Tag Archives: Road Trips

Call to ministry

American History, Family Stories, , ,
The Rev. Thomas Cary posed for this portrait by John Singleton Copley ca. 1770. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

American Ancestors recently shared, via social media and The Weekly Genealogist, the news that the Rev. Thomas Cary’s diary (owned by NEHGS) was mentioned in a Ben Franklin’s World podcast. His diary was among the documents Susan Clair Imbaratto consulted in writing Sarah Gray Cary from Boston to Grenada: Shifting Fortunes of an American Family, 1753–1825. Combined with the anniversary of my own visit to the Chelsea, Massachusetts house in which Sarah (Gray) Cary and her husband — Thomas’s brother Samuel — lived, this news seemed like a clear invitation to write another blog post about the family.  

This time I wanted to focus on Thomas’s life as a minister, a topic very close to my heart since my husband is also a minister. While the life of an eighteenth/nineteenth-century Congregational cleric has some profound differences from that of a twentieth/twenty-first-century Episcopal priest, I’ve found many diary entries that resonate with personal experience.  Continue reading Call to ministry →

My New Siegel Family

Family Stories, , , ,

One of my family lines that I love exploring is the Siegel family. My great grandmother Matilda Siegal was born in Focsani, Romania. She came to the United States as a little girl of 10 years of age in 1905. She lived with her older brother Isidore and then moved in with her sister Rebecca and her husband, Simon Frankel. Rebecca had immigrated just two years earlier from Romania. Their mother, Chaje Goldman, would later immigrate in 1911 and bring along her four other children.

A little over three years ago I sent a message to a user on FamilySearch.

Family reunion
Randi, Melanie, and Amy on a Swan Boat in the Boston Public Garden (photo credit: Amy Neill.)

A little over three years ago I sent a message to a user on FamilySearch after viewing a note on my second great aunt, Rebecca Siegel, on their Family Tree. I was thrilled when I received a reply from the user, Barbara. She is the granddaughter of Rebecca. We exchanged messages back and forth, sharing what we each had found in our genealogy research, as well as stories we knew about our family members.

Continue reading My New Siegel Family →

‘Lots of company’

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , ,

It is interesting to see the spread of a new technology reflected in my great-grandfather’s journal[1]: in this case, the electrification of the Bells’ farm in Kempsville, near Norfolk, Virginia. A little less than a century ago, this was a project one could undertake oneself.

1920

9 October: Bought truck today for $793 and turned in the old one for $200.

Estelle and I bought light fixtures today for the new Delco system which we installed this week.

23 October: Turned on electric lights tonight. Continue reading ‘Lots of company’ →

High tide

American History, Family Stories, ,

My grandfather[1] did not have a lot to say about his mother’s brothers.[2] Perhaps because the Jackson family was relatively prosperous when my great-grandparents married, my great-grandmother led a more settled life than her brothers, none of whom, my grandfather once said, “amounted to much.”

At an earlier stage in my research, I was surprised to find my great-great-grandmother living in Phoenix in the household of one of her younger sons;[3] indeed, this sojourn proved to be brief – but long enough for Jennie Jackson to appear in the 1920 census, far from her residence in New York. Continue reading High tide →

A rehabilitated marriage

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , ,
Eva Rhodes Clancy, posed in a photo booth.

My great-grandfather John W. Rhodes lived in Wareham, Massachusetts for most of his life. Though I remember him well, I knew nothing of his extended family. His 1966 obituary named Eva (Rhodes) Clancy of Westerly, Rhode Island, as a surviving sister. Sixteen years later, I hoped some members of the Rhodes family still lived there as I prepared for my first of many trips to Westerly.

Westerly town directories revealed Eva Clancy lived at 155 Granite Street, and after her death in 1980, Eva’s daughter Mary Clancy remained at the same address. Happy to meet a new, previously unknown relative, Mary and her cousin Alma Rhodes provided me with a wealth of information. Continue reading A rehabilitated marriage →

Time travelers

NEHGS Collections, Research Methods, , ,
The Place de la Concorde leading into the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

With good weather and summer’s long-awaited arrival, many of us will be traveling near and far to new and exciting places. Traveling today is still frustrating, even with fast transportation and constant access to technology, so I was very curious to find out what obstacles our ancestors faced centuries ago.

Many diaries have been digitized and added to the NEHGS Digital Collections on the American Ancestors website. In this new grouping I found two travel diaries that sparked my interest on what the similarities and differences of the diarists’ travels in the nineteenth century and my own in the twenty-first century might be. Continue reading Time travelers →

‘A mighty happy time’

American History, Family Stories, ,

My great-grandfather was a man of few words, at times, as when he made his sole reference to a new office: “Elected to the [Norfolk] City Council tonight.”[1] A more typical effusion occurs nine days later, when he notes the “Early cabbage [is] looking good.”[2]

1918

1 April: Bought an Overland car.

3 May: Went with Hotel Ass[ociatio]n to Cape Henry[3] for Oyster Roast.

8 May: After supper tonight the whole family[4] went to the strawberry patch and picked berries for breakfast. Had a mighty happy time. Continue reading ‘A mighty happy time’ →

Stubborn facts

American History, Family Stories, Research Methods, , , ,
Joe Pease. Courtesy of Findagrave.com

My second-ever Vita Brevis post featured the story of how my grandfather[1] became a stationmaster for Pan Am’s flying boat operations in the South Pacific. On the morning of 8 December 1941 (on his side of the International Date Line), Papi oversaw the departure of a Pan Am Clipper flying boat from Noumea, New Calendonia, which would immediately thereafter enter aviation history by flying “the long way” back to New York over uncharted routes. At almost the exact same time (on the American side of the International Date Line), a young man named Joe Pease was at the dock of Pan Am’s Pearl Harbor facility, awaiting the arrival of another Clipper. Needless to say, Joe had the more exciting morning! Continue reading Stubborn facts →

What’s in a name?

American History, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, , , , , ,

‘What’s in a name?’ asked Juliet of Romeo, concluding that the name of something does not define what it really is. A rose, after all, by any other name would smell as sweet, but for family genealogists, a rose by any other name can become an obstacle to progress and success. Naturally, we go in search of a name as we expect it to be, as we’ve always known it to be and, in doing so – in not considering all the possible variations or that any given spelling may not necessarily be the “correct” spelling – we may overlook vital clues and new pathways for our research. I suspect that most family genealogists who stay at their research beyond the “low hanging fruit” stage, who don’t give up too soon, eventually double back and realize their earlier oversights. Continue reading What’s in a name? →

‘Planting watermelon’

American History, Family Stories, , ,

I have a vivid memory as a boy of the time my mother’s father showed me a healed wound in his leg. While he was a decorated veteran of the Second World War, with the Purple Heart (among other medals) to show for it, this scar – deep enough for a child probe with a finger – came from a shooting accident when he was not much older than I. The idea that my grandfather had ever been an unruly boy – his childhood inconceivably remote in the early 1970s – fascinated me, and, anyway, boys love the squeamish and the gross: this evidence of time’s passage, long-healed, formed a Proustian memory, sending me back to a hot summer’s day and a moment’s connection with my beloved grandfather. Continue reading ‘Planting watermelon’ →