Relay – A Family History Blog

Miriam over at Ancestories had a post regarding posting about brick wall ancestors.  That got me thinking, not about posting about my brick wall ancestors – which I should do. But about how some brick wall ancestors are stumpers for everyone who comes in contact with them.  And about how every line has them in differing degrees.  Which led me to thinking about the family lines I don’t actively research at present and why.  And guess what – usually I’m not researching on a line because of a brick wall ancestor!  But there are differing kinds of brick walls (flemish bond, dutch bond and so on.)

Some ancestors are there but they are speculative.  Often this is the case when someone else has identified a potential ancestor, occasionally with a level of documentation that satsifies the orginal research but not me. In many cases this tentative ancestor will link me to a well documented lineage that goes back anywhere from 2 to 6 additional generations.  Examples of this abound in early Maine.  Sometimes the problematic ancestor doesn’t even have a tentative name.  And sometimes they have a name and nothing else. So rather than do an exhaustive post on each one of the many, I thought I’d start out with a simple list of,

Ancestors who refuse to be documented

Thomas Adams, potential father of Anne Adams Gould, possibly Harpswell, York & other counties, Maine, died before 1800. – According to Charles N. Sinnett  Thomas is a descendant of Phillip Adams of York, Maine, 1650 signer of the submission to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.   Sinnett says he married Sarah Tarr and lived in Harpswell, Maine.  According to one descendant’s brag book bio – Thomas and possibly 1 or more of his sons were killed “by pirates” at Damariscotta.  The brag book said this was near the Barbary Coast – the pirate connection I guess.  But Damariscotta is in Maine not too far from Harpswell.  No evidence for Thomas or for Sarah have I ever found.  However, Anne Adams Gould named her first son Thomas Adams Gould.   If I accept Thomas as an ancestor I then have a couple more very well documented generations in Maine. So who knows.

Joseph Gould, probable father of Moses Gould (and Jacob Gould) of Georgetown/Bath and Lisbon, Maine, born c. 1740’s deceased by 1800.  There are far too many Joseph Goulds in Maine during this period.  Depending on which site/book you believe the various Gould families of Maine are either completely unrelated or completely inter-related.  I have found nothing that connects Moses to a specific Joseph except a possible will – one generation removed, several naming patterns and a poorly documented group of websites/book.  Depending on which Joseph I accept as my ancestor I could have a fairly well documented English ancestry back to the 1400s.  Would be nice.

James and Christian Savage, supposed progenitors of Isaac Savage of Georgetown, Woolwich and Hallowell/Augusta, Maine, born before 1700 in Northern Ireland  and died c. 1745 Georgetown Maine. Isaac is one of the best documented early Maine ancestors I have.  But his parents seem to have sprung out of the mind of someone(s) before the turn of the 20th century.  I’ve found precious little documentation for the existance of either James or Christian (sometimes called Christine Hunter)  Supposedly there are land records but I’ve found nothing in the early Maine records.  They may the subject of a Boston warning out around 1720 but that is also nebulous.  They are driving me crazy.

George Whitman – may have married Phoebe Holly (?) in Orange County, NY around 1750.  He shows up on the 1790 census and is dead by the time his family settled in Greenbrier County, West Virginia in 1793.

Adam (and Alice his wife) Carson – Hallowell, Maine in the 1770s, father of Alice Carson Savage who married Joseph son of Isaac Savage – see above.  Adam and Alice’s names come from the 1775 marriage record of their daughter and the record of their son William who married Hannah Savage sister of Joseph.  There are a few references to Adam in the early records of Hallowell and that is it.  A complete and total blank beyond that.

Joseph Rulon – possible father for Jane Rulon McLeland, although some folks say his name should be David.  There is an inventory for his estate from the 1790s in Clark County, Kentucky.  And that is it.

?? Overman – possibly father of Penina Jane Overman Swartz.  A real mystery man.  Possibly named Charles. May have died in Clark County, Indiana around 1820.  Possibly has a brother Samuel.  Maybe born in North Carolina.

What is it about snow in the Pacific Northwest?  It makes me all giddy and kid-like.  My kids come in with red noses, ears and appendages.  Our snow is wet, wet, wet.  Not usually good snowball snow.  But that doesn’t seem to matter to them.  Of course they’ve never known any other kind of snow.  My favorite part of snow around here is that it won’t be around for long.  Just long enough to have a blast and then gone before I have to drive in it.  I don’t object to driving in snow.  I learned to drive in much more snow than we get here.  But the transplants from California, Arizona and points farther south – and for that matter the people who grew up here – terrify me when they get behind the wheel during a snowfall.  Very scary.

Of course my ancestors would laugh at the tiny bit of snow we get.  All those stalwart New Englanders and the German Russians would think my preoccupation with less than 3 inches of snow was hysterical.  They were used to snow that fell by the foot, by the yard, by the house height.  My little 3 inches wouldn’t even cause them to put on their boots.

But I like it!

Maybe it is silly but I decided I wanted a blog name that better reflect how I think of genealogy, family history and all that jazz.  So behold the new name -Relay – A Family History Blog.  A small change but I feel better some how.

I’ve been a recreational knitter for several years. Unfortunately knitting takes away from family history time and vice versa. But in re-reading the diary of midwife Martha Ballard (I was searching for mentions of my Savage ancestors who were neighbors of Martha’s in Augusta Maine) I suddenly realized how often she discusses her knitting. Knitting seems to Martha to be a resting state activity. Whenever she has nothing else demanding her attention, she knits. She knits while waiting for babies to be ready to be born. She knits while she and her daughters cook or clean. She knits while traveling and in the evenings. Although she doesn’t mention it, I wonder if she knitted while listening to the 4 hour sermons in the freezing cold church. Of course, every woman knit in Martha’s day. That is how stockings, leggings, hat and gloves were created. To keep warm or even to keep “decent” (A word with very specific meanings in the late 1700’s in New England) the women in any household had to knit. But Martha seems to use knitting the way some today use meditation. She knits to think. Busy hands free her mind to roam. Often after jotting down how much knitting she accomplished during a particularly lengthy delivery Martha moves on to record her feelings and thoughts about larger events that are impacting her family. These types of digressions are fairly rare in Martha’s diary so I wonder, is it the knitting that gives her the opportunity to think and record her thoughts. Maybe I should try knitting whenever I have a particularly knotty genealogy problem.

I’m leaving in a week for DC on a business trip, but of course I can’t just avoid the National Archives. Given the increased fees for Civil War pension records, I’m going to overdose on Pension files. I can’t wait. I plan on checking every Whitman, Decker, Asher, Overman, Swartz, Gould, McLeland, Thomas and Wieser I can think of. Even if they may not be closely related. Better to get possible cousins now for low cost than need one later and pay huge fees. If I can manage I will also troll for Revoluntionary War files and maybe see what I can do with homestead files. I know the Goulds homesteaded in Nebraska. As far as I know they are the only “official” homesteader on the family tree. Several branches of the family refer to the family “homestead” but what they really mean is this is the farm that has been in the family awhile. I’m pretty sure that the Gould files will tell me little I don’t already know but they might be interesting just for collaborative detail.