Relics: Genealogy, family stories, history & other curiosities.

  Today is Father's Day and it's the first Father's Day I can't drive to the cemetery and visit my father.  I couldn't on his birthday this year or Christmas.  I know I promised I was done writing about the storm and that this blog was genealogy full steam ahead. So this may be considered genealogy adjacent.   My dad's ashes were left behind in Florida. I wanted to break him out and bring him with me but it would cost me about $4000. So I had to be practical. I needed every dime I had to move.  I will get him soon. I stopped to say goodbye and make sure the neighbor's flag wasn't blocking his name one last time right before I got on the road. I know lots of people don't like cemeteries. I know people who bury their loved ones and never go back. Those people think I am strange.  I love to visit cemeteries.  I always have.  When I was young, once or twice a year my dad, would take my nana to the cemetery to plant geraniums. She would tell me ab...

  On April 21, 1887 Minnie Jones was born in Sandy Fields, NY.  She was my maternal great grandmother and the desire to learn more about her and her life has led me to my life's work, genealogy and family history.   I never met Minnie, she died before I was born.  I was lucky to hear many great stories from my aunts, my cousins and my mother.  I was luckier still that the cousin who had many of her photos stored in the attic, shared them with me.   Minnie has what I imagine would be a very hard life. She was born to a single mother, widowed before age 50 and raised her family through the depression and world war. Her home town, Sandy Fields and its neighboring towns full of family and friends were washed away to make room for Harriman State Park. Yet, every photo I find of Minnie, she is smiling her wide, happy grin.   Finding documented evidence of Minnie's life has been a genealogical challenge! But what I have found has been revealing...

  I have been focusing some of my time lately on my paternal grandmother's maternal family.  Mainly the Bell and Brown families of Haverstraw and Garnerville, NY.   Mary, or in some documents, Barbara Brown was born about 1833 or 1834.  She married William Brown. They had nine children over the course of 16 years, at least seven surviving to adulthood.  I know so little about Mary/ Barbara. Her first name seems to interchange in each record I find. Her maiden name, while I have several clues, it remains a mystery for now. I was able to find a small death notice for William, who died in 1883, but until recently I had no death information for Mary.  According to the 1870 Census, William and two of his oldest sons work at the Calico Factory, a major part of the economy of the Garnerville area in the 1800's in a building that still stands today.   Two doors down from the Browns, live the Bells. In 1888, Henry Bell marries a daughter of William an...

I have learned to look for genealogy, family history and local history in interesting and unusual places.  I have been rather successful in searching E-Bay for the towns and names I research.   A few weeks before Christmas I searched Haverstraw, NY in E-bay and came across this nugget!  It is a poster advertising an event at Haverstraw High School on December 16, 1929-- Donkey Basketball. I believe it is the the police dept. vs. the fire depts.  The poster is in good condition, its a bit faded but it is ninety years old! This seller did an awesome job packing it safely.   Donkey basketball? I had never heard of such a thing!  From what I can tell it seemed to be a popular fundraising activity ages ago in more rural areas.  I can't imagine riding a donkey, let alone doing it while trying to play basketball. Let's face it, I can't imagine playing basketball, let alone on a donkey.    What I love most about this little gem is ...

I am off to New York today.  I am attending the New York Family History Conference hosted every two years by the New York G & B.  This year's conference is in Tarrytown, NY so I will be in my old backyard.   This is my first trip back home since 2015.  While I do want to see some friends and visit a bit with family, I am really focused on the conference and want to experience every minute of it.  I have limited time and feel like I am squeezing an awful lot in to a short amount of time.  I would have loved to have set aside some time to do some research, visit the Rockland Room of the New City Library or walk through some new cemeteries, especially the one in Stony Point, NY.  I know a lot more than I did when I first started researching and there are many new ancestral places to visit.  The biggest obstacles to my research always seem to be time and money.   Since I am staying in Tarrytown, I am hoping to make time f...

My next big research project will be to learn more about Milton Morgan and his wife Martha Hall.  They were life long residents of Monroe, in Orange County, NY. Born in 1847, Milton survived the Battle of New Orleans, where he was captured and taken prisoner of war.   He was released and spent the rest of his life as a miner in the iron mines of Orange County. 150 years ago today, on July 4, 1868 at the First Presbyterian Church in Goshen,NY Milton married Martha Hall. They are the parents of Josephine Rose my great great grandmother. Happy 4th of July.  

Long time, no write!   As the year draws to a close, I have been thinking a lot about the discoveries I have made during the course of the year and the brick walls I have been able to poke some holes in.   Work and real life have gotten in the way and I haven't been able to write very much over this year, but I have been making some progress in my research.   I was spending some of my research time today thinking about where I need and want to go from here.  Is 2017 the year of my do-over?  I have been reading about different ways of recording and organizing my information . I learned a lot reading and rereading Kerry Scott's book H ow to Use Ever note for Genealo gy. It is revolutioni zing my or g ani zing!    I have been reviewing notes and research, sorting through filled notebooks in the hope of creating a  game plan for next year and I was pleased and surprised by the amount of surnames I now consider mine. I counted 45! ...

Mary Jones Blake, my maternal great-great grandmother was born on this day-January 12th in 1861.  One hundred and fifty five years ago.  I grew up hearing the occasional anecdote about her, but never really learning the facts of her life.  Mary Jones 1861-1946 at St. John's in the Wilderness Church, Stony Point NY 1903 Mary's life was an ordinary one, but at the same time extraordinary. She was born four months before the United States Civil War and died after the conclusion of the second World War.  The 1865 New York Census lists her parents as basket makers and they lived in Johnsontown, NY a rural hamlet forty miles and a lifetime North of Manhattan. Mary's parents were born in Johnsontown, and I suspect their parents were as well. So was her daughter and all five of her grandchildren including, in 1906 my grandfather. In the 1920's and 1930's when Mary was a grandmother, Johnsontown and several surrounding towns were demolished by NY and NJ Pallisades ...

I t's been more than a month since I have updated and I won't let that happen again.   Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope that anyone reading this has had a wonderful meal with family and friends, with many things and people to be thankful for this season.   Here are some things that I am grateful for: My thanks to everyone who has been helpful and support of me in my pursuit of the people, records, photos and more that have built and continue to build my family trees. My sister Stephanie, is an enthusiatic sounding board. My mother and my Aunt Evie continue to offer historical context and help to sort fact from fiction.  I could write a whole post about the support and help I received from my beloved Aunt Nancy and plan to do that separately. I was inspired to start blogging about my genealogy experience after participating in Amy Johnson Crow's 31 Days to Better Genealogy Project on Facebook.  Several members took the time to read and comment and it was a posi...