Monday Is for Mothers: Lydia White (1662 - 1696)

If the 1879 transcription of 17th century Weymouth, Massachusetts, birth records is correct, Joseph and Lydia (Rogers) White had twins Lydia and Joseph* in 1662.

[Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records. Provo, UT:

Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook).]

Torry lists her marriage with Samuel Cooke in Mendon, about 30 miles east of Weymouth, in 1681 when Lydia would have been 18 and that's where she lived for the rest of her life.

[Ancestry.com. U.S., New England Marriages Prior to 1700 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2012. Original data: Torry, Clarence A. New England Marriages Prior to 1700. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2004.]

 In the 15 years of their marriage Lydia and Samuel had at least eight children.** She died in 1696 at the age of 32 only about four months after the birth of her youngest child.

Samuel lived until 1752, surviving his wife by 56 years. There is no record of a second marriage for him. It is presumed that both Samuel and Lydia are buried in Mendon.


*The first Joseph must have died earlier.
**My direct ancestor is their fourth child Lydia Cook, my sixth great grandmother, who married Daniel Darling.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Curreys and Travel Trailer #1

Harold built a tent camper for the bed of their 1935 Dodge truck soon after buying it and he, Bernice and Junior traveled at least as far as the Oregon coast with it.*

[My personal collection]

A few years after that the Curreys bought their first travel trailer in 1938 and took it on its inaugural trip to Encinitas.**

[My personal collection]

*Actually the picture was taken at Depoe Bay which bills itself as " The World's Smallest Harbor" and "The Whale Watching Capital of the Oregon Coast." Obviously the Curreys, with their boating experience behind them, weren't impressed with the harbor entrance.
**In those days trailers were still uncommon and Dad said that whenever two trailers met on the road, both would honk and wave as if greeting old friends. Other drivers weren't always comfortable when they faced a vehicle pulling a trailer. In one case a woman panicked at the sight of the Curreys' rig coming towards her and stalled her car in the middle of a mountain road. Fortunately there was just enough room for Dad to edge his truck and trailer around her and continue on.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Har! Pirate Genealogy

The Flag of Edward England, otherwise known as "The Jolly Roger."

Ahoy! Do ye have a pirate ancestor?

Blimey! I don't know of any in my line, but I went to thee prom with a guy who claimed he was a descendant of Jean LaFitte.  Alas! And I believe one of my cousins is married to a descendant or either a pirate or buccaneer.

Thar be places to look if ye suspect a pirate lurks in yer clan tree.

Blacksheep Ancestors (worth a look any time of the year) has a section devoted to pirates.

Yo-ho-ho! The Genealogist had a featured article on thee subject in 2011.

Cyndi's List has a section for pirates and buccaneers.

Ancestry featured an article last year by D. Brenton Simons and Michael J. Leclerc called "They Came from the Family Tree: Finding Scoundrels, Misfits, and Other Colorful Ancestors" that includes pirates.



Wikipedia has a nice article on the history of piracy.

Thanks to SpeakPirate for the translation.






© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Slater

Left to right in this 1954 photo taken in Washington D.C. are my great-aunt Opal May Slater (1890-1973), my uncle James Robert Slater (1919-1984) my maternal grandmother Anna Delilah Webb (1891-1973), my maternal grandfather Harry Allen Slater (1888-1956) and bringing a stylish note into the family, my uncle's new bride Olive Eugenie Rucker (1929-) whose nickname in those days was Topsy.*

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

*We know her as Aunt Olive and her careful preservation of Slater family photos and records and generosity in sharing them with us is greatly appreciated.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Researching Norwegian Ancestors

My great grandfather Ben Fister (standing), about 1890 or so, and possibly a brother.

I have been neglecting research on my Norwegian ancestors.  No more excuses!  There have never been more online resources and help than now.

The Norwegian government has digitized enormous amounts of records at Digitalarkivet, part of the National Archives of Norway.  It is free to view all of these.

Types of records available at Digitalarkivet.

FamilySearch.org added an indexed collection to the following records a while back:

FamilySearch also provides a number of videos concerning Norwegian research in their Learning Center:

How cool is this??

If you have a membership to New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), aka American Ancestors, you can now view the same collections indexed by FamilySearch using the NEHGS interface.


Blogger Kitty Cooper offers a downloadable .pdf ("Reading the Norwegian Churchbooks by Dick Larkin") and a page, "Norwegian Genealogy," with links to her previous posts and various helpful aids.




© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Findmypast Free Weekend

If you've ever wanted to try your luck on this site, this weekend you'll have a chance to do it for free.* Read all about it here on their blog.

This is where I found London Livery Company records for several of my 17th century ancestors.

*And if you already have a subscription, they're adding an extra three days to it.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Gone for Soldiers: Abraham Heath (About 1740 - 1807), Soldier (Part IV)

After being the last troops to leave the Brandywine battlefield on the night of September 11, 1777, Private Abraham Heath and the rest of the soldiers of Major General Nathaneal Greene's Division joined the retreating Continental Army which regrouped around midnight at the town of Chester, 14 miles away. The next day Washington ordered the Army to leave for Germantown, a 19-mile march which included crossing the Schuylkill River at the Middle Ferry Bridge (now the site of the Market Street Bridge in modern Philadelphia).

[Detail from "PhiladelCampaignHessianMap". Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PhiladelCampaignHessianMap.jpg#/media/File:PhiladelCampaignHessianMap.jpg]

After allowing his men several days rest, on September 14th and 15th General Washington ordered his Army back toward the British forces in a 21-mile march which ended near Malvern with his troops spread over a front three miles long between Warren Tavern and White Horse Tavern. The British Army attacked on September 16th* but the engagement was interrupted by a violent storm (hence the name "Battle of the Clouds") and the American troops moved on toward Yellow Springs.

You can learn all about the Battle of the Clouds here (including an animation)** and here (including lots of modern photos) [PDF]. Unfortunately it's not clear which troops belong to Greene's Division (but if it maintained its earlier position at the back of the army, it would be comprised of the three Continental Brigades which follow the artillery into battle).

[Overall Battle of the Clouds Map]

["They Passed This Way," PDF. National Park Service]

*It's pure happenstance that this is being posted today, on the 238th anniversary of the Battle of the Clouds.
**These links also include information about the Battle of Paoli, also known as the Paoli Massacre, but the Continental soldiers involved were in Major General Anthony Wayne's Division so it's highly unlikely that Abraham Heath was present.



© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.