Tombstone Tuesday -- Ten Eyck in Dunham, Quebec, Canada

The gravestone is in the back of the All Saints Church, Dunham, Missisquoi Co., Quebec, Canada.  Charles and Lydia were my grandmother's parents.  The family lived in this area for over 200 years, true Loyalists, from New York.

Charles TenEyck, Born August 01, 1859, Died August 26, 1907

Lydia J. Pell, Born November 25, 1867, Died October 16, 1948

All Saints Church, Dunham, Missisquoi Co., Quebec, Canada

To Brighten up a Monday

DAR application -- 1901 and letter from husband to Pension Office

Below are the DAR application papers for my gg grandmother, Sophia Davis Bishop, dated Oct. 2, 1901. After working with the two sets of application papers yesterday, I realized I had received these copies from the DAR, and just recently looked at them again. However, Sophia's membership certificate was held in our family until 20 years ago, when I donated the very large certificate to the DAR in 1994.

Sophia was born January 11, 1831 and died May 03, 1928.

Scanner Story, a Lesson Learned

If you are a Vista user, you may be aware that some of your peripherals didn't work with your new computer, esp. if you bought it last year. Such was my case, in March 2008, when I replaced my three year old XP. Once the Vista was up and running, I was a happy camper....the 20" monitor was lovely and the printer worked with it. Then I discovered the scanner didn't because there was no driver from Canon for this computer. At the same time, I found out my XP was under a four year warranty (which I had forgotten), so a repairman came and the problem was fixed. Now, with two computers, the scanning was done on the old XP, the images transferred via flash-drive to the Vista. The whole thing was so time consuming, I pretty much gave up on scanning.


Yesterday, a light bulb went off in my head, and I decided to check Canon's web site. Yes, they now had new drivers and software for my scanner that were compatible with the Vista. The updated driver was October 2008! For an entire year I did next to no scanning. Since this morning, I have gone crazy with it. Recently, because of the blog, I was thinking about purchasing a new scanner. The moral, check back (more often than 1 1/2 yrs.) with the manufacturer for updates. You might get lucky.

DAR application - 1913

Below are the DAR application papers for my great grandmother, Mira Kilborn Bishop, dated October 16, 1913. Her mother was also a member, and her application was dated 1901. I had the original document stating her admission into the DAR, which was beautiful. Quite large, I would say maybe 12" x 14" and had dark blue printing. I showed it to the DAR archivist, and she wondered if I would donate it to the society, so I did. Of course, I didn't have a scanner at that time, so there is no picture. My mother was also a DAR member, as was I. They all used the same Revolutionary War patriot, but since I was obsessed with our family genealogy, I found my own patriot. And he was new, even to the DAR, who later added his name into the DAR Patriot Index.

I'm So Excited

The Pointer Sisters were on CBS Morning Show the other morning, and they sang I'm So Excited ..., so all day, I hummed that tune. However, I wasn't truly excited until I received information in the evening from The National Genealogical Society (NGS) about some free events to be held at their conference to be held next year in Salt Lake City. So far, everything has been expensive for this April conference, especially the airfare and hotel, so to get something for free is a reason to celebrate.

The Utah Genealogical Association is offering an "Ask an Expert" session to a conference member, provided you fill out their form and submit it to them (in my mind, that means quickly). I have four long standing "brick walls" so the decision was hard. I ended up with JOHN ADAMS. That should be fun for somebody to track. He was in the Revolutionary War at Lexington, MA, born in CT, died in NY. Doing Google is fruitless, as all the hits are for President John Adams. Growing up in Lexington, my parents had a very old photo, in our foyer, of one of the President Adams', and was told we were related...he greeted me every day I came into the house. But, after many years of research, I've found no proof. It could have been one of those pipe dreams.  I hope to learn something from the one-on-one.

Cyndi Howells, her Book and Site for my Blog

Cyndi Howells of Cyndi's List wrote, Planting Your Family Tree Online (How to Create Your Own Family History Web Site, pub. in October 2003 and I have referred to it a lot lately. I remember ordering it even before it was available to the public, and had to wait a few weeks before it was actually shipped. My great intentions to have a Web Site were forming in my mind, and I thought the book would solve all my unknowns of how to do it. Unfortunately, It was right about that time that I was going full steam ahead with discoveries found through Google, so soon, any Web Site of mine would have to wait. I wanted my research to be absolutely completed and perfect before I posted anything for the world. Well we all know, that never happens. Time marched on, and now we are in the world of Blogs. Hum, the nice little unopened book remained in my bookcase until a week ago. And it has been so useful the past several weeks.


Even though her index doesn't list the word blog, she does cover topics that have helped me.


Example Chapters:
Leave a Trail for your Cousins to Follow
Find a Home for Your Web Site
Select the Contents for Your Genealogy Web Site
Enhance Your Web Site with Extras (such as photographs, scanned documents and links.
Check Your Work and Give Your Site a Trial Run
Publicize Your New Web Site


Very nice book Cyndi, and one way I decided to publicize my site was by putting it on her site. So my new blog is one of the first submitted for November 2009. Why not visit her new entries are at: http://www.cyndislist.com/new1109.htm

Tombstone Tuesday

Old Hurley Burying Ground, Hurley, Ulster Co., New York

Cemetery visit on Stone House Day, 7/14/2001. Cemetery stone states: "Captain Matthys Ten Eyck geboren Den 18 Maart, Anno 1658, gestorben 6 July Anno 1741"

MATTHYS TEN EYCK

My 7th great-grandfather

Born March 18, 1657/58 New Amsterdam, New York

Died July 06, 1741, Hurley, Ulster Co., New York

10 years before, 10 years after

Research during my first 10 years of genealogy research sure has been different than the past 10. I tend to think of my research in the 1990s as the first 10, and in the 2000s as the last 10. Which was more fun or more rewarding or easier? Pretty hard to say. Advantages apply to both time frames, as the entire 20 years have been fun.


To me, nothing beats getting mail from a town hall with my super inexpensive copies of B-M-D records, town clerks taking the time to help on the phone, and finally finding somebody else who shares your passion (there weren't that many around or at least we couldn't find them, many didn't have computers we could connect with). Cemetery employees were more than happy to help you. It was even fun preparing group sheets and I sure used a lot of white-out. I even saved a few group sheets, before entering all the data into FamilyTreeMaker. Several, friends took photos of cemetery stones, had the film developed, and snail mailed the photos to me. Gas used to get to a cemetery and Xerox copies of books were so inexpensive. Looking back, even trying to find a seat in one of the major libraries (DAR and NEHGS) was exciting, and when you did, you felt like you were on the king’s throne. The NARA in Waltham, MA (outside of Boston) was always packed. that on a Saturday; there was a time limit for using the microfilm readers. There were so many people doing research at these people, but not a whole lot of talking, quiet in the libraries and quiet at the NARA. Oh yes, even Ancestry.com was free. What were the drawbacks, at the time, I didn’t think there were any, as there was no idea of what the future would bring.


Update on the NARA, they took out ¾ of the microfilm readers, and most of their census rolls. When I went rather recently, there were four people there, all using computers and doing their research on Ancestry! Such changes.


The last 10 has been filled with many changes in ways to do data entering into a genealogy software program, finding material online and connecting with others…you all know about that. Every service that we use is getting so expensive, copies of this and that from town halls; subscriptions to software or databases go up every year, as well as memberships into societies, and conferences. This past year, I've had to cut back, dropped one society membership and then Ancestry for the time being. What I like is the researching from home, and connecting with people. I hope that doesn’t change. I am so glad for the bloggers and social networks, because I don’t feel so isolated in my little world any more. Nothing is more fun than reading a genealogy magazine, periodicals or blog.


You can still combine the best from both the first 10 and last 10 methods, but it might take a little more work. Taking the time to write a formal letter to a city hall or cemetery with the all important self-addressed stamped envelope takes a little time and effort, but oh the rewards could be great. Want to try it?

Introduction -- New Kid on the Block

The nice thing about being the new kid on the blogging block is meeting new people, connecting with some who know the ropes, and some who encouraged me. The recent comments have been kind, and believe me, that helps. The fact that I have joined over 700 other Geneablogger is pretty impressive, it would be nice to follow all of them, but it won't be possible. Some future articles of mine have already been drafted, and I have seen that they are quite similar to others posted, but I guess with so many writers, that is to be expected.


My blog was created back in the summer of 2009, but I didn't write anything...writers block so early in the game. Even before that date, I wrote a couple of guest blogs for Steve Danko in 2006 and 2007, so I already knew how much fun it was to write them. Cheryl Fleming Palmer also received a few. However, I am not a writer, and rather enjoyed having my work corrected by Steve and Cheryl. Here I am on my own, it is a little scary. I at least warned you of my writing capabilities.


Most of my pieces will be from what I experienced through the hobby of genealogy. Not a whole lot about my immediate family as most are deceased such as parents, grandparents and an aunt. As a person who moved 17 different times, from CT to CA to MA to VA to MA to VA to MA, and went to 4 different 4th grades (CA, 2 in CT and 1 in Lexington, MA), I am not lucky to have any childhood friends, and only a few from high school (yes, I went 3 yrs. to one HS and graduated from an other, in a different town). So you see, I have often been the new kid on the block.