Member Blogs

A selection of my photographs from a recent exploration of cemeteries in Hull. Dating back to the early 1800’s, there is certainly much evidence of death, decay and disease. Many of the surviving stones had in fact been relocated from previous locations as the City expanded.

One of the most interesting finds was evidence of the 1849 Cholera epidemic in the City and the headstone of Labour Master James Myers of the Hull Work House, who died in 1883. Buried along with his wife Ellen, James is recor

Being of the surname Billington, my family, though in Yorkshire for over 100 years, is often asked about its Lancashire origins and in particular I am often asked by historians if I have any connections to the Hangmen of Bolton. In the south of England the question is quite different and I am asked of my connections to John Billington who travelled with the Pilgrim father’s from Plymouth on the Mayflower.

My second name is John, so you could say John Billington is my namesake but  the similaritie

Last weekend we were in Washington DC, and at the top of my list of things to do in our capital city was to visit the National Archives.  If you read my blog story from last October, “Did George Washington Sign Here?”  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/10/amanuensis-monday-george-washington.html  you will know that I was questioning the authenticity of George Washington’s signature on a document found amongst some Revolutionary War Pension papers.   My 5x great grandfather, Abner Poland

My 5x great grandfather Abner Poland served in Revolutionary War, but so did his father, Abner Poland, Sr., and so the records have always been difficult to separate when I started to research the Poland family.   He was born in 1761, and was only fifteen when the Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred in 1775.  He enlisted not long after, on 15 January 1776 as a private in Captain Abraham Dodge’s Company in Ipswich, Massachusetts.   He reenlisted in 1777 for another two years, and reenlisted

This week, I will be spending some time researching the Cemeteries of Kingston upon Hull, in East Yorkshire. Between 1880 and 1910, the Cemeteries grew at a rate only equalled by the continued growth of the City. From a tiny medieval town surrounded by green fields, Henry VIII’s favourite stop over expanded to more than 10 times its original size.
Recent records exist of Burials dating back to 1847 and Parish records detail burials before that.

Read More at www.ancestrycentral.co.uk 

I am going to post this to the blog page hoping we will be able to reach out to the homebound, gasoline broke home bound and all other researchers. I think this is going to be the way of the future due to gas prices and the situations of today.

Come join a chat (class) Instructed here at Genealogywise.com or if you still also have an aol.com address attend the various chats held there. Do not over look Looking4Kin 's web site and chats that are held there.

 Rita  & I do a Thursday chat at 6 pm on

Today I joined this web site in hopes of learning more about my family through connecting with more "cousins" and friends of our families. I am going to try and add information about people in my family, their stories as I have learned about them. I hope you will join me in reading about their lives, adventures, thoughts and times.  

My father's side of the family, though with plenty of questions and mysteries, is a much easier (and I use that term lightly) to find and research. They are all in

I' have a blog entitled: The Grimke-Drayton notes. All you have to do is type the name in the search engine, and you will be linked with the blog. It's a mixture of poetry and introduction to my genealogical research. Check out my website - http://www.grimke.co.uk - for information on my family's roots in South Carolina. I'm hoping to post on the blog articles with information on the families on which I've been researching.

I'm going to be in the States between 16-26 September this year - 16-19 i

Do you have days when you wish your interest in documenting your family's history had sprouted and put down roots when you were ....oh, about 10 or 11 years old?  I certainly do.  Why didn't I notice that we never seemed to talk about my dad's side of the family in our home?  Why didn't we ask his parents all those great questions like "how did you meet?" or "what were your brothers and sisters like?"  Perhaps because my maternal grandmother lived with us and the fact that she was actually born

I was at a Bat Mitzvah this past Saturday and the presiding rabbi gave a sermon on the gift of time. He had seen an ad for a famous jewelry company that depicted a graduate in cap and gown, with a new watch on her arm. The caption was, “There Is No Present Like The Time”, which of course, is a twist on the old idiom, “There Is No Time Like The Present” to show that the watch was the gift of time. But the watch is also a metaphor for the larger definition of time. I wish I had the sermon to place

The Wise Genealogist Class has started.  I have read classmates blogs about experiences with RSS feeds and have discovered that I really subscribed to way too many news blogs, so I deleted all of the news blogs and stuck to genealogy and writing, mostly genealogy.  I could not understand why I was getting I was getting newspaper articles from all over the country related to genealogy.   Then I realized that because I had a folder for genealogy, google was kindly finding all the genealogy news fr

  Starting in the Middle of the Page for Genealogy.  

  Now have you ever done that? Leapt in with both feet and landed in the middle, the choice to go forward or to go back wards.  Do we look to the future generations or do we look at the past generations?  It makes for an interesting tilt to your research.  

  Some times unorthodox methods shake the tree and good fruit falls from it. 

  Some say that I am out to collect the most relatives I can, no that is not the truth. I am out to get the be

With regards to a blog posted by Patricia Aceves Wyble comments on Jesus Echeverria:

On July 20, 1889, Jesus Echeverria of Warm Springs sold 32.58 acres of land to my grandfather, Antone C. Alvernas (Alvarnos, Alvarnaz).  Snr Echeverria was a grantee of the land from Tomas (thomas) Higuera son of Fulgencio Higuera grantee of the Ranchio Aqua Caliente (adjacent to the Los Tularcitos grant of Santa Clara County.

As an additional point of information:  Fulgencio Higuer's daughter, Maria Margarita H

Disasters Week

Disasters were the fire, after I moved. Tornado when I was a Junior in the High School. Floods many times we had floods. Fortunately it damaged only the foundation and out buildings and we have had to reset the one corner of the house a few times. The house sets on a rock base and only one corner is not. Large old style timbers make the base of home very strong sturdy. Winds and water was the most normal damage we would have. Trees blown over and road blocked were a winter once in

Radio and Television    

We listened to lots of Radio and did not have a TV until I was 13 plus. We could not watch it but on Friday night and Saturday evening Talent shows and Sunday news early.  Later we watched Sky King and other events.

Ed Sullivan Show, was popular. I loved the detective shows on radio. 

Toys Week 

Toys, well we had dolls, cowboy boots, guns and bows and arrows.  We built Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets.

 We did a lot of games and reading.

Technology

The changes were computers in

  Family Traditions on New Years Eve.

  Yes, we gathered family together, near and not far and had food and played cards and games.  Dad and I would make eggnog and Mom would have with our help made pies and brownies. Family and friends that came would bring a dish or dessert also. Dad liked to make homemade eggnog that way no chemicals in his drink or eggs. We lived on a ranch and chemicals were coming into play big time in feed mill plants to increase growth and production in animals. Dad did

I am a descendant of brave men & women who endured great hardships in an effort that their offspring have better opportunities.  My paternal heritage is largely from Kildonan Parish, Sutherland, Gunn, MacKay, Matheson, Bannerman, Sutherland, who came to North American in 1813 on the ship 'Prince of Wales'.  The passengers were put out prematurely in the Hudson Bay where they endured illness and a harsh winter before travel south to the Red River settlement in 1814.  Other Kildonan parishioners f