A New Year; A Fresh Start

This was a year of transition for us, moving from Newtown, CT to Fredericksburg, VA, and getting settled into our new environment.  Luckily our genealogy files arrived intact, and are housed on shelves in our lower level Hobby Room.  Between unpacking and finding my way around town, I was able to finish the Hardenbrook monograph, and immediately began a monograph of the Tucker family. I made great progress transcribing my great-grandmother’s (Jessie Tucker Agard) diaries, not verbatim, but just jotting down the important vital record information, and other details of importance.  From those diaries I learned about her sister, Addie Tucker’s illness and death that provided an important emotional element to the monograph. 

As the year ended I was successful in getting volunteers from the Field Library in Peekskill to assist in filling genealogy requests from the archives of St. Joseph’s Home.  I am so thankful to Rev. John Higgins for his willingness to keep these archives open.

And speaking of St. Joseph’s Home, I have not given up on my Nunn family line. I just know that someone from the Eberhard family will answer my call.

And there is much to be done in 2013.  I have old photos, lots of them, different sizes, shapes, and conditions.  Sometimes a particular photo will come to mind when I am writing a blog. But where is it? I paw through many archive envelopes, each time telling myself I have to take the time to get all these photos better organized.  Many years after my father died I found his box of slides. Lying on top were yellow lined pages with the number of the slide slot and a description of the slide.  Thanks, Dad, for a great way to organize those photos.

I still have a box of material on the Shepard family that I should delve into again and continue that research.  That box hasn’t been open in almost two years.

And, I need to continue verifying citations of previous work and putting them into the correct format.

I think that's enough for a start in this new year.  I wish everyone much success in their genealogy journeys. 

52 Weeks to Better Genealogy - Genealogy Goals 2011

Reading entries of 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy prompted me to think about and decide on some goals for 2011.  I was inspired by Donna Jane’s blog http://hangingwithdonna.blogspot.com/ especially reviewing one family line a month and making sure all citations are in place.  That is a great suggestion.

My goals for 2011 are:

·      Produce a monograph of the Hardenbrook family 1830 – 1930.  I have so much interesting information written up on this family during these years it is time to share with others doing research in Seneca and Cayuga County, NY.

·      Produce a monograph of the Shepard family for my cousin.  I have sorted through the two suitcases.  I will scan photos, research this family, write up what I find and return the material to my cousin in an acid free archival box by Christmas 2011.  

·      Continue to share genealogical research information through my blog.

·      Develop the 1880-1889 Newtown Death Database from vital records book held at the town clerk’s office. (The 1890-1899 Newtown Death database was developed in 2010; an article has been submitted about the importance of this database to the February 2011 issue of Connecticut Ancestry).

·      Continue to search for descendants of Elizabeth Nunn Siebert.

·      Attend the NERGC Conference in April 2011.

·      Provide Tompkins County Rootsweb (http://nytompki.org/) with transcribed material.  From the Shepard family suitcases I have retrieved a number of Ithaca Journals in which I have saved the obits and will transcribe for this site as I have done in the past.

Happy New Year and I wish everyone a year filled with genealogical successes!!!

Shepard Family

Howard Shepard - Age one year, six months

We did not intend to see my cousin on our recent visit to Upstate NY, but as it turned out she wanted us to stop by if just for 15 minutes. Well, 15 minutes turned into over an hour of catching up. Towards the end of our stay we talked about genealogy.  In the course of that conversation my cousin said she had two American Tourister suitcases filled with photos and “other stuff” that she had cleaned out from her mother’s house. Would I like it? Well…we dug around in her basement until we found them, and she was only too happy to help load them into the trunk of our car.

I am so excited to work on my Aunt Beverly’s family line.  The majority of the photos are labeled!  Some of the family lines I will be working on are:  Shepard, Day, Monroe, Vorhis, Benton, Garatt, Spaulding, and Dakin.  The adventure begins!