The Slave Name Roll Project

February is Black History Month in the United States. It seemed an appropriate time to write about DNA matches to two fourth cousins twice removed, who happened to be African-American. Here's how it all came about.

Dad had a fairly extensive tree built out with no sources. I spent a couple of years working backwards just sourcing his research, correcting the few mistakes I found, and extending his research when possible until I got to the period of time just after the Revolutionary War. It's about this time frame in the U.S.when you need to rely on different record sets with which I was then unfamiliar. So I started learning about the types of records I would need to use to learn about my family before and just after the Revolutionary War. These are primarily wills, property deeds, estate inventory lists, court records (it was a surprisingly litigious society) and old books about family genealogies. I learned my ancestors owned land and grew tobacco or cotton as cash crops. I suspected I would come face-to-face with slavery, which was known by many as the "peculiar institution." 

Image of a watercolor entitled "Old Plantation (Slaves Dancing on a South
Carolina Plantation) circa 1785-1795 attributed to John Rose; courtesy of
Wikimedia Commons

Just as I was sorting through my feelings about finding slave owners in my ancestry, I received a message through Ancestry.com about DNA matches with two people, whose tests were administered by their cousin. He was the one who contacted me. He believed the unknown shared ancestor must be from Bedford County, Virginia. I looked at the DNA matches he referenced and agreed. The geographic "hotspot" was definitely Bedford County, which made it likely our shared ancestors were from my Beard or Mitchell lines. These lines intermarried frequently. I had researched my great grandmother's Beard line extensively. Her mother, my great great grandmother, was Barbara Ann Mitchell (1841-1890), and I had done no research on the Mitchell family.

Wood engraving entitled "The Inspection of a Negro" originally published
in Captain Canot circa 1854; courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

I gave myself a somewhat successful lecture about not judging my ancestors by today's moral code and began researching my great great grandmother. As I worked backward to Barbara Ann's great grandfather, Robert Mitchell (1714-1799), the shaky leafs on my DNA results went nuts. Turns out, I'm loaded with Mitchell DNA.

The surprise was discovering William Armstead Claytor, a son of Barbara Ann's second cousin, Harvey Claytor (1800-1871). William was African-American and the likely son Harvey Claytor and the family's slave cook, Letitia. After the Civil War, William moved to Floyd County, Virginia, bought land, and raised a family of 13 children who all went on to become teachers and doctors. I was so moved by the family's accomplishments during a period when many laws were enacted which legalized discrimination that I started thinking about what I could do to help my African-American genealogy colleagues.

William Armstead Claytor and his wife with 10 of their 13 children;
courtesy of Ancestry.com member cclaytonarizona

At the same time I was thinking about how to help, Cather Meder-Dempsey, author of Opening Doors in Brick Walls, posted a story about her slave owning ancestor in three parts. Reading her story gave me a brainstorm (at least I think so). I would start a Slave Name Roll modeled on fellow Worldwide Genealogy blogger, Heather Wilkinson Rojo's Honor Roll Project. Heather graciously gave me permission to steal her format and we were off to the races.

Slave Name Roll Project

The project was launched on the last day of February with links to named slaves of two people. I honestly had no idea how it would be received. I tweeted a link to the page and posted the link on my genealogy bloggers community Facebook page. As you can see by looking at the page nearly a month later, the response has been gratifying. And keeps me incredibly busy keeping up with the contributions. It's a good thing I'm retiring at the end of May! I hope you will contribute if you are able.

The success has started me thinking about the long-term future of the project. Am I the correct curator? Would another group or person be a more appropriate? What else should be done to the foster continuous collaboration between slave descendants and those with slave owners in our ancestry? I'd love your thoughts.

Exploring British Records from America

John Peter Bawden Roberts and his wife,

Emma Frances Warren, and children, Hilda,

Horace and Bertha (the baby) circa 1898

Leeds, Yorkshire, England

(My great grandparents, and my grandmother (Bertha) )

A few weeks ago in the US Ancestry.com offered a weekend of free access to the UK record collection.  The last time I noticed one of these offers we were on vacation, so I couldn't take advantage.  This time we were snowed in for a long duration blizzard, so I had lots of time to peruse the collection.

Note: If it weren't for social media, I wouldn't have been notified about this sale.  Many of my genealogist friends were sharing the post about free access to the UK records on Facebook and Twitter or on their blogs.  There was probably an email from Ancestry, but I have a tendency to clear out my e-mail box of advertising without reading any of the unsolicited offers.  I almost lost out on this deal!

My grandmother was born on 30 September 1897 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England.  She, her parents and siblings came to America in 1915 via Ellis Island, traveling in steerage on board the SS Orduna from Liverpool.  My cousin and I had already found the passenger lists, which listed the entire family, and my grandmother as a 21 years old.  I remember her stories, and her brother and sister’s stories (my great Auntie Hilda and great Uncle Horace).  

And so I began my search for my grandmother’s family roots via the vital records and UK census records on Ancestry.  I had used this collection a few years back and had a copy my grandmother’s family listed in the 1901 British Census.   Now I could look for them in the 1911 census, and perhaps work backwards in time to previous generations. .    The British census is conducted on years ending in “one”, and online the records are available from 1841 – 1911.  This would be the last British census for the Roberts family before leaving for America in 1915.

The Ancestry collection was very easy to use, and even though I was working with very commonplace surnames I was able to pinpoint the records easily.  

Above is the 1911 census of the Robert Family in Leeds, Yorkshire.  I was excited to see that it was the original census form with my great grandfather's signature.  I was not excited to see that my 13 year old grandmother, Bertha, was missing.  However, I remembered that she had been "in service" as a undernurse in a vicarage since she was age 12, so by searching for her own name (I had previously searched under her father's name) I found her enumerated in the vicar's household.  See below, Bertha is listed on line 11 as a servant:

Previous to this weekend, my only copy of my great grandparent's marriage record was a photocopy given to me by an uncle.  He only had access to an 8" x 12" photo copying machine, so I had never seen the entire certificate before, just a partial view. This was a terrific find for me!

This image has two marriage records, my great grand parents are on the top:

"1890 Marriage solemnized at Sheepscar in the Parish of St. Clements in the County of Leeds

No. 401  

When married:  May 24th, 1890

Name and Surname:  John Peter Bawden Roberts  and Emma Frances Warren

Age:  25 and 25

Condition:  Bachelor and Spinster

Rank or Profession:  Engine Tender

Residence at the time of marriage:  1 Henbury Terrace Bistol Street and 45 Benson Street

Father's Name and Surname:   Samuel Roberts and Oben Warren

Rank or Profession of Father:   Engine Tender and Miller

Married in the Parish Church according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Established Church

by --------- or after Banns by me, Henry A. Prem

This Marriage was solemnized between us:

John P. B. Roberts and Emma F. Warren  

in the Presence of us

Arthur Roberts and Ellen Roberts"  [John's siblings]

Again, I was thrilled to see that these were my great grandparent's signatures! 

Here is the 1853 marriage of Samuel Roberts and Mary Anne Stott, parents of John Peter Bawden Roberts and my 2nd great grandparents.  This image is slightly cut off, but you can see the dates, information and signatures, including the names of my 3rd great grandfathers:

I was not able to trace the Roberts family further back in time, nor the Warren family, but I had very good luck with the Stott family.  I found the marriage records for Mary Anne Stott's parents, grand parents and great grandparents.  This is the 1796 marriage of Jonathan Stott and Mary Brunyet, my 4th great grandparents, married in Leeds, Yorkshire. 

"No. 386   Jonathan Stott sawyer of this parish and Mary Brunyet of this parish spinster were married in this church by Banns this twenty ninth Day of September in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and ninety six by me Edward Watson, clerk.  

This marriage was solemnized between us Jonathan Stott and Marey Brunyet

in the presence of John Hardaker and Tho. Atkinsone"

With all the information I gleaned from the UK collection (mainly census and marriage records) I was able to start a pedigree chart for my grandmother Bertha Roberts. These are my roots in Yorkshire, England.  See below:

This was very exciting to me.  I have an audio tape made in the 1970s of my uncle interviewing my grandmother about her family in England.  Grammy Bertha had forgotten a lot of names, and also had the names of some of her grandparents incorrect.  These documents fill in the holes and extend her family back to the late 1700s!

After learning these new ancestor's names I joined a few Facebook groups on UK and Yorkshire genealogy.  I immediately had some help from genealogists living in some of the towns in Yorkshire where my grandmothers ancestors lived - Leeds, Dewsbury and Pontefract.  I also learned about a website called Curious Fox.  If you have UK ancestry, it is worth checking out with a free registration http://www.curiousfox.com/    If you like it, subscriptions are available.  

Preserving the News from Home

I married a first generation American.  He is the only member of his family to live here in the United States, everyone else lives in Spain or Puerto Rico.  I remember years ago we used to write to family members because a long distance phone call to Spain was so expensive.  Later, the prices of the phone calls dropped and we could call more often.  In the 1990s we started emailing, and in the last few years we've used messaging and Facebook.  For the past year or two we have used Skype to make a video call to my mother-in-law.  Skype is free so we are able to do this almost every morning before my husband goes to work.  What changes I've seen in the past thirty years of our marriage!

While researching my family tree, I've seen many changes in correspondence over the centuries.  My background is almost all English, and most of my ancestors arrived in New England with the Great Migration, before 1640 with the Puritans.  I have no surviving letters, but there is evidence of correspondence in court records and town histories.  Some of these ancestors even traveled back and forth from England to Massachusetts many times.  At least one died on a voyage back to England when the ship disappeared (Reverend Thomas Mayhew (about 1620 – November 1657)).    How did the family, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, learn about this loss? 

I’m sure that many immigrants never heard from their families again once they arrived in America.  But we can’t be sure of that, can we?  My ancestor, Peter Hoogerzeil (1803 – 1889), stowed away on a Rotterdam, Netherlands ship to come to America in the 1820s.  He married the ship captain’s daughter.  How do I know this? Because of letters he wrote home to his family in the Netherlands.  Since he was a mariner, he traveled back and forth to the Netherlands very often, and his letters survived into the 20^th century.  

My uncle served in occupied Europe after World War II.  When he was in the Netherlands he dropped in to visit his Hogerzeil cousins in Dordrect.  They welcomed him with open arms, over 100 years after Peter Hoogerzeil left Dordrect, because of the family correspondence that went on over all those years. 

2nd from left, Uncle "Buddy" Joseph Gilman Allen, 

in Dordrect, Netherlands with Hogerzeil cousins

In the 1824 in Boston, Massachusetts my 4^th great grand aunt, Mary Lambert Jones (1803 – 1889) married Captain John Dominis, a ship captain.  They decided to remove from Boston and from Schenectady, New York to Honolulu, Hawaii in the 1830s.  The correspondence between Mary and her sisters and family in Boston was carefully preserved in the Hawaii State Archives.  Most of this correspondence is spread out over the last forty years of her life, after the death of her husband in 1846, at sea.

Can you imagine how long it took for letters to arrive from Hawaii to Boston in the 1840s and 1850s?  There was no formal postal system, and letters were given to ships sailing to New England on an honor system.  Even so, I’m not sure when the first news of the death of Captain Dominis reached the family.  I did find this newspaper clipping dated 24 May 1847 from the Salem Register.    The ship had disappeared four or five months earlier.  

I wonder if letters from home were accepted joyfully?  Or were they dreaded because such rare and infrequent correspondence probably carried news from home of who had died since the last letter, or who was ill, or who had disappeared at sea (it was a family of mariners).   Some of the letters to Mary Dominis were from her sisters asking her to return to Boston, but she only came home once after she was widowed, and she died in Hawaii in 1889.  Here is one from her niece in Boston written in 1848, shortly after she was widowed. 

                                          Dorchester  Aug. 13^th 1848

Dear Cousin

I found looking over my letters the other day

that I am in debt to you for two.  I thought that I must

do my best to pay you by writing to you this opportunity

I am at Aunt Agnes’ visiting they have a very pleasant

place near Granite Bridge the house is old fashioned

but very good the fireplaces about two yard long wide

and a yard and a half long the panes of glass in the

windows about as large as a sheet of note paper.

I suppose that you have almost set up business for your

self.  How do you like the house  I should like to see it

very much as I understand it is the handsomest on

the Island.  Sarah Ann is in Boston visiting I suppose

she will write to you this opportunity  we miss her

and the children very much she has two very pretty

little girls  I know that you long to see them.

Aunt Lee has left Charter St. at last and gone to

Bridgewater to live they have quite a farm I believe

keep cows hens etc.  Uncle William and Aunt Agnes send

love to your mother and she will write if she has

time but she has such a family that if the vessel

sails tomorrow she will not be able to. Do you… 

Later in the 1800s letters were carried to Hawaii (the Sandwich Islands) with more frequency, and they tended to be light hearted and chatty, such as this one below from San Francisco in 1865 to Mary Dominis from her eight year old niece:

                  San Francisco, Jan. 22th, 1865

Dear Auntie,

I have got your letter,

you told me to tell you what I got on

Christmas, I got a doll, it was dressed like

redriding hood, a little wash tub and board,

a pair of gloves, a basket, and a pair of

gold sleeve buttons.  Mama has had a fire

ever since she has been here.  Mama has

a blue silk, with tails way down to the

bottom of her dress.  Mrs. Chase sent us

some pictures of our house.  On Saturday

I went to the circus.  We go to ride almost

every day.  I go to school.  I love some

friends boarding here.  Give my love

to Lydia, Jhon, Tom and Willie.

            Good bye from Annie B. Aldrich

Do you have letters from your immigrant ancestors? Or from your ancestors who removed from one city to another, perhaps moving West across the United States?

With the advent of the telephone, internet and video calling, how do we preserve these conversations now?

Memorial Day Foundation's War Memorial Registry

As we in the U.S. get ready to celebrate the second of our two annual holidays to commemorate veterans, who served in the armed services, I wanted to review a website volunteers may use to upload photographs and information about war memorials into a war memorial registry.

Veterans' Day is observed on the 11th day of the 11th month. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed 11 November 1919 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words:

"To us in America the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations..."

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs, the original concept for the celebration was a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m., the exact time the armistice went into effect. An act of Congress in 1938 made the day a legal holiday. In 1954 the act was amended and the name of the holiday changed to Veterans' Day in order to honor service men and women from all U.S. Wars.

Soldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meuse in France,
wait for the end of hostilities. This photo was taken at 10:58 a.m., on
11 November 1918, two minutes before the armistice ending World War I
went into effect

I began photographing war memorials this year as part of Heather Wilkinson Rojo's, the author of the Nutfield Genealogy blog, Honor Roll Project. The objective of the project is to transcribe the names of soldiers on war honor roll memorials so they are available on search engines for future genealogists and descendants to discover. Heather marshals her volunteers before each Memorial Day and Veterans Day then updates her honor roll page on each holiday. But I'm stealing Heather's thunder and wandering off topic...

In an effort to increase the possibility that an future descendant may learn a little more about the memorial on which their ancestor is honored, I also uploaded my war memorial descriptions and photographs to the Memorial Day Foundation's War Memorial Registry.

The Memorial Day Foundation is a tax-exempt not for profit organization created to increase awareness and respect for the holiday. The foundation provides flower bouquets when can be laid at war memorials across the country. It also maintains a website which is a crowd-sourced repository of photographs and information about almost any type of war memorial.

MemorialDayFoundation.org home page

The war memorial registry is organized by state and then by city. Under each city is an index of war memorials, which are linked to a detail page about each memorial. Here is a sample of the index record for a memorial I added:

MemorialDayFoundation.org War Memorial Registry index record

I began contributing to the Memorial Day Foundation last month. By in large I found it to be a positive experience.

Positives

• It is easy to register and begin contributing. The website is intuitive to navigate
• The contributions are moderated to ensure the quality of each entry
• There are over 12,000 memorials listed on the site at time of this writing
• The organization is extremely responsive. I received an email from the Executive Director the same day I started contributing to the website.
• My user support experience was very good. I forgot to attach a photograph and received an email offering to post it for me if I would email it to the organization.

Negatives

• They do not accept Confederate war memorials even though the very holiday for which they were named commemorates both sides in that terrible and tragic war. This is my biggest pet peeve
• Their information about Memorial Day under the Education tab is not completely accurate but supports their position not to recognize Confederate memorials. 
• They do not have an online way for users to edit or correct their memorials
• They do not have a separate field on the data entry form to list the names of individuals that may be listed on honor rolls
• I am not a fan of Taps playing when you visit the website. I love Taps but do not like sites to make noise that I don't knowingly choose to happen
• The keyword search brings back a lot of erroneous results

How to research your New Hampshire Ancestor, even if you are nowhere near the Granite State

With permanent European settlement that started in 1623, New Hampshire has a long history.  It is also one of the thirteen original English colonies that revolted against King George in the American Revolution.  There are a plethora of documents, records and archives to explore if your American ancestry started in New Hampshire, or passed through here on their way to other states.  Here is a list of ways to access those resources from your home.

Places you can search online:

FamilySearch.org – This website has NH births from 1714 – 1904, Deaths from 1654 – 1949, Marriages from 1637 – 1959, several county probate files, and town clerk records.  Many are complete with scanned images.  There are 18,960 books that came up when I searched for the words “New Hampshire”.   All Federal Census records 1790 – 1940 (except for 1890) are available here. Their research wiki for the state of New Hampshire is: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/New_Hampshire

Cyndi’s List of New Hampshire resources - http://cyndislist.com/us/nh/

The Lane Library, Hampton, NH- Hampton was founded in 1638 and has a wonderful collection of online resources that include many of the original seacoast communities in Rockingham County.  See this page for their genealogy page: http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/hampton/genealogy.htm

Linkpendium New Hampshire links:  http://www.linkpendium.com/genealogy/USA/NH/

New Hampshire Deeds Online http://www.nhdeeds.com/  dating from the 1620s to the present

NH Search Roots website http://www.nh.searchroots.com/

The Pelham Historical Society Online Library – from Pelham, NH, this is a wonderful, little known resource of local history records online http://www.pelhamnhhistory.org/library/onlinelibrary.html

Where to Write for New Hampshire Vital Records http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/w2w/new_hampshire.htm

Good books:

Documents and Records Relating to New Hampshire (known as the NH Provincial and State Papers) in 40 Volumes available online at http://www.library.unh.edu/diglib/bookshelf/NHPapers/volume.shtml  the links lead to Internet Archive, and you can read online (searchable) or download several versions of files.  These papers are the accumulated documents from the settlement of New Hampshire to the year 1800.

Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, by Charles T. Libbey, 1928  available online at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3166&cj=1&netid=cj&o_xid=0001231185&o_lid=0001231185&o_sch=Affiliate+External  searchable and browsable with paid subscription

Genealogists Handbook for New England Research, 5^th edition, edited by Michael Leclerc, NEHGS, 2012

Index to Genealogies in New Hampshire Town Histories, by William Copely, 1988

The New Hampshire Genealogical Record, the journal produced by the New Hampshire Genealogical Society from 1900 to the present.

Social Networking  and Message Boards:

All Things History- Rockingham County, NH on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/200460270133276/

Descendants of the First Families of New Hampshire on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/groups/NHFirstFamilies/

New Hampshire Mayflower Society on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/groups/NHMayflower/

New Hampshire Roots at Yahoo  https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/newhampshireroots/info

NH Genealogy, Digging New Hampshire Roots on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/DiggingNHRoots/

New Hampshire Genealogy Network on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/205180789528062/

(don’t forget that many New Hampshire historical societies have websites and Facebook groups, and some even have Twitter accounts)

Societies:

American Canadian Genealogical Society    www.acgs.org

Association of Historical Societies in NH   www.historicalsocietiesnh.org

Manchester, NH Historic Association   www.manchesterhistoric.org

New England Historic Genealogical Society  www.americanancestors.org

New Hampshire Historical Society   www.nhhistory.org

New Hampshire Mayflower Society  www.nhmayflower.org

New Hampshire Society of Genealogists   http://nhsog.org

Order of the First Families of New Hampshire   http://offnh.homestead.com/

Strafford County Genealogical Society   www.straffgen.org

Places that can help you by fee:

American Canadian Genealogical Society – located in Manchester, NH, this is the largest resource facility for French-Canadian research in the United States.  See this webpage for their research services http://acgs.org/research/services/

National Archives at Boston, located in Waltham, Massachusetts.  The staff will provide reference assistance to you but also maintains a list of researchers for hire at this link:  http://www.archives.gov/research/hire-help/

The New England Historic Genealogical Society – Located in Boston, it is the oldest genealogical society in the world.  You can reach their research Services department at this link: http://www.americanancestors.org/research-services/

The New Hampshire Historical Society Library- located in Concord, NH, their research services can be ordered online and by telephone or mail.  For details see the page http://www.nhhistory.org/research-services.html or call the reference staff at 603-856-0641.  Photocopies are 35 cents per page for non-members and 25 cents for members, plus $7 for mailing or fax.

The Portsmouth Atheneum – This private library dates from 1817, and is the repository of hundreds of family papers, manuscripts, photographs, and ephemera from New Hampshire and New England.  It is located in Market Square in Portsmouth, NH, and the staff will do quick reference requests as time allows, and in-depth research requests for $30/hour with a 1 hour minimum.  See this link for more information: http://www.portsmouthathenaeum.org/collections.html

And…

Don’t forget your local Family History Library.  You can order microfilms from their website to be delivered to your local Family History Library, and you can look at them there for a small fee. If you need assistance, the volunteers will even help you to search for the records online and help you place your order.  

Basic Nova Scotia Genealogy Research for New England Yankees

Like many other Americans with New England ancestry, I have some ancestral lines that went from New England, to Nova Scotia and back to New England with “The Planter Movement”.  This migration happened after the Acadian Expulsion of 1755, when the French Protestants were forced to leave Nova Scotia.  The area was re-populated with foreign Protestants and New Englanders.  Some New England Loyalists removed to Nova Scotia after the American War of Independence.   Other New Englanders of French extraction had their ancestors leave Nova Scotia after 1755 and arrive in the “Boston States”.   Later, some of these Planter families came back to New England after several generations.  The migrations back and forth, or from one country to the other continue until present times. 

If you look at the maps of New England and the Canadian Maritime provinces, you can see that traveling by water made these two regions very easily accessible to each other. I had ancestors from Cape Cod, Connecticut and Boston’s North Shore travel to Nova Scotia by water.  In 2007 I traveled from Bar Harbor, Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia by ferry to trace my roots.  My route was the same one traveled by my ancestors, although they used coastal sailing vessels instead of a modern catamaran ferry.

If you have ancestors from Nova Scotia, or if you area resident of Nova Scotia with New England roots, it pays to become acquainted with the history of the two regions.   There are basic outlines of the Planter Movement, the Acadian Expulsions, the Revolutionary War Loyalists and Ulster Scots migrations online starting with short sketches at Wikipedia to more lengthy records at the Nova Scotia Archives website. 

You don’t have to travel to Nova Scotia to trace your roots.  Here is a list of helpful steps:

      1)       Try online searches at websites such as FamilySearch.org and Cyndislist.com to become familiar with the databases available for free and for subscription on the web

      2)      Search out genealogy societies such as the Canadian American Genealogical Society in Manchester, New Hampshire or local genealogy clubs

      3)      There are many websites and blogs available for Nova Scotia research such as Lucie LeBlanc Consentino’s “Acandia Ancestral Home” blog or check out the forums on Facebook for Nova Scotia genealogy

      4)      There are books on Loyalists, Acadians, Planters and I listed some below

If you would like to plan a "genea-jaunt" (research trip) to Nova Scotia you should try to do as much research at home ahead of time.  Map out the villages where you ancestors lived so you can plan your driving route, and research the times and hours of the local repositories of records.  Most archives will be closed on a Sunday, but we planned to be at the Baptist church in Billtown on that day, where my 2nd great grandfather, Reverend Ingraham Ebenezer Bill, had been the minister, or use that day for cemetery hunting (cemeteries don't close on Sundays).  Don't forget to photograph where your ancestors lived, worshipped, went to school,  and all the local landmarks.  

The Billtown, Nova Scotia Baptist Church
where my 2nd great grandfather was the pastor.
We drove our car and traveled by ferry to get here in 2007

Nova Scotia is accessible by air to Halifax, or by ferry from Portland, Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.  Driving is a long trip, through Maine and New Brunswick, but a worthwhile route if you also have New Brunswick ancestors.  We decided to drive one way (because Reverend Bill was buried in St. John, New Brunswick), and to take the ferry the other way because I had many ancestors in Yarmouth as well as in Billtown and Lunenburg.   We also visited Louisburg because I had many ancestors fight in the several attempts by New Englanders to overtake the French fort there.  

Sources:

Dictionnaire Genealogique des Families Acadiennes by Stephen A. White, 2 volumes, 1999

Planter Nova Scotia 1760 – 1815, by Julian Gwyn, 2010

New England Planters in Maritime Provincial Canada, by Judith Norton, 1993

Nova Scotia Archives   http://novascotia.ca/archives/   (formerly Public Archives of Nova Scotia)

The New England Planters website http://www.cyberus.ca/~bharvey/planters.shtml

The New Englanders in Nova Scotia database at the New England Historic Genealogical Society website (membership needed).  This database has 48,155 names from more than 650 families of Planters and Loyalists  http://www.americanancestors.org/search.aspx?Ca=096&Da=398

Nova Scotia GenWeb Project  http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~canns/

Planters Studies Centre, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada

Chair: Stephen Henderson Email stephen.henderson@acadiau.ca

http://libguides.acadiau.ca/content.php?pid=4546&sid=27820

Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia http://novascotiaancestors.ca/   and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NovaScotiaAncestors

Family Search Nova Scotia Genealogy Records https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Nova_Scotia_Online_Genealogy_Records

American Canadian Genealogy Society, Manchester, New Hampshire   http://www.acgs.org/ 

Lucie LeBlanc Consentino’s “Acadian Ancestral Home” blog

 http://acadian-ancestral-home.blogspot.com/

Gail Dever’s “Genealogy a la Carte” blog    http://genealogyalacarte.ca/

Lorine McGinnis Schulze’s “The Olive Tree Genealogy” website, Nova Scotia resources page

http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/can/ns.shtml

Nova Scotia Genealogy on Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/groups/novascotiagenealogy/

Genealogy Research in Spain

I’m a thirteenth generation American married to a first generation American.  My husband’s family is from Spain.  He was born in New York City while his father was working at the United Nations.  Not another member of his family was born in the USA, except for our daughter. Learning how to research his genealogy was something completely new to me! 

My husband grinning after finding an ancestor
in the church record books of Sinovas, Burgos, Spain

Working on my husband’s family tree doesn't necessarily mean that we have to physically be in Spain.  Here are several hints for working on Spanish genealogy. 

1.        All family research starts with YOU and then you work your way backwards.  Start with interviewing family members.  We’ve used snail mail (the US Postal service), email, and Skype to ask questions.  This can work with relatives in any foreign country.

A typical Libro de la Familia from Spain

2.     In Spain all families must register their births, marriages, and deaths in a “Libro de la Familia”.  Every family has a copy of this book.  These were started by the Ministerio de Justicia under Francisco Franco, and the practice continues today.  Each book shows the heads of households, marriages, children, etc. It is an invaluable resource.   There are additional pages for other civil registrations, orphans, widows, places of employment, residence changes.  It’s a treasure chest!

3.     From the oral history and the “Libro de la Familia” you will be able to discern where each family unit lived in order to search for church records.  The Catholic Church was the official church for most of Spain’s history, although you might find that some family members belonged to other religions.  Most churches have uninterrupted records back to the 1600s except in cases of wars, such as the Napoleonic Wars in Spain (The Peninsular War 1807 – 1814).  During this time period many church records were lost.

4.       In the case of lost records, don’t despair.  One of my husband’s paternal lines came from the village of Sinovas in the province of Burgos, where the records were destroyed during the Peninsular War.  The Catholic church records after 1814 name the parents and grandparents on the births, marriages and deaths so I was able to still go back another two or three generations to the mid-1700s with these families.

The marriage of Celestino Garcia and Joaquina Munoz, in the village of
Barba de Puerco, Salamanca, Spain 1 December 1877

5.   Many Spanish church records have been microfilmed by the LDS church.  You can find these films online at familysearch.org   If you are lucky these images have been digitized, such as the villages for my husband’s maternal grandmother’s side of the family in Salamanca province.  If not, you can view these films at your local LDS church’s family history library.

6.     After searching church records, other records to use include town histories, tax records, military records and other documents from Spain.  These are sometimes available through Family Search, and also online at the Spanish National Archives website  http://en.www.mcu.es/archivos/MC/AHN/   or the National Library of Spain http://www.bne.es/en/LaBNE/ArchivoWeb/    where you can search by surname, village or topic.

Good luck!  Buena Suerte!

Planning a long distance research trip

Several years ago I was lucky enough to plan and carry out a successful research genealogy research trip to Honolulu, Hawaii.  We live on the East Coast of the United States, and it is a long, long distance to Hawaii.  It was also my first trip to Honolulu, so I knew that I would have to plan some fun time for my husband and I.  It can be difficult to balance work and play during a genealogy trip, and an exotic locale like Honolulu makes the balancing act even more difficult.  I hope these tips help you plan a similar trip!  They worked so well for me that we repeated our Hawaii genealogy trip again last year.

I had been writing, emailing and using online resources for a long time to research my extended family in Hawaii.  My 4x great aunt had removed to Honolulu from Boston in the 1830s.  I had spent 20 years researching our connection to these Hawaiian pioneers.  By this time I had exhausted all the snail mail and email contacts I had made.  It was time for personal research time in the Hawaii State Archives, the Bishop Museum Library, and the cemeteries.  It was also time to walk in the footsteps of my great aunt and cousins, and I was looking forward to seeing their homes, churches, and (of course!) the island where they all decided to stay instead of returning to Massachusetts.

My recommendations...

#1- Appointments- don't leave anything up to chance

When planning a long distance research trip to a new place, it is important to schedule all your research day and to make specific appointments.  I made appointments to meet in person with all the people who had been helping me via email, including librarians, archivists, curators and cousins.  We made one major appointment for each morning, and decided that the rest of the day would be used for additional research or for just relaxing.  We had only one week, so cousins were scheduled for weekends when libraries and archives would be closed.  This worked out well.

Scheduling appointments also meant that I could ask "Will your archive be open until noon that day?" or "May I search your files until 5pm?".  Even if the website for a repository says it will be open, you never know about local holidays, staff vacations, or budgetary closures until you ask the staff right up front if their place will be open on the exact day you wish to be there.

#2-  Don't bring too much stuff!

Extra suitcases can cost from $50 to more than $150 depending where you are going, and paper can weigh a lot.  Nowadays your suitcase is limited to 50 pounds, or less if you are overseas.  I had to digitize as much as possible and download everything to my mobile devices, Evernote or flash drives.

If you collect things (papers, brochures, books, documents) along the way, consider mailing or shipping them home.  There was a US Post Office right across the street from the Hawaii State Archives in Honolulu.  I bought several "If it fits, It ships" boxes (for $10 they will mail whatever you can cram into the box).  Fortunately for me, Hawaii is part of the United States, so this was a real bargain.  Shipping can be expensive, but not as expensive as an overweight suitcase, or the price of an additional suitcase on the plane.

#3 - Involve the family.

We had a research plan that involved both my husband and I at the Hawaii State Archives.  I was in charge of getting the documents from the archivist, and he was in charge of photographing as much as possible from each file or box.  I decided I wouldn't sit and read, I would look at the digitized images later.  We were able to photograph nearly a thousand personal letters in one afternoon.  I placed them on the table and he photographed each one, and then I'd pick them up and repeat the process.  After I was home I found that nearly 2/3 of these letters were of genealogical interest to my family, written from Boston and New England to the Hawaiian islands between the 1850s and 1910.

Other than making a family member your personal photographer (not just for documents, but for scenes inside and out), consider a "personal assistant" who can not only navigate maps to each archive and library, but who can find a good place nearby for lunch, and a great beach on the way back to the hotel.  My daughter was our navigator during a different research trip to Nova Scotia, and she found at least two great side trips for each day that were always on our way between scheduled appointments, and she was great at finding a fantastic restaurant for the end of each busy day.

#4- Use your contacts!

It was great to meet "in person" with archivists and curators I had only met virtually online before the trip.  They were also very useful in helping me to get appointments with other people once I was on the ground in Honolulu.  I met several new genealogists, and also visited several other historic homes that I did not know about until I was there.  Don't be shy about asking about taking photos where they usually aren't permitted if this is a home from your own family tree!  The worst they can say is "no."

#5- Remember the climate and geography

Hawaii is a lot more humid and hot than where I live in New Hampshire.  Remember that items you bring home may be moldy or mildewed.  (We had this experience bringing home old family photos from Puerto Rico).  If a family member gives you an artifact, how will you get it home? We had a family member give us an old cast iron pot in Spain. Luckily it fit in the suitcase in the days before they instituted the 50 pound weight limit on planes! This would definitely take some different planning to get home today.

 Even though Hawaii looks like a small island, crossing to the other side might take a lot longer than you think due to mountain roads or small town traffic.  It is good to ask your contacts ahead of time how long they think it will take to get to their museum/house/library from your hotel.

#6 - Bring gifts

It is nice to present those who helped you in the past, or those who are about to help you, with a small gift from home.  Try to think of something from your hometown that is part of your local culture.  We usually bring small bottles of locally made maple syrup for librarians and archivists. This goes a long way towards breaking the ice in case you need to contact them again after you get home.  You never know if you will need more documentation in the future.

For meeting up with "new" cousins, something from your own family is nice- photos or a family tree chart showing your kinship are usually highly appreciated.  Don't forget to follow up with thank you cards and letters.  At Christmas and New Years I send back group photos of our cousins or our trip to the archives and museums, which is a nice way to stay in touch.

Hello from New Hampshire, USA

Hello!  My name is Heather Wilkinson Rojo.  I've lived for 30 years in New Hampshire, and  I grew up in Beverly, Massachusetts where many of my ancestors lived since the 1630s. I also spent my school years in central Massachusetts in the adorably quintessential New England town of Holden.   I had one set of 5^th great grandparents who were married there in Holden, in the same church where my husband and were married.  Centuries of my ancestors were baptized in the Congregational church in Beverly, where I was baptized, too.

Four years ago I started a blog called Nutfield Genealogy, named for the original grant of land where the first Ulster Presbyterians first settled in 1719.  They renamed it Londonderry in honor of the county in Northern Ireland where they came from.  Their pastor, Reverend James MacGregor of Aghadowey, brought his flock of Scots Irish settlers to Nutfield, and I've learned a lot about them over the past 30 years.  I even learned that I had two Scots Irish minister ancestors, too, but they were in Massachusetts.

I started doing genealogy as a young teen in Holden.  I didn't know any of my ancestors, nor did my parents.  The lucky thing about starting my genealogy young was that I was able to interview my grandparents and their siblings.  My grandmother remembered her grandfather, who was in the Civil War!  I took a few genealogy classes, but I was already hooked on family history. 

In the past 35 years or so I have found a dozen Mayflower ancestors,  several ancestors hung as witches in Salem in 1692, traveled to Europe, Nova Scotia and Hawaii for research, read tons of books, and squinted at miles of microfilm.  I have pages and pages of notes, and many terabits of information and images saved.  It’s now time to take all that information and write up the stories.

Blogging is the perfect platform for a beginning writer.  You need only post a few paragraphs each day.  You can skip days and no one will care, but your followers will care enough to bug you if you take too much time off.  Cousin connections and collaborations with other researchers happen automatically, often by pure serendipity as soon as your blog posts appear in search engines.  All this has happened by luck, even without any planned “cousin bait” blog posts.   

As I write about my New England ancestors, I find deep connections to the area where I live.  It is impossible to drive far without seeing an ancestor’s surname on a street sign or in a cemetery.  Weddings and funerals of friends and relatives are often at churches where my ancestors were married, or in burial grounds where they are interred, too.  After nearly 400 years in just a few counties of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine I feel rooted in time and history.  But I often think about those voyages across the Atlantic from Europe in the 1600s, and of connecting to my roots abroad.

On the other hand, I married a first generation American.  When I visit his parents’ villages in Spain I feel a deeper connection.  My father-in-law was baptized in a church built over 1200 years ago, and  generations of his family lived in that same spot.  My mother-in-law came from a military family on the border with Portugal where for hundreds, maybe thousands of years the political borders moved back and forth but the people stayed in place as the names of the villages changed.  It truly gives me a feeling that all our family histories go back millenniums as we all get our DNA results and find we are connected.  Even my very British New England Yankee family shares haplogroup H with my Spanish mother-in-law.  Perhaps many millenniums ago we were cousins?

And so according to our Ancestry.com DNA results, my husband has more British ancestry than me, and I have more Iberian ancestry than him.  He has more Irish ancestry than I do, and where did I get Viking DNA? 

That is worldwide genealogy!