Genea-Musings

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Treasure Chest Thursday #305: 1733 Marriage Record of Nathaniel Guild and Mary Boyden in Dedham, Mass.

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is the 1733 marriage record of Nathaniel Guild and Mary Boyden in the vital record book of Dedham, Massachusetts:

The snippet of the marriage record is:

The transcription of this record is:

"Marryed by John Metcalfe, Esq'r. Nath'll Guild of Dedham & Mary Boyden of Wrentham, June y'e 12, 1733"

The source citation for this record is:

Don Gleason Hill (editor), The Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths in the Town of Dedham,1635-1845 (Dedham, Mass. : Town of Dedham, 1886), page 60, Nathll Guild of Dedham and Mary Boyden of Wrentham entry.

Nathaniel Guild and Mary Boyden are my 6th great-grandparents. They had six children together, and all six lived to adulthood. Their first daughter, Mary Guild (1735-1800), who married Amos Plimpton (1735-1808) in 1756, is my 5th great-grandmother.

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The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/03/treasure-chest-thursday-305-1733.html

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Census Whacking (Again!) on St. Patrick's Day

Here's an oldie but a goodie from 17 March 2007 on Genea-Musings (with updates and additions over the years): I browsed through the 1920 U.S. Census on www.Ancestry.com looking for funny or strange names to help celebrate St. Patrick's Day and Irish names.There is a rich selection:

* Patrick Ireland resided in Matagorda County TX (born in Texas - who knew?)

* St. Lester Patrick resided in Hillsborough County NH (born in Canada)

* Patrick Patrick resided in Macon County AL (born AL)

* Patrick Fitz Patrick resided in Queens County NY (born in Ireland)

* Paddy Green resided in Lucas County OH (born Ireland)

* Green Kelley resided in Hudson County NJ (born Ireland)

* Kelly Banshey resided in Beardstown, Illinois.

* Banshe Jedinak resided in Trinidad, Colorado.

* There are 64 males named Patrick Green born in Ireland.

* Daniel Boy resided in Cuyahoga County OH (born in Russia)

* Daniel Erin Ireland resided in Wyandotte County KS (born in KS)

* Patrick Luck resided in Kings County NY (born in Ireland)

* Erin Ireland resided in Logan County, CO (born in Nebraska)

* There are 87 females named Rose Ireland - but only one was born in Ireland.

* There are 1,889 persons with the surname Clover, but only 6 were born in Ireland.

* There are 222 persons with the surname Shamrock, and 6 with the first name of Shamrock, but none were born in Ireland.

* There are 9 Kate Irelands in the census, but none were born in Ireland

* There are 91 persons with surname Ireland that were born in Ireland.

* There are 606 persons with the surname Limerick, but only 5 were born in Ireland.

* There are 5,372 with the surname Cork, but only 39 were born in Ireland.

* There are 102 persons with the surname Fairy, but only 2 were born in Ireland.

* There are 3,861 persons with surname Irish, but only 22 were born in Ireland.

* There are 26,144 persons with the first name starting with "Kat" and 41,434 starting with "Cat" born in Ireland

* There are 22,043 persons with the surname Shannon, but only 880 were born in Ireland.

* There are 52,560 persons with the first name starting with "Pat" and 49 starting with "Pad" born in Ireland

* There are 1,059,917 persons in the 1920 census that were born in Ireland.

* There are 3,888,940 persons whose father was born in Ireland.

* There are 3,799,355 persons whose mother was born in Ireland.

* There are 3,078,127 persons whose mother and father were born in Ireland.

* I have exactly 0 known ancestors who were born in Ireland after 1600.

There were no people in the census with the surname of Leprechaun or Banshee. Not being Irish, or having known Irish ancestry, or much experience researching in Ireland - I don't know all of the legends and songs that might provide more names to search. What other names should I look for next year?

The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/03/census-whacking-again-on-st-patricks-day.html

Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

Happy St. Patrick's Day - I Didn't Know I Was Irish Until My DNA Told Me So!

Am I Irish if my AncestryDNA test says that I am 18% Irish ancestry? I guess I'm entitled to post this:

Here are my AncestryDNA test results (two screens):

Some thoughts about my "Irish" ancestry:

* The matches they've made of my autosomal DNA with that of other "Irish" people show that I'm 18% "Irish." however, the range could be 3% to 32%.

* This ethnicity estimate is based on a pool of 154 persons identified as having "Irish" ancestry. That's probably why the ethnicity range is so wide. I really question how they can make judgments when there are so few persons for comparison purposes.

* I am nowhere near the percentage of the "typical native" of Ireland. For all we know, those 154 could have significant English ancestry.

* From what I've heard, the autosomal DNA test indicates ethnicity as of about 2,000 years ago - around the time of the Roman invasion and rule of southern England, but not of Ireland. The Celts in England were pushed westward to Ireland and Wales and Cornwall. There were earlier migrations to the British Isles in prehistoric times from central Europe, Gaul and Iberia.

* My ethnicity according to my genealogy research is about 65% British Isles and about 35% Western Europe (mainly Germany, with a little Dutch, French and Scandinavian). But that's based on where my ancestors lived about 500 years ago. Of course, it's those Angles, Saxons, Danes, Normans, Vikings, etc. who muddied up the gene pool in England.

* Over the last 400 years, I may have a few ancestors who lived in Ireland, but I doubt that I have 18%. If the ethnicity estimate was 3% or even 6%, I'd tend to believe it. It may be that some of those conquering heroes took Celtic wives and they contributed to my gene pool with a fair amount of Irish ancestry in the green end.

For the record:

* I love Irish music.

* I love the spirit of the Irish people, both sides, Orange and Green.

* I've been to Northern Ireland once on business in 1985, and it was really green.

* We visited Dublin for a day on the Legacy Family Tree 2013 genealogy cruise, and we visited St. Patrick's cathedral.

* I don't like beer, and especially green beer.

* I would love to experience Irish research...if I could only find the connection in my genealogy. I do have some "dead ends" in my pedigree chart, and some of them may lead to Irish ancestry if I can find the intervening generations.

I also posed for this picture in Dublin with a wee Irish lass (is this my cousin?) ...

The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/03/happy-st-patricks-day-i-didnt-know-i.html

Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

MyHeritage Record Matches for NewspaperARCHIVE Temporarily Disabled - UPDATED

Reader Eddie noticed yesterday that he couldn't see Record Matches or Search results on MyHeritage for the NewspaperARCHIVE collection.

I checked and wasn't able to see Record Matches or Search results for the NewspaperARCHIVE collection, so I emailed Daniel and Mark of MyHeritage last night with the hope that this was something planned and not random, or, even worse, if the collection was no longer available.

Mark sent this email note early today:

"The NewspaperARCHIVE collection on MyHeritage is temporarily disabled because NewspaperARCHIVE are moving imminently to another data center. We have an index but rely on them for serving the newspaper images. All Record Matches are intact and will come back after their data center move is completed."

My thanks to Mark for the very quick response and the assurance that the collection will return soon.

It may be that the same problem will arise on Ancestry.com and Findmypast.com, since they also access the NewspaperARCHIVE collection, although they don't include the collection in Record Matches or Hints.

UPDATED 25 March 2016: I checked again today, and the NewspaperARCHIVE collection is again listed in my Record Matches and search results.

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The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/03/myheritage-record-matches-for.html

Chula Vista Genealogical Society In the Local Newspaper

My local Chula Vista Genealogical Society (CVGS), made the local newspaper, the weekly Chula Vista Star-News, this week. The article is titled "Retirees Help Researchers Go Back In Time" by Robert Moreno.

Here are screen shots of the article:

CVGS Treasurer Gary Brock was interviewed for the article.

Perhaps the article will bring some inquirers to the next CVGS meeting on Wednesday, 30 March 2016 at 12 noon at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library (365 F Street in downtown Chula Vista) Auditorium. All persons are welcome and the programs are free to attend.

NOTE: Another Star-News article about CVGS was published in October 2006 - see the transcription at Genealogy Article in Chula Vista Star-News (posted 24 October 2006). It looks like every ten years we get some Star-News newspaper publicity!

The San Diego Union-Tribune published an article titled "Genealogical sleuths search for the facts of individual lives" by Michelle Ganon on 7 June 2008.

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The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/03/chula-vista-genealogical-society-in.html

Tjapukai -- Post 404 of (Not So) Wordless Wednesday

I'm posting old (and sometimes new) family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they won't be wordless posts like others do - I am incapable of having a wordless post.

Here are some of the most precious (to me) images from my Seaver/Leland photograph collection:

In March 2010, we visited Australia, New Zealand and Fiji on a three week Grand Circle Travel Tour to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, and I took some photographs with my trusty digital camera.

1) While we were in Cairns, we visited Tjapukai, an aboriginal cultural center.

2) The aboriginals demonstrated the digeridoo and did some traditional dances and chants:

3) most of us tried the spear-throwing and the boomerang throwing. Linda didn't, so we have no pictures of us trying it. I wasn't any good at it.

4) After Tjapukai, we bused to the nearby SkyRail for a 5 mile 25 minute ride over the rain forest. Here we are going up, up and away:

5) From the Skyrail looking back towards Cairns:

Unfortunately, I've lost the memories of all the details of this vacation. Fortunately, I found my Facebook photo albums from our 2010 vacation with pictures and some captions so all is not lost. I found that I posted very few photos from this vacation on Genea-Musings.

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The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/03/tjapukai-post-404-of-not-so-wordless.html

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Finding Canada Record Collections on Findmypast

I wondered what records from Canada are on the Findmypast website today, so I clicked on the "A-Z of record sets" link on the home page, and saw:

There is a Search field on the screen above, so I entered "Canada" and an alphabetical list of 217 databases from Canadian resources appeared.

I wanted Ontario records, so I entered Ontario in the Search field and a shorter list of 120 databases was listed.

I scrolled down the list and selected "Ontario, Canada - Baptism Records of Rev. John Langhorn (Church of England) Of Fredericksburgh, 1787-1813." I added "kemp" as a name in the "Name" field on the screen below:

The search for "Kemp" resulted in 12 results:

I decided to look for the 1795 baptism of my third great-grandfather, Abram Kemp (1795-1861), which I thought had occurred in Fredericksburgh. After clicking on the "Document" icon for several of the results, I found the baptism record on page 14. Here is the top of the Findmypast page with the text document embedded below:

Further down is the embedded page image from the referenced book:

At the bottom of the list of Baptisms for 1795 is the entry for Abram Kemp. The record says:

"Abram, son John and Mary Kemp ........Fredericksburgh, Dec. 13"

I can download the page as a PDF using the down arrow on the right-hand side of the black header line just above the document. I could also print the document out using the printer icon.

I found quite a few Kemp records in this work, and need to search it for Dafoe entries also. There is another baptism register for Fredericksburgh and a burial register also.

Then there are the other record collections available for Ontario! I may be busy for awhile!

If you have Canadian ancestry, you may find some very useful documents and records in the Findmypast record collections. Unfortunately, I don't see the Canada Census records on Findmypast yet. I hope they add them soon!

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The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/03/finding-canada-record-collections-on.html

RootsWeb Site Is Back Online

Today, March 15th, was the day that the RootsWeb website (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/) was targeted to be restored to functionality, and it appears that this has been achieved. There may still be segments of RootsWeb that are not online yet, but I haven't found them.

The RootsWeb home page still has the notice about the temporary downtime:

Further down are all of the home page links:

I clicked on a number of the links - especially the Getting Started, RootsWeb Guide to Tracing Family Trees, etc. I clicked on all of the major tabs at the top of the RootsWeb page and they all worked, and I could search for persons in the Search, Family Trees, Mailing Lists, Message Boards and Web Sites.

I have seen messages start to come through on the Mailing Lists I subscribe to, but there is probably a backlog there.

As I point out to my Beginning Computer Genealogy students, there is a wealth of FREE genealogy information on the RootsWeb site, especially in the Family Trees, Message Boards and Mailing Lists. A search for a specific person may result in finding other researchers with the same family interest, along with a contact email (which may be outdated).

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The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/03/rootsweb-site-is-back-online.html

Monday, March 14, 2016

William Russell Sever (1791-1887) Obituary in Boston Post Newspaper

I recalled that Findmypast had added the NewspaperARCHIVE collection recently, and knew that several of my distant Seaver and Sever cousins had obituaries written about them that might be in the collection.

One of those persons was William Russell Sever (1791-1887) of Plymouth, Massachusetts. I searched in Findmypast for him and had 14 matches:

The first match on the list is from the Boston Post newspaper dated Monday, 3 October 1887; there are thirteen other articles from newspapers all over the United States.

Here is the screen with the page at maximum resolution on Findmypast:

I couldn't read it clearly, so I downloaded the page, then opened my photo program and was able to magnify the image more.

Here is a screen shot from the photo program of the obituary in the far right column:

The obituary transcription is:

OBITUARY
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WILLIAM RUSSELL SEVER.

William Russell Sever, the oldest graduate
of Harvard College and the oldest male resi-
dent of Plymouth, died yesterday morning,
aged 96 years. He was born in Kingston,
Mass., May 30, 1791. His father was John
Sever and his grandfather William Sever, judge
of probate. His father, grandfather and great-
grandfather were all graduates of Harvard.
William R. was fitted for college by the Rev.
John Allyn, entered Harvard in 1808 and
graduated in 1811, in the class with Ed-
ward Everett, the Rev. Nathaniel Lang-
don Frothingham, pastor of the First
Church, Boston, the Rev. Samuel
C. Gilman, the distinguished Unitarian
divine of Charleston, S.C., Dr. Edward Rey-
nolds, John C. Gray, Harrison Gray Otis, Jr.,
Judge Ebenezer Lane, Judge Benjamin F.
Dunkin, Dr. William Perry of Exeter, N.H.,
Charles P. Curtis, William Powell Mason and
Professor John White Webster, who murdered
Dr. Parkman. None of this class survive, Dr.
Perry having died during the past year. Leav-
ing college Mr. Sever studied law with Judge
Joshua Thomas and was admitted to the bar
in 1814, but never was in active practice. He
became a resident of Plymouth in 1834, and
was treasurer of Plymouth county from 1836
to 1876. He never married. His funeral
will be held at his late residence Wednesday
at 11 o'clock.

The source citation for this record is:

"William Russell Sever," The Boston [Mass.] Post, Monday, 3 October 1887, Page 1, Column 7, William Russell Sever obituary; digital image, Findmypast (http://www.Findmypast.com : accessed 14 March 2016), U.S. and World Newspapers collection, accessing NewspaperARCHIVE (http://www.NewspaperARCHIVE.com).

I can now add this obituary transcription to the Obituary Note in my RootsMagic 7 database.

William Russell Sever (1791-1887) was the son of John and Nancy (Russell) Sever of Plymouth, and is my 4th cousin 6 times removed.

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The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/03/william-russell-sever-1791-1887.html

New or Updated Record Collections at FamilySearch.org - 6 to 12 March 2016

I'm trying to keep up with the new and updated record collections at FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list).

As of 13 March 2016, there were 2,076 record collections on FamilySearch (an increase of 1 from last week):

The new or updated collections are:

* United States War of 1812 Index to Service Records, 1812-1815; 1,130,851 indexed records with record images, Updated 11 Mar 2016

* Minnesota Marriages, 1849-1950; 438,316 indexed records without record images, Updated 09 Mar 2016

* Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007; 3,564,564 indexed records with record images, Updated 09 Mar 2016

* Michigan, County Marriages Index, 1820-1937; 9,052 indexed records without record images, ADDED 09 Mar 2016

* Michigan Marriages, 1822-1995; 1,864,492 indexed records without record images, Updated 09 Mar 2016

* Connecticut Marriages, 1630-1997; 71,116 indexed records without record images, Updated 09 Mar 2016

* New Jersey, Church Records, 1675-1970; 1,144 indexed records with record images, ADDED 07 Mar 2016

One record collection was removed from the list:

* Vermont, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1732-2005

The asterisk used by FamilySearch is for "Recently added or updated." I am particularly interested in new collections, for the obvious reasons. FamilySearch does provide a listing of which collections are new or updated several days after my post.

My friend, Marshall, has come up with a way to determine which collections are ADDED or UPDATED, in addition to which collections were removed. My thanks to Marshall for helping me out here!

In order to select a specific collection, go to https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list and use the "Filter by collection name" feature in the upper left-hand corner.

Each one of the collections listed above has a Research Wiki page (use the "Learn more" link). It would be very useful if the Wiki page for each collection listed the dates for when the collection was added as a new collection and the dates for major updates also.

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The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/03/new-or-updated-record-collections-at_14.html

Pages

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Monday, March 14, 2016