  I also would have tried to place it in librarians' journals as well, because it did (and does) have a use for historians as well as genealogists.  These things were not done.

So, as of this date, I think the sales of the book is somewhere slightly past 2,000 copies, which I'm told is good in genealogical standards.  It was reprinted five times, the last time in 2009.  It was not at all what I had hoped.  Don't get me wrong.  I was thinking J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown.  However, the membership of the NEHGS was/is 20,000 to 25,000 members.  I was hoping that 25-50% of them would buy this book.  According to WorldCat only 83 libraries have this book.  There must be more than 83 genealogical society libraries, historical society libraries and public libraries than that.  

So, I had hoped back then to sell about enough to reel in $10,000 and then write the next book.  I had in mind something that indexed all the vital records contained in New England journals.  Then I would do for New York what I had for New England, and so forth southward through the original 13 colonies.  I thought that over time I would be able to earn a living wage when enough books were going at the same time.  However, to date, I have yet to hit my original goal [that's four years of waiting].  Thus, I'm working again.  During the last two years of unemployment as many times as I tried to compile another book, I just couldn't do it.  It was too much work for too little payoff.  That's how I saw myself working in genealogy.  Writing.  I never liked doing other people's genealogy.  I'm not sure why.  But I enjoyed writing articles and compiling that book.  

Now the next problem will be what to do about a second edition.  That threshold is likely after 2011 when the last volume of Great Migration will have been published.  But will I? Is it worth it?  I don't know.  It will be exceedingly more difficult if I have a full time job this time.  On the other hand, the pressure will be off.   I can't help thinking that the Internet has killed off genealogical book publishing.  More than a few (and I would think more than half) of so-called genealogists want their ancestry for free or for little money.  I've read these things in rootsweb postings years ago.  I thought that making the book a reasonably priced book would be the way to go and start a trend.  Wrong on both counts!  

In any case, someday I probably will do is write an all-my-ancestor genealogy, but privately print only a dozen copies or so for immediate family members.  My original research is already published in 30+ articles now [all of which I did on my own dime with no renumeration, as all scholars do.]  It's the question of what to do with this thing that exists now.  I wanted to be a professional genealogical writer and am no longer.  What responsibility do I have to this work?

Canney's Strafford County Marriages

I have a love/hate relationship with Robert S. Canney's, The Early Marriages of Strafford County, New Hampshire 1630-1850 (Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 1991, in two volumes) with supplement (1997) and supplement #2 (2000).  I met Mr. Canney once in the 1990s and I told him you couldn't do Strafford County genealogy without his books, and I still believe that to be true.  I, in fact, first used his work when it was just notebooks in the Dover Public Library before it was published in 1991.  So this work and I go back a long way.

There is a difference between being necessary for research and being, in my mind, excellent for research.  These books collect marriage information for anyone in Strafford County.  That's great and I refer to it constantly.  However, you cannot tell by an entry where the marriage information comes from.  Is a vital record? a church record?  from a town history? genealogy?  You don't know.  And that's a big problem, because there's some incorrect records in that book.  I can only speak to the Pinkhams and Yeatons with authority, but, as they say, mistakes were made.  Certainly I can now spot those records that come from less authoritative sources like Landmarks of Ancient Dover as opposed to Dover Vital Records, but it takes some more research on my part to find the real record that Canney is listing.

Which brings us to my current hate item.  I am trying to write up my ancestor Samuel⁴ (William^3-2) Wallis.  Samuel lived at Greenland and then moved to Barrington.  In Canney's book, listed twice on II:554 and 556 we find "Samuel Wallis married February 7, 1755 at Barrington, Sidney Tilley, daughter of Samuel."  The variant listing is under Samuel Wallace and includes "by Rev. John Adams" who was the minister at Durham, N.H. at the time.  Samuel⁴ certainly married Phebe Libby at Greenland on 23 June 1737 (Greenland VRs, p. 47) so this could be a second marriage. Here's the problems:

• I can find no record of this marriage.  It's not in the Barrington Town Records or Vital Records, both of which start a decade later than 1755.  It's not in the Durham Genealogical Records reprinted in the New Hampshire Genealogical Record Volume 1.
• There ain't no way a girl was called Sidney in 18th century America.  Just no way.
• There is no Tilley family in Strafford County.  If you look at Canney's own female index, Sidney is the only one listed.
• The marriage records of Rev. John Adams of Durham don't exist anymore.  Because we know he was the minister there, most genealogists and historians take liberties and say that anyone married in or around Durham was married by him.  I'll agree that that is the likely case, but it infers a listing and that listing doesn't exist.  Only the records of his predecessor the Rev. Hugh Adams exist.

Now there was a Cilley family and a Willey family in the area.  And possibly Sidney/Sydney is a mistranscription for Cynthia or some other name.  However, for now, this is a non-record in my eyes and a red herring.  I hate red herrings.

William Horne d. 28 June 1689, Dover, N.H.

I was in the NEHGS library last Friday, MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS, when I saw on the new book shelf a large two volume genealogy entitled, The Genealogy of the Descendants of John Clough of Salisbury, Massachusetts compiled and edited by Sheila D. Andersen and published by the John Clough Genealogical Society in 2009.  Since I happen to be a Clough descendant, twice over, I pulled the book and copied the appropriate pages.  John Clough is one of hundreds of immigrant ancestors I have from whom I descend through a daughter.  So, it's a one generation deal and then out.  This book includes all the daughters of the second generation with their husbands.  Elizabeth Clough married William Horne of Dover and I descend from this couple twice, through children John and Mary.

Sadly this huge and modern genealogy has no footnotes.  For whatever reason they chose to quote the earlier version of this genealogy published in 1952.  However even in the genealogical date summary at the top of sketch there are no footnotes.  I find this careless genealogy for the year 2009.  And the first thing that struck me was the death date of Jane (---) Clough was incorrect.  The genealogy gives it as 11 January 1678/79 and it was 16 January 1679/80.  Minor perhaps, but that is the sort of thing that taints a work for me.

The real crime appears in the sketch for William Horne.  They give an English origins for him which is completely false.  Again no footnotes or even a discussion of the information, it is just given as if fact.  If you do a little research on this absurd claim, you see that it is another 100 year old+ proposition based on the Hornes of Dover being possibly related to the Ornes of Salem and then another proposition that an Horne chart given at NEHGR 40:47 for the Sewall family has something to do with the Orne family of Salem.  Does anyone read these things?  Do you see that at the bottom of the page as an aside with an asterisk it says "Was John Horne (otherwise Orne) of Salem a descendant of this Warwickshire family?"  It asks a question (which by the way was never answered), it does not declare a relationship.  On top of which here's all the William Hornes in the IGI born just in 1609:

 Did anyone stop and consider that he married a woman born in 1642 (and therefore 33 younger than he) and has children born between 1662 and 1682?  Unless you provide strong evidence to the contrary, I would say that such a person was born about 1635 and not 1609.

So, please take all this stuff on William Horne from the sloppy Clough genealogy and bury it in your backyard and grow tomatoes.  If you want good information on John and Jane Clough they are included in the Great Migration 1634-35 Series II:107-114.  That was published in 2001.  Too bad the Clough people didn't do their homework.

Compiled Genealogy Bibliography

This is a short bibliography of compiled genealogies that contain my closest ancestor.  It gives a good date range of how far back one needs to research before you might find your ancestor in such a work.  It is also a guide for how incomplete such works can be.

Great-great-grandparents:

Agnes Jane Smith 1864-1930 in The Genealogy of the Cleveland and Cleaveland Families by H.G. and E.J. Cleveland (3 vols., 1899) [mother was a Cleveland].

George Hale Pinkham 1843-1888 in A Genealogy of Runnels and Reynolds Families in America; with Records and Brief Memorials of the Earliest Ancestors, so far as known by Rev. Moses Thurston Runnels (Boston, 1873) [paternal grandmother was a Runnels].

3rd greats:

Luther Hale Pinkham 1815-1873 in Richard Pinkham of Old Dover, New Hampshire and His Descendants East and West by Rev. Charles Nelson Sinnett (Concord, NH 1908) and well as the Runnels Genealogy.

Benjamin Wingate Hurd 1824-1904.  He doesn't appear in the following genealogy, but his brother does in the "unexplained" section of Heard-Hurd Genealogy 1610-1987: Some Descendants of John and Elizabeth (Hull) Heard of Dover, New Hampshire by Charles Samuel Candage and Ralph Ernest Peak (Picton Press, Camden, ME, 1988).

4th greats:

Nancy Ann Hayes 1795-after 1860, wife of Frederick Heard in John Hayes of Dover, New Hampshire; A Book of His Family by Katharine F. Richmond, 2 vols. (Tyngsboro, MA, 1936).

Amos Learned 1780-after 1855 in The Learned Family in America 1630-1967 by Eugenia Learned James (US, 1967).

5th greats:

Bridget Berry 1761-1847, wife of Thomas Pinkham in Descendants of William Berry of Rockingham County, NH for Four Generations: Book Three: William Berry and Jane ____ of Strawberry Bank by June Berry (The Author, Kearns, UT, 1993).

Benjamin York 1761-1845 and his wife Rebecca Coffin 1763-1842 in Descendants of Abner Coffin & Mary Rawlings of Harrisfeeket by Edward S. Coffin (the author, Augusta, ME, 2006).

Jonathan Heard 1758-after 1823, in the above-mentioned Heard-Hurd Genealogy,with a wife, but no children.

Betsey Stanton 1762-1836, wife of Ebenezer Runnels in Stanton Manuscript by Benjamin I. Stanton (NEHGS Mss SG/STA/8 (186)), gift of Minnie Stanton, 1902.

Margaret Swan 1751-1818, wife of Benjamin Learned in John Swan c. 1695 - c. 1780 of Stow and Lunenberg, Massachusetts and Peterborough, New Hampshire and Descendants by Alice L. Priest (typescript, Brookline, MA 1934).

Josiah Dudley 1745-after 1820 in History of the Dudley Family with Genealogical Tables, Pedigrees, etc. by Dean Dudley (Wakefield, MA 1892).

Elizabeth Denison 1756-after 1820, wife of Josiah Dudley in A record of the descendants of Capt. George Denison, of Stonington, Conn. by John D. Baldwin and William Clift (Worcester, 1881).

Martha Archibald 1766-??, wife of John Pratt in No Reward Without Effort: The Archibald Family of Nova Scotia by Allan E. Marble (Halifax, 2008).

Isabella Marsh 1771-1868, wife of Robinson Thompson in Marsh Family History by Warren L. Marsh (typescript in 4 volumes at NEHGS): Alexander Marsh Family in Volume 1, p. 2 et seq.

Diademia Dexter 1778-1869, wife of Nathan Cleveland in The Genealogy of the Dexter Family in America: Descendants of Thomas Dexter by W.A. Worden and R.L. Dexter (1905).

Prudence Wickwire 1769-1851, wife of James Martin in Genealogy of the Wickwire Family by A.M. Wickwire (1909).

A few comments about the above.  Olive Ann Hurd is a great-great-grandmother whose ancestry should be in the Heard-Hurd Genealogy, but isn't connected to her great-grandfather who is in the genealogy.  That is the longest jump between the most current ancestor and an existing compiled genealogy where I had to fill in the gaps.

Those missing a compiled genealogy altogether (and this is truly frightening) are: Pratt (descendants of John of Nova Scotia), Wallis (descendants of George of Portsmouth), York (descendants of Richard of Dover), and I would argue a comprehensive and decent Coffin genealogy (either Tristram¹ or Tristram² of Newbury).