The Crane Estate at Christmas, No Downstairs Seen Here

The photos ishown were taken the first weekend in December, 2015, in the 59 room Crane Estate at Castle Hill in Ipswich, Massachusetts. The rooms were beautifully decorated for members and visitors to see. The fundraising event included, homemade cookies, live music and a visit from Santa. My husband and I are members, so we frequently go there, mostly to enjoy the views, see the garden and walk the grounds. This was our first Christmas event. If you ever visit Essex County, Massachusetts, please find your way to this property.

From Wikipedia, "Castle Hill refers to either a 165-acre (67 ha) drumlin surrounded by sea and salt marsh or to the mansion that sits on the hill. Both are part of the 2,100-acre (850 ha) Crane Estate located on Argilla Road in Ipswich, Massachusetts. The former summer home of Mr. and Mrs. Richard T. Crane, Jr., the estate includes a historic mansion, 21 outbuildings, and designed landscapes overlooking Ipswich Bay, on the seacoast off Route 1, north of Boston. Its name derives from a promontory in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, whence many early Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers immigrated, and predates the Crane mansion."

The above photo of the dining room was a retake, because the sun was shining past my back, and leaving many shadows. Fortunately, when we were about to leave, I noticed that the sun, while still shining, had moved out of my frame.

Below are quite a few bedrooms, bathrooms, the kitchen and sitting rooms. I didn't take the ballroom, because it was a sitting area for visitors and there were too many people in there. In addition, I included some spring exterior shots of the grounds. You might recognize the house or grounds from various movies or a TV show.

  

Views from various rooms of the Atlantic Ocean.

Two tiled bathrooms.

Elegant bathroom.

 

 Kitchen. We were treated to three kinds of homemade cookies and cold or hot cider.

Below are spring photos from the past. My post showing many pictures taken in the spring and summer may be seen on my Seeing New England blog HERE.

The Huge Ancestry News as Reported from the Six Well-Known Bloggers

Many of you have already heard the recent news about Ancestry.com stating "we’ve made the tough decision to stop selling Family Tree Maker as of December 31, 2015." (Read more at the end of this post.) This post is for those who aren't on facebook or subscribe to Ancestry's blog. I am presenting several articles and links for you, since I subscribe to a lot of blogs and have many of these people as facebook friends. I am sure some of their information will be very helpful to you.

The notice on the upper right side is actually on my blog, Life From the Roots. It is shown on the home page (bottom right side) and lists my top 10 popular posts as determined by Google. You can see, the post is about a discount from Ancestry and is number 1. Originally, it was posted in April 2013, and I've updated it quite a few times. People are still reading this and getting the discount. I have no affiliation with Ancestry and because of what has happened, I plan on taking down that post on December 31st. You are welcome to see if my information is still valid for the discount. Note: I haven't been a subscriber for about a month, but will probably rejoin in the future.

Six interesting posts from well-known and informative bloggers. If you don't already subscribe to their sites, this might be a good time to do so. They are all free, and these individuals keep us up-to-date on all genealogy matters.

Randy Seaver
http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/12/ancestrycom-announces-retirement-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+geneamusings%2FlEXw+%28Genea-Musings%29

Dick Eastman
http://blog.eogn.com/2015/12/08/ancestry-to-retire-family-tree-maker-software/
Update from Dick Eastman (Dec. 10, 2015)
http://blog.eogn.com/2015/12/10/more-information-on-the-decision-to-retire-family-tree-maker-desktop-software/

Judy Russell
http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2015/12/09/check-out-the-alternatives/

Lisa Louise Cooke
http://lisalouisecooke.com/2015/12/ancestry-retires-family-tree-maker-software/

Kerry Scott
http://www.cluewagon.com/2015/12/santa-claus-signs-agreement-with-ancestry-com-to-ruin-christmas/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClueWagon+%28Clue+Wagon%29

Thomas MacEntee
http://www.geneabloggers.com/blame-the-millennials-the-end-of-family-tree-maker-genealogy-software/


If you are planning on making a change soon, three of the current companies making genealogy software programs are listed below. All have offered nice discounts, but  you have to act very fast on ordering the last one, Family Tree Builder.

RootsMagic7
http://blog.rootsmagic.com/?p=2546

Legacy Family Tree
http://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2015/12/update-on-the-family-tree-maker-announcement.html

Family Tree Builder
https://www.myheritage.com/partner/geneabloggersjuly2015?utm_source=external&utm_campaign=partner_geneabloggersjuly2015

My message from Ancestry.com received December 8, 2015 is below.

Dear Family Tree Maker™ community, Ancestry is proud to have made a significant investment this year to bring valuable new content and records to the Ancestry site. In 2015, we’ve made 220 million searchable historical records from Mexico available, more than 170 million pages from the largest collection of U.S. will and probate records, among others. We’ve also introduced new features such as Ancestry Academy, and major advancements for AncestryDNA. As we strive to provide our customers with the best experience possible, we are constantly evaluating our services and product offerings. True to this focus, we’ve taken a hard look at the declining desktop software market and the impact this has on being able to continue to provide new content, product enhancements and support that our users need. With that, we’ve made the tough decision to stop selling Family Tree Maker as of December 31, 2015. We will continue to support existing Family Tree Maker owners at least through January 1, 2017. During this time, all features of the software, including TreeSync™ will continue to work. Our Member Services team will also remain available to assist with questions or issues you may have. These changes are never easy. But by focusing our efforts, we can concentrate on continuing to build great products for our loyal Ancestry community. You can find additional details about the retirement of Family Tree Maker on our blog.