Avaland's (Lois) Genealogical Adventures and Misadventures

from the Introduction Thread....expanded.

I'm a Mainer by birth, and have lived in New England all my life with the exception of one adventurous year in California in the 70s, My family tree is 400 years New England. Nearly all of my immigrant ancestors came between 1620 and 1650 and their families have been intermarrying and intermarrying now for hundreds of years. My mother and father shared immigrants. I recently showed my best bud (since we were 12) that we share multiple ancestors.

This geographical concentration (and thus intermarriage of lines) means I have multiple connections to nearly all the historic events that happened here. It's not a question of whether I have a Salem witch or Plimouth Pilgrim on my tree, but how many. And after working this for years, I can't tell you how delighted and relieved I am to have reproduced outside this limited gene pool!

This geographical concentration and the fact I still live here, also allows me to know the history, movement of people, geography & resources more intimately than if my people went west.

I do feel claustrophobic from time to time so I often help friends whose heritage is very different from my own. Their trees have taken me to other parts of the US and around the world. These days I do my work via Ancestry.com.

Certainly the professionals in this group are the best resources for everyone here. I cannot lay claim to anything but experience. But if you find yourself stuck in early New England, and or need some help with Ancestry.com or DNA-related stuff*. I'd be happy to help if I can.

Otherwise, I will blather about this and that on this thread.

*I see now there is a DNA discussion thread in the group, so it would be more appropriate to leave DNA questions there.

For my first blather....

I believe in embracing ALL of what our trees hold, which I often refer to: the good, the great, the bad and the ugly.

It's easy to embrace the "good", and certainly the "great" but we also should not turn away from what we might consider bad or ugly. We all have it on our trees.

For example, if you don't know that there were slaves in New England, then I would recommend Wendy Warren's book, New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America. It was a real eye-opener. Yes, so I have slavers on my tree. It's sobering to see how complicit we all are in this by inheritance.

I did my husband's mother's side a few years' back. Her line runs through VA & MD west into Southern OH. One day I read him the will of a well-to-do woman he descended from. In her will she gave each of her nine slaves by name to her many adult children. We were both horrified. Again, a sobering reminder.

I have a couple of lines that go to a Puritan zealot named Hatevil Nutter (yes, that really is his name) of Dover, NH. He persecuted three Quaker women by way of whipping up the locals against the, and had the ear of the magistrate. The result was that the three women were stripped to the waist, tied to a cart and whipped. The cart was sent out of town and when it reached Salisbury and the town doctor . sought out Maj. Robert Pike, another of my direct ancestors, put an end to this persecution.

Then, there is Stephen Manchester. In the conflict between the local tribes and the settlers of Windham, Maine in 1756, Stephen fired the shot that killed Chief Polin and ended the conflict. He was much celebrated for it. I was told this story when I was young. How does one think about this now?

That's just a few examples, of course, the truth is (with rare exception) no person is all good or all bad, there are no absolutes. Our heritage is mixed, and my argument is that we should truly look at it ALL and accept it and learn from it.

>2 avaland: While Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers' They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South focuses on the Southern States, she mentions northern slaveholders also.

Because of where I live, I've spent less time researching my New England ancestors. Many of my New England ancestors do have interesting stories. I do not, however, know whether or not any owned slaves. My ancestors lived in Massachusetts (mostly on Cape Ann), New Hampshire (mostly in Hampton and Plymouth), and Rhode Island (especially Block Island).

Enjoy your time here!

Heck, a paternal 25th Great Grandfather, Harald Godwinson, killed another 25th Great Grandfather (Harald II Hardradde), but within weeks he was dispatched in turn by a 28th maternal Great Uncle by the name of William the Bastard. What a crew!

Not to be outdone, during WWII, a 6th (paternal) cousin had another 6th (maternal) cousin thrown in a series of concentration camps Before finally being released at the end of WWII, the maternal cousin, Odd Nansen, spent a year at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, north of Berlin. For his pains, the maternal cousin, Vidkun Quisling, was quietly dispatched on 24 October 1945 ... by a firing squad ... at the Akershus Fortress, outside Oslo, Norway.

>3 thornton37814: Oh, we might find common ancestors ;-) If you have names....

The farthest south I go is the CT and the tip of Long Island when it was part of CT.

>4 Rood: Well, that was a random segue!

>5 avaland: In one case, DNA revealed a surprise so the line researched was not the client's ancestral line. I can't share the names without client permission to do so.

>6 thornton37814: Ah, yes, I understand. Nearly all of my NH ancestry is Strafford, Rockingham, a bit of Belknap, and the eastern part of Coos County at the Maine & Canada border.

>7 avaland: Hampton lay in Rockingham once the county was formed in 1771, but many of my relatives came there with my ancestor the Rev. Stephen Bachiler/Batchelder (and other variant spellings) who is considered to be the settlement's founder. He's quite the character, and allegedly one of his wives (although not the one from whom I descend) inspired The Scarlet Letter.

>2 avaland: Several years ago, I mentioned to my mother that I found Hatevil Nutter in the ancestry. She mentioned that Hatevil Nutter had the original land grant for the farm that she (and my father) owned. It turned out that the Hatevil Nutter, owner of the land, was the grandson of the Hatevil Nutter, ancestor. It also turned out that all the owners of the land until the owner that my parents bought the land from were all relatives of ours.

>8 thornton37814: I have Rev. Stephen Bachiler on my tree as married to my 8th GGM Mary Bailey. She was his 4th wife. I descend from Mary and her husband Robert Beedle. I've not done much of anything with Stephen as he is not related, but my notes on Mary are: When pregnant, and with her lover, George Foster, she was convicted of adultery. She was sentenced to be branded (BURNED)on the cheek with the letter "A" after the birth. She was, at this time, the 4th wife of the Rev. Stephen Bachelor.

>9 Michael-: As I was reading your post, I was thinking it couldn't be the immigrant.... Well, if you are related to Hatevil Nutter than we are connected! I have three lines that go back to Hatevil Nutter/Ann Ayers through their children: Abigail (Roberts), Anthony and Mary (Wingate). So the couple is my 9th GGPs 3x over. Are you still here in New England? (I notice we share some books of local interest)

>11 avaland: Hatevil Nutter/Ann Ayers are my 9th GGPs through Abigail (Roberts). I am still living in northern New England.

I don't know if there is an official or proper way to reference ones "lines" but sometime early on when I realized how far back my tree would go, I chose to use my sixteen 2nd great grandparents surnames: Haley, Douglass, Martin, Wales, Libby, Harding, Manchester, Varney, Rumery, Wakefield, Skillings, Scribner, Fogg, Bradbury and Parlin. This also happens to be the last generation I can see in the frame on my Ancestry.com tree in pedigree mode.

My next reference point will be the sixteen 6th GGPs on each of the lines note above (a potential 256 6th GGPs). This happens to be the furthest ancestors that show if you click, in Ancestry.com, to extend the line of a 2nd GGP. My 6th GGPs are mostly born in the late 1600's. If I click further I go back 2-4 generations more to the immigrants. Some lines got a bit further, but having such a vast tree, I decided early on that my goal on each line would be to just get to the immigrant.

Which is all to say, that I have a database of all of the direct immigrants and use this method is identifying where they are on the tree. Columns are: 2nd GGP/ 6th GGP/ Immigrant name /birth / place of birth/ arrival year / notes. Like I said, I'm not a professional, so I create my own ways and means.

I'm also a compulsive list maker :-)

>13 Michael-: I left a private note on your profile page. Will check back later in the day.

>10 avaland: Ahh, you descend from the inspiration for Hester Prynne! I descend from an earlier wife.

>14 avaland: I don't have a Bradbury line, but my 8th great grand-aunt Mary Perkins married a Bradbury. She was one of those convicted and sentenced at Salem. Somehow (allegedly because of a bribe) she escaped and hid until the scare ended. I believe her family lived in Gloucester.

>16 thornton37814: Yes, that is interesting. I certainly didn't know about it when I was reading Hawthorne.

I have two lines currently to Mary Perkins Bradbury/Thomas (through daughter Jane {True} and son William) and 6 lines to Mary's parents John Perkins/Judith Gater (the two from Mary and one each from Ann/Abigail {Doane} and brothers Isaac, John and Thomas). So, who is your connection with?

I'm sorry, I hope that doesn't come across like a bit like come-upmanship; it isn't meant that way. Like I said 400, years reproducing in the same area.....

>17 avaland: Considering that I grew up in the South, I was shocked to discover I had New England ancestry. I knew I had Pennsylvania because of mom's father's paternal line, but I never considered that his mother had New England ancestry.

My Perkins connection is 1) Lucy Perkins (1791-1870) who married Stephen Taylor; 2) Jacob Perkins (1748-1823) who married Hannah Andrews; 3) Jacob Perkins (1717-1766) who married Elizabeth Story; 4) Jacob Perkins (1678-1754) who married Mary Cogswell; 5) Isaac Perkins (abt 1650-1726) who married Hannah Knight; 6) John Perkins who married Elizabeth ?? (possibly Eveleth); 7) John Perkins/Judith Gater

>2 avaland: I am very glad to hear someone address this with a reasonable voice. It only makes sense to me to look at it all. To accept that these are our ancestors, our history, one way or the other. I know I have slavers in my tree, and yes, it is appalling to me. We learn from our history.

>18 thornton37814: It's been my understanding that migration across the continent was essentially directly west from where most started, obviously with occasional surprises.

Re: Perkins line. The line that goes through the son John goes:
John/Judith ---> John/Elizabeth or Eveleth--->Isaac/Hannah (and here is where we part) -->Hannah/Ezekiel Woodward. Issac/Hannah are my 8th GGP.

See, we are related. LOL.

>19 IrvinaBuchanan: Why thank you. I feel strongly about it.

Another blather....

Another bugbear (oh, I have so many) is people, mostly men, who get obsessed by their paternal line to the exclusion of all else. THE NAME. I told my brother that all that the paternal line gives him is a Y chromosome that doesn't do much other than make him a male and mutate. Whereas, my spiffy motherline (mother to mother to mother) gives me a long line of unchanged mitochondrial DNA (rarely mutating) and it gives me my super power (ok, not really, but the mitochondria hang out in the cells which are energy producers). And if one finds an ancient skeleton in a cave, say, in England, one can find a bit of this DNA they can find modern relatives 9000 years after his death. Is that not cool?

So this is pitch to not neglect one's motherlinel! I know, I know, the line is a bugbear to work on with a different surname every generation, and sooooo many Sarah and Marys.

Here's my motherline using their birth surnames (as far as it goes):

June (4 mos->Larissa-->Lois (me)-->Ruth Rumery-->Helen York-->Mary Bradbury-->Eliza Parlin-->Anna Crawford-->Anna Stearns-->Mary Dana-->Mary Greene-->Martha Greene-->Mary Cooke-->Frances Moulton b. 1608 arrived in Boston in 1634 with husband Richard Cooke. (I have not pursued it beyond the immigrant as yet)(and that's four! Marys)

Are you working on your motherline? Find anything interesting? How far back have you taken it?

>21 avaland: my family has many occasions of twinning. They are almost all traced through matrilineal lines.

>20 avaland: Hello cousin!

>21 avaland: My matrilineal line comes to a dead end several generations back. So far mtDNA hasn't helped resolve the mystery--but I'm sure it will someday--when the right person tests!

>21 avaland: I love that!

My mother-line goes Laura>Linda (me)>Margaret>Dorothy Layton>Margaret(Maggie) Kemp>Ruth Edwards>Hannah Skinner>Hannah Unknown born c. 1770
Not a Mary nor a Sarah! (There are a good many of both elsewhere in my tree.)

I haven't located Hannah's parents, and don't know whether she was born here or across the pond. One of these days I will knuckle down, upgrade my Ancestry subscription to include the world, and see what I can learn.

>21 avaland: Ooh, matrilineal! Mine is Nina Elizabeth (me)>Martha Inez>Harvey Inez>Minnie Myrtle>Elizabeth>Martha Elizabeth>Lucinda>Martha>Susannah, born about 1755-60 (very roughly), probably in Virginia.

I love the recurrence of family names!

>24 laytonwoman3rd: I am duly impressed, Linda, that you do not have a Mary or a Sarah. However you do have two Margarets and two Hannahs! (I've always loved the name Hannah). What is the travel pattern of your mother line, all roughly in the same area?

>25 NinieB: I suspect Harvey sneaked onto that list? Or is it a woman's name in this case? Wow, three Marthas!

>26 avaland: I considered putting a note about Harvey--no sneaking, she showed up fair and square. She was named for her father! And the Marthas . . . My mother was actually named for another Martha, and the middle Martha we knew from family stories as Elizabeth.

After I typed up my list I looked at my father's. His goes way back because it is French-Canadian. My uncle traced it back to the 1600s in Canada.

>26 avaland: I love the name Hannah too. There are several Harriets; a lot of variations on Adelaide (Adelia, Ada, Adda, Adeline, Madeline) which I also like a lot; Elizabeths/Elizas on all sides.

>27 NinieB: Imagine naming one's daughter Harvey! French Canadian must be interesting. I have to work with some French Canadian records because the border between Maine and New Hampshire and Canada was fairly mushy for longer than one might expect.

>28 laytonwoman3rd: I don't think I have any Adas of any kind, at least not direct. Now you have me thinking.... (I also like Lydia, despite Austen's character)

Sometimes we all wonder where certain ancestral names originated. It's easier to look up surnames than given names. Baby name books from various eras exist, but I always wonder what caused that family to choose a specific name. My mom chose the name Laura for me (which was her paternal grandmother), but my cousin claimed that name a few months before I did, and mom did not want confusion so they allowed my brothers to name me. I asked my brothers why they chose "Lori," but they didn't remember.

My own ancestry includes lots of Marys, Elizabeths (often called Betsey/Betsy), Margarets, Sarahs, and the like, but I also have a few like Keziah, Lovica, and Tamasin that make you ask, "Where did they come up with that name?"

>30 thornton37814: Names are fascinating. Keziah is Biblical, I think, and Tamsyn is medieval English, so that's probably where Tamasin came from. We named our daughter Laura, and two years later my brother named his daughter Nora....neither of those names existed in our family before, as far as I know, and of course the two sounding very similar caused decades of confusion when they were both in the same place and their grandmother was speaking to them!

You all got me thinking and as I have a lists of names for each generation up to the 8th generation.....it was helpful early on to have "goals" I could see easliy, so I had a numbered sheet of paper for each Generation to chart my progress. I aimed to find all the great, than the 2nd greats, then the thirds all the way up to the 6th greats -- which is the potential of 240 names, so I quit there. However, the old lists make it easy to survey first names i (bear in mind, my tree is all Anglo).

Gen 1. Me - Lois (an old-fashioned name at time it was given to me. My mother thought it sounded like my father's name of Lloyd (so I have some sympathy for Harvey in #26 above.

Gen 2. Ruth // Lloyd
Gen 3. Helen, Geneva // Linwood / Asa
Gen 4. 1st GGP (8)
Laura, Ruth, Grace, Mary

Alonzo, Charles, William, Isaac

Gen 5. 2nd GGP (Civil War era) -- 16
Irene, Mary, Maria, Martha, Sarah, Mehitable, Dorothy, Eliza

Seth, Nathaniel, Andrew, Eben, Levi, Lorenzo, Jacob, Horatio

Gen 6. 3rd GGPs, potential of 32
Martha, Lydia (2), Hannah, Sarah/Sally (2). Hannah, Elizabeth, Comfort, Anna

James, Nahum, Nehemiah, Edward, Nicholas, Josiah, Robinson, Daniel, Isaac, William

Gen 7. 4th GGPs (potential of 64 ancestors)
Mary/Molly (2), Miriam, Sarah/Sally (4), Rhoda, Rosanna, Hannah (3), Esther, Rebecca, Martha, Jane/Jenny (2), Anne/Anna (2), Abigail (2), Elizabeth (2), Mehitable, Susannah, Comfort

John (3), Andrew (2), Dennis, Robert, John (7), Jedidiah. Ebenezer, Elkanah, William, Gershom, Moses, Micajah, Thomas, Benjamin, Simon/Simeon (2), Nathan, Tristram, Jonathan (1), Daniel

Gen 8. 5th GGPs (potential of 128) these born in later 1600s on my tree

Abigail (4), Mary (12), Martha (3). Hannah (4), Elizabeth/Eliza (6), hSarah (5), Marion, Esther, Susannah, Joanna, Alice, Charity, Olive, Eleanor, Rebekah (4), Lydia (2), Naomi, Bridget, Ruth, Comfort, Margaret.

John (7), William (7), George (2), Thomas (3), Israel, David (3), Jeremiah, Joseph (2), Henry, Andrew, Daniel (2), Elias, James, Stephen, Isaac, Benjamin (2), Timothy, Samuel (3), Reuben, Valentine, Nicholas, Edward, Michael, Abraham, Jonathan, Increase, Oliver, Job, Walter, Snell, Robert.

I stopped this list-making with the 5th greats, as successive generations are fairly cumbersome at a potential of 256, 512 and 1024 (they don't have that many due to intermarriage).

Best name in my tree anywhere? Uriah Augustus Ray.

I have the "Harvey" thing in reverse in my family. My father's name was Lynn, which I never considered anything other than a male name until I was in college when I met my first female Lynn. I can think of at least two other men of approximately his age who were named that. (His father's was named for Abraham Lincoln, but was also called Lynn, so that's the origin of the name in our family.) People were always assuming I was named after my Dad, as I'm Linda. My parents denied that was their intention, but I always kinda liked the idea myself.

However, after listing all the above and becoming wonderfully distracted (I'm sure there is a room I could be vacuuming somewhere), I thought I might scan the lofty light branches of the more or less last three generations on my tree, those born roughly between 1550 and 1670.

The names in this period are very English or biblical/religious (as with the "attribute" names). Generally, there is an amazingly boring repetition of first names; however, there are many more Katherines, Isabellas, Janes, Henrys and Olivers (that last for Cromwell, I assume).

Interesting women's names that show up during this time period:
Abiah, Nancy, Phebe, Bethiah, Ursula, Dorothy, Alice, Cassandra, Thomasine, Gertrude, Dionis, Damaris, Naomi, Bathsheba, Priscilla, Welthian, Shuah, Dorcus, Tabitha, Dusabel, Thomasine, Reana, Violet, Rose.

and the attribute names:
Rejoice, Remember, Constance, Patience, Honor, Comfort, Experience.

For the men : Archibald, Gowan, Domincus, Redgon, Reginald, Aquila, Arthur, Francis, Augustine, Humphrey, Jasper, Osmund, Bartholomew, Abiel, Peleg, Snell, Gauche...and Shuah, Zachariah, Moses, Zaccheus, Hezekiah, Moses, Theophilus, Jabez...

and the attribute names:
Constant, Hatevil, Christian, Increase

>30 thornton37814: Lovica is not one I've heard before....

>33 laytonwoman3rd: Oh, I think we have had that Lynn/Lin conversation before. My grandfather and uncle being Linwoods and called "Lin". Those are the only two on my entire zillion people tree. Apparently the name comes from Linden trees. I believe I have an old novel called The Linwoods by Catherine Maria Sedgwick (bought because Sedgwick is an early American woman writer). It's still unread...but I digress.

>33 laytonwoman3rd: And that name is a winner!

>35 avaland: Digression is what makes all this so much fun!

>29 avaland: French-Canadian brings many, many women named Marie to work with.

I'm going to go ahead and throw in to the mix my father's matrilineal line with the French Canadians:

Beryl Evelyn, Harriet Ellen, Harriet Ellen (again), Harriet, Marie, Marie-Therese, Ursule, Marie Elisabet Ursule, Elisabeth (born late 17th century)

>33 laytonwoman3rd: I have a former female ancestor named Luarka--It's a very rare but not unique name from North Carolina. Turned out she was in the wrong Green family.

>37 NinieB: I like "former female ancestor"!

>37 NinieB: I bet! (re: the Maries). I'm usually looking for English or Scots across the border in Quebec....

>38 laytonwoman3rd: It's not original to me but I like it too :)

>39 avaland: My uncle did all the research--I just puzzle through his genealogical summaries and try to keep them all straight!

Have done very little work this last week or so, being preoccupied by other things. Although, a DNA match contacted me and we had some back and forth on that.

I'm itching to wander some cemeteries, but the snow here is still a bit prohibitive.

>41 avaland: I plan to do a little wandering this week--but not in cemeteries.

>42 thornton37814: And how was your wandering....

I've been distracted from genealogy work lately.

>43 avaland: I spent the weekend working on and talking through presentations I'm recording this week and getting proposals ready for an upcoming deadline. I have one more presentation coming up that needs work, but I've got a little over 3 weeks to finalize it. I'm looking forward to finding a bit of time to work on my own projects after that although I still have a client project in process.

>44 thornton37814: Sorry, I missed this message. I have been otherwise focused, as younger daughter and family has moved in the area from Virginia/outside DC area. It's only just settling down now, of course we still have the now 6-year-old at our house doing remote school, and, of course, there is also much outdoor work that is calling me now (and I've managed to contract my first cold in over a year!).

I hope your presentations went well and you finally have some time for your own projects.

I do although I need to resume work on a client project soon too. I suspect most of the time will be spent on DNA work until I can get to Jackson to work on the remaining newspaper research and to see what else I can turn up. I think there is one other angle to pursue, and I'll need to follow up on it. It involves another location.

Over the long holiday weekend I got a bit of time to play on Ancestry for a while. I've missed it. Just dabbling, though. Once school is out for the summer, and now that all of the family and friends are vaccinated, life should resemble again what we thought retirement would be.

What got me going, though, was seeing how far back I have to go to find a direct ancestor who died while in military service. While there is quite a number of veterans, there is sooooo many lines to check, I didn't get through all of them. I usually mark veterans with various images (I used a soldier silhouette for the Civil War, a picture of a Rev War soldier for that war, another image for the War of 1812 .... (I have been debating whether to mark those in the French Indian War, there were more than I imagined who served in that one, and ). I finally concluded that the chance of finding one was lessened by the fact that I exist, so any soldier who served and died would have done so after begetting at least one offspring....

>47 avaland: My 4th GGF Peter Van Kleeck, a sergeant in Phillip Van Cortland's regiment, was killed at the Battle of Saratoga on 19 Sep 1777. He left a widow, Catherine, with 3 young children.

I have a few other direct ancestors who served in the military during other wars, but they thankfully survived despite some close calls.

>47 avaland: I've mostly been working on client research, but I've got a good lead through a DNA match. I'm ruling out other ways they could be related; then I'll investigate the in common with people to see if it appears we are headed in the right direction.

I've had to re-install everything onto a new computer (and switch from PC to Mac OS). My PC crashed. I'm fed up with PC laptops so I switched to Mac. Everything was backed up to Carbonite so I'm making progress in getting things downloaded but I'm still trying to get time in on projects I need to get done.

Piddling around this morning. I have a file labeled 'databases' which is where I put spreadsheets and other lists. Among those there are ones I created for my work on Ancestry. I thought some of this might be helpful to others starting out, especially when one's tree gets really, really large....

When I first started on Ancestry I made a list of the names I had by generation beginning with myself in generation#1. I found this a good way to track progress on my tree—at least at the beginning. If there was a blank, I knew it needed work. The last generation complete with every name was the 5th (2nd GGPs). There is one unknown in the 6th gen (my 2nd GGPs) which of course multiplies as you go back. I think I did the lists to the 8th gen. They may be out of date now.

I then changed over to working on a spreadsheet of the immigrant ancestors, which for me is mostly 8th - 10th generation. It's also what I call the "end of the line" speadsheet. Last visited more than a year ago. Currently with 1415 immigrants (some are on the list more than once .... which got me thinking...

So, that inspired me to create a spreadsheet charting all the "multiple lines" that trace back to one immigrant. The record is eight, I think.

I have a spreadsheet for all the military veterans (none were killed in the line of duty, btw), as of yesterday I note 27 veterans of the Revolutionary War, 4 in the War of 1812, 3 in the Civil War, 0 in WWI (my grandfather told my mother that if one had two children you did not have to go), 1 in WWII (my father) and I count my daughter who was in the National Guard for 8 years, first in TX, then back here in NH (during 9/11 era)

I have a few lists of direct ancestors who were on the Mayflower, involved in the Salem/Gloucester witch trials

I also had a spreadsheet of people I met on Ancestry who were connected to me in some way, and eventually added DNA connections to that sheet. Not sure I have kept it updated.

And I have made a comparison chart of all the family members' DNA ethnicity breakdowns. Just for fun, of course. This was last updated a year ago and Ancestry.com messes (er, updates) those percentages often.

Of course, everyone's trees are different but I hope some of this might help others.

Have been off Ancestry for quite a time, but recently a DNA match (a not terribly close connection) contacted me looking for help with the line one of her grandfathers. He had been adopted. So, I worked with her for a while. But otherwise, I've had other things to do.

>51 avaland: I've been working on my own in moderation, but I've been putting together lots of genealogical presentations.

I'm sorry, I haven't been working on ancestry for a number of months. But lately have been helping someone find the next step in his patrilineal line. I seem to be the only DNA connection he has who have some of the same surnames on their tree. However, my line (actually, it's two) is very short as the two lines descend to two different sisters, thus the end of the surname.

>53 avaland: I only work on my own in snatches it seems. My focus lately has been mostly on either a client project or preparing lectures. The lectures usually involve some of my own genealogy, but it's mostly gleaned examples.

It's been disappointing that other family members of mine have not been terribly interested in their ancestry. I mentioned to my brother recently this week about the 25 direct line ancestors (male, of course) who were Rev. War veterans... but unless they have the surname "Douglass" he's not interested (yes, there was one Douglass). I saw him this weekend and told him about the new bit of Basque DNA I had (and two of my three children also have) and the reading about he Basque colony in Newfoundland and the Basque whalers on the Maine coast... Sigh.

>55 avaland: Forgive them, Lois. Obviously, they did not inherit the GENE for genealogy!

>55 avaland: A cousin on my mom's side that we used to visit married a man named George Douglass. They lived in Prairie Point, Mississippi, near Macon. Quite a distance from Maine!

>56 laytonwoman3rd: I'm trying :-)

>57 thornton37814: His line could go back to the same immigrant, of course.

Have been playing with ideas of how to pass off the family stuff off to my three adult kids. Of course, giving my Ancestry.com password would give them access to my work there, but I'm talking about the photos other and bits & pieces. Best I can come up with is to assemble what I have and format and have it made into albums via Snapfish or Shutterfly. Then I could send the photos to relevant historical societies....

Any ideas?

>55 avaland: I have a bit of Basque. I have not researched but I should. It would be from my father as my mother was 100% Italian.