Life From The Roots

The Life From The Roots blog topics have changed several times since I began this blog in 2009. I initially wrote only about the family history I had been working on for 20 years. Years later, I was into visiting gardens, historical homes, churches, libraries that had genealogical collections, historical societies, war memorials, and travel/tourism places. I also enjoy posting autographs and photos of famous people I've met or have seen.

Along with my New England roots, other areas include New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada.

Please check out the labels on the right side for topics (please note, they need work). Below the labels and pageviews is a listing of my top nine posts, according to Google. Four of them pertain to Lowell, MA. These posts change often because they are based on what people are reading.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

I WOULD LOVE TO BUY THESE BOOKS

Because of my proximity to many local libraries and the New England Historic Genealogical Society's Library (NEHGS) in Boston, I don't purchase many books. I do have a collection, but I wouldn't call it large. However, there are some I would really love to own, to read cover-to-cover, and would like to buy these displayed below. Anybody wanting to sell their gently used copies?

Many years ago, I met Robert Charles Anderson, the author of the series of books, while he was working on one of the early volumes in this series. I couldn't wait for them to be published because they cover the time frame 1620-1633, and I hoped some of my ancestors would be included. (Book title: Anderson, Robert C., The Great Migration Begins, Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Vol. III, P-W, (Boston: NEHGS, 1995).

Three of these books are used almost every time I go to the library. Two pertaining to cemeteries in Connecticut are new to me as of this past week.

Jones, Henry Z., Jr., The Palatine Families of New York (A Study of the German Immigrants Who Arrived in Colonial New York in 1710) (Universal City, CA: 1985)
Duemyer, Louis, Intro. by, Records of the Reformed Dutch Church of Albany, NY 1683-1809 (Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., Inc. 1978)
Hosley, William, By Their Markers Ye Shall Know them: A Chronicle of the History and Restorations of Hartford's Ancient Burying Ground (Hartford, CT: The Ancient Burying Ground Association, Inc., 1994)
Barlow, Claude Willis, John Steevens of Guilford, Connecticut, (Rochester, NY: John M. Stephens, 1976).
Tillotson, Edward S., compiler, Wethersfield Inscriptions : a complete record of the inscriptions in the five burial places in the ancient town of Wethersfield , (William F.J. Boardman, Hartford, Conn.1899), (reprinted Whitefish, MT] : Kessinger Publishing, [2008?])

The last book, is a set of two, referred to Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines compiled by Mary Walton Ferris in 1931. I absolutely love this book. One book covers many of my Massachusetts Ancestors, the other the Connecticut lines. This was the first book a genealogist told me to look at when I began. If you have Ancestry.com, you can find it here and a listing of names from Vol. 1 is below. Maybe take a peek at my Balch line (in red) and see why I'm excited, and there are 43 sources. Vol. 2 isn't displayed like Vol. 1, so I typed the names, they are at the bottom.
Vol I. Antrobus

The books are huge, and there are over 900 pages in each book.

MARY BEMAN (GATES) DAWES
GATES, GEORGE
ACKLEY, NICHOLAS
ANDREWS, NICHOLAS
BANGS, EDWARD
BARTLETT, JOHN
BATCHELDER, JOHN
BEAMAN, SIMON
BEAMON, WILLIAM
BLISS, THOMAS
BRAINERD, DANIEL
BREWSTER, WILLIAM
BULL, ROBERT
BUSHNELL, FRANCIS
CHALKER, ALEXANDER
CHAPMAN, EDWARD
CHAPMAN, ROBERT
CLARKE, JOHN
CLARKE, WILLIAM
COE, ROBERT
CONANT, ROGER
CONE, DANIEL
COOKE, FRANCIS
COREY, JOHN
DANFORTH, NICHOLAS
DEVEREAUX, JOHN
DOANE, JOHN
DODGE, RICHARD
DODGE, WILLIAM
ELIOTT, ANDREW
FOOTE, NATHANIEL
FOX, MARGARET
FREEMAN, EDMOND
GODFREY, GEORGE
GRANT, MATTHEW
GRAVES, GEORGE
GRISWOLD, EDWARD
GUNN, THOMAS
HAWLEY, JOSEPH
HAYWARD, ROBERT
HERRICK, HENRY
HOPKINS, STEPHEN
HULL, GEORGE
HULL, ISAAC
HUMPHREY, MICHAEL
HUNGERFORD, THOMAS
JOHNSON, JAMES
KILBOURN, THOMAS
KIRTLAND, PHILIP
LASKIN, HUGH
LITTLE, JOHN
LOOMIS, JOSEPH
MARVIN, MATTHEW
MERRICK, WILLIAM
MITCHELL (MATTHEW OR THOMAS)
NICHOLSON, EDMUND
OBER, RICHARD
OLMSTEAD, JAMES
PALGRAVE, JOAN (HARRIS)
PARSONS, JOSEPH
PETTYJOHN, JAMES
PINNEY, HUMPHREY
POST, STEPHEN
POTTER, HANNAH
PRATT, WILLIAM
PRENCE, THOMAS
RAYMOND, JOHN
RAYMOND, WILLIAM
ROBERTS, JOHN
SAXTON, RICHARD
SCRUGGS, THOMAS
SEYMOUR, THOMAS
SHIPMAN, RICHARD
SPENCER, GERALD
STILLWELL, JASPER
TAYLOR, JOHN
THRALL, WILLIAM
TRACY, STEPHEN
VENTRES, WILLIAM
WHITE, ROBERT
WOODBURY, WILLIAM
WOODWARD, HENRY

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Harriet Beecher Stowe -- Houses and Cemetery Plot

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center / House
Hartford, Connecticut

While on a tour of the house, I asked where she was buried. I was quite surprised to learn that she was buried just a few towns away from where I live in Massachusetts.

The following day, we went to the cemetery, and then two days later, while on a trip to Maine, my husband remembered where she lived in Brunswick, Maine, so of course we went there. That house looked unoccupied, and was in dire need of repairs (photo below).

I was there June 14, 2011, the day of Harriet's 200th Birthday Celebration. There were horse rides, music and entertainment as well as free cake available to all.

Brunswick, Maine (before renovation (above), after photos taken in October 2015)

I love the new (or repainted) shutters. Green is a better color than black.

Room you see first if you enter the side door, by the house plaque.

Looking down from 63 Federal Street, Brunswick, Maine

Harriet Beecher Stowe house, Brunswick, ca. 1930

Phillips Academy Cemetery

Andover, Massachusetts

FindAGrave site

1811 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 1896

UPDATE:

"BRUNSWICK What’s now a closet in the house at 63 Federal St. was likely where Harriet Beecher Stowe let an escaped slave stay for a night in 1850, and a parlor room in the front of the home was probably one of the places she sat down to write “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” a year later." Read more from Harriet Beecher Stowe house added to Underground Railroad network From the Portland Press Herald, April 20, 2016.

Flower Photos from this trip may be seen at
FLOWERS FROM MY AREA.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Tombstone Tuesday -- CAPT. GEORGE DENISON

Stone reproduced in 1981 by the Bensons of Newport, Rhode Island.
From: By Their Markers Ye Shall Know Them: A Chronicle of the History and Restorations of Hartford's Ancient Burying Ground by William Hosley. Above photo taken by me, Barbara Poole.

Ancient Burying Ground

Hartford, Connecticut

George Denison

Born: About Dec. 10, 1629

Died: Oct. 23, 1694

George was my 10th great-grandfather

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Sentimental Sunday -- Not Father, But Grandfather

I don't have a single photo of me and my father, or a new one that hasn't been shown before, so I chose to show this one with my grandfather, Clarence F. Poole. My sister and I were visiting my grandparents in Evanston, Illinois.The note on the back, written by my mother, says it all. We were once again moving.

(My mother made the coats, I got pockets and a cape on mine.)

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Founders of Hartford, Connecticut

The monument is located in the Ancient Burying Ground in Hartford, Connecticut. I took the photo a week ago. My direct ancestors, they are in green, shown below. Quite possibly I have a few more, but without the death dates, I can't be certain. Names in alphabetical order cover all four sides. Does anybody else share any of these names?

In Memory of the First Settlers of Hartford

Jeremy Adams
Matthew Allyn
Francis Andrews
William Andrews
John Arnold
Andrew Bacon
John Barnard
Thomas Barnes
Robert Bartlet
John Baysey
Thomas Beal
Nathaniel Bearding
Mary Betts
John Bidwell
Richard Billing
Thomas Birchwood
William Bloomfield
Peter Blanchford
Thomas Buckley
Thomas Bliss, Sr.
Thomas Bliss, Jr.
William Blumfield
James Bridgeman
John Bronson
Richard Bronson
Thomas Bull
Thomas Bunce
Benjamin Burr
Richard Butler
William Butler
Clement Chaplin
Richard Church
John Clarke
Nicholas Clarke
William Clarke
James Cole
William Cornwell
John Crow
John Cullick
Philip Davis
Fulke Davy
Robert Day
Nicholas Desborough
Joseph Easton
Edward Elmer
Nathaniel Ely
James Ensign
Zachariah Field
Thomas Fisher
John Friend
Samuel Gardiner
Daniel Garret
William Gibbons
Richard Goodman
Ozias Goodwin
William Goodwin
Seth Grant
George Grave
Bartholomew Greene
Samuel Greenhill
Thomas Gridley
Samuel Hale
Thomas Hale
Stephen Hart
William Hayden
John Haynes
John Higginson
William Hills
William Holton
Thomas Hooker
Edward Hopkins
John Hopkins
Thomas Hosmer
George Hubbard
Thomas Hungerford
William Hyde
Jonathan Ince
Thomas Judd
Nathaniel Kellogg
Ralph Keeler
Edward Lay
William Kelsey
William Lewis, Sr.
Richard Lord
Thomas Lord
Richard Lyman
John Marsh
Matthew Marvin
Reinold Marvin
John Maynard
John Moody
John Morris
Benjamin Munn
Thomas Munson
Joseph Mygatt
Thomas Olcott
James Olmsted
Richard Olmsted
William Pantry
William Parker
Paul Peck
William Phillips
John Pierce
Thomas Porter
Stephen Post
John Pratt
William Pratt
John Purchas (Purchase)
Nathaniel Richards
Richard Risley
Thomas Root
Nathaniel Ruscoe
William Rusco
John Sable
Thomas Scott
Thomas Selden
Richard Seymour
John Skinner
Arthur Smith
Giles Smith
Thomas Spencer
William Spencer
John Stanley
Thomas Stanley
Timothy Stanley
Thomas Stanton
Edward Stebbins
George Steele
John Steele
George Stocking
John Stone
Samuel Stone
John Talcott
Thomas Thompson
Thomas Upson
Robert Wade
William Wadsworth
Henry Wakeley
James Wakeley
Samuel Wakeman
Samuel Wakeman
Nathaniel Ward
Andrew Warner
Richard Watts
Richard Webb
John Webster
Thomas Welles
William Westley
William Westwood
John White
Samuel Whitehead
William Whiting
John Wilcock (Wilcox)
Gregory Wolterton
Thomas Woolford
George Wyllys