Saturday, March 16, 2013

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Lunch With your Fearless Female


Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 
 It's Saturday Night again - 
time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 


1)  Read Lisa Alzo's blog post Back for a Fourth Year: Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women's History Month on her blogThe Accidental Genealogist.

2)  Answer the writing prompt for 16 March:  
If you could have lunch with any female family member (living or dead), or any famous female, who would it be and why? Where would you go? What would you eat?

3)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, in a Facebook post or a Google+ post.

Here's mine:


I would pick my 5th great-grandmother, Jerusha (--?--) Metcalf (ca 1750-1817), wife of Burgess Metcalf (1741-1816) of Piermont, Grafton County, New Hampshire.  They had 11 children together while living near the Connecticut River, really on the frontier.  Hopefully, she would know who her parents were (!!), and where they were born, and who her siblings were.  I would ask her about her childhood, how she met and married Burgess, what she did during the Revolutionary War while Burgess was away from home, how educated she was, and what stories she could tell me about their daughter, Polly, my 4th great-grandmother, and her family.  

Where would we go?  To Piermont, I think, to stand on the land on which she lived out her life.  What would we eat?  Probably something relatively soft, since she probably didn't have great teeth in her later years.  

I have many other females with an unknown surname, or unknown parents, but Jerusha --?-- is one that may open up a new research line for me back into the early 1600s in New England.  

Besides, I like the name, Jerusha.  It's different.  The ThinkBabyNames website says this about Jerusha:

Jerusha \j(e)-ru-sha\ as a girl's name is pronounced je-ROO-shah. It is of Hebrew origin, and the meaning of Jerusha is "married, a possession". Biblical: the wife of King Uzziah. Used by the Puritans and revived somewhat in the 19th centuryLiterary: James Michener used the name for the missionary heroine in his novel "Hawaii".

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/03/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-lunch-with.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

6 comments:

Dandelion said...

I would like to have lunch with Mercy Hurd. She was born about 1613 and died in 1693. She must have been a remarkable person living in a remarkable time. I am descended from all three of her husbands; Twice from Thomas Brigham and from the first wives of Edmund Rice (three times) and William Hunt (once). After William Hunt died she lived another 26 years as a widow. I would like to know who her parents were, but even more I would like to hear about the times in which she lived.
One account says that she came on the Susan and Ellen with Thomas Brigham in 1635. I don’t see her on the passenger list but since she was said to be a non-conformist she may have had to travel under a different name, perhaps as a servant. That way she might not have needed the “certificate of conformity”.

Melissa said...

I would love to have lunch with Mary Eliza Ann (Lockhart) Robbins. She was my great-great-grandmother. She was born in about 1857, probably in or near Benton Co., TN. She died in Benton Co., TN in 1894 or 1895 of measles. She had 10 or 11 children. I would ask her when and where she was born, who her parents were, the usual questions for a brickwall ancestor. I would also like to ask her about the parentage of her oldest daughter, Annie Elizabeth Robbins, my great-grandmother. Annie was listed as a Robbins in every record, but was born prior to Mary's marriage to William H Robbins. I would also like to ask her about what life was like during the Civil War and during the Reconstruction in the south. She is the person who keeps drawing me, but I know so little about her. I think it would be nice to have a picnic lunch with some good fried chicken and biscuits.

Cheri Hudson Passey said...

Here's the link to my post Let's Do Lunch Auntie Kate:
http://carolinagirlgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/03/celebrating-womens-history-month-lets.html

Liz said...

Here's mine:

http://gatapleytree.blogspot.com/2013/03/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-lunch-with.html

Bobbi said...

It would definitely have to be my gr-gr-grandmother Henriette Auguste (SIEVERS) HARTMANN RIEDEL, c.1838-1923. She lived on three continents, had 2 husbands & 8 children. She lived such an exciting varied life, I would want to know the reasons behind it. I would also love to know exactly where she was born, and something more than just her parents' names. Lunch could be at any of the many places she lived, with the food she enjoyed the most.

Linda Schreiber said...

I'm late.... There are many ancestors in far-deep time, but sadly, my choice would be my own grandmother. It's not that I didn't know her. Grew up with her. When she was 94, I was an early-20s at her bedside. But she was shy and quiet, and I was shy and quiet, and I (regrets) **NEVER ASKED HER ENOUGH QUESTIONS!**
Can't go back and do that now.
I would love to make her lunch. Stuff I remember fondly from dinners at her house. Brown bread and real butter, maybe roast chicken, corn, brown bread and real butter, maybe pot roast, fresh green beans, brown bread and real butter....
Real, there's a fondly remembered trend there :)