Contributions of Single Women in Your Tree

The Family History Director of the Center I work at sent this out. I do not know where she obtained the information from or if it is personal experience. I do, however have personal testimony of the number four. My case was not a maiden aunt though it could have been. It was a childless aunt. In her will she named all her brothers and sisters and their children. Interestingly, she and my great-great grandfather were brother and sister and her husband was the brother of my great-great grandmother. The picture above is a tribute to Sarah Hankins Martin. Click on it and you can see it clearer.
There are some religious aspects I did not know. Thought I would pass them along.

The single women in your family tree over the age of 35 are one of the most awesome genealogy assets you have:

1. One daughter in the family, often the youngest, was expected to remain unmarried, live at home, and care for aging parents. Some times the father’s will acknowledge this “sacrifice” by allotting her extra income or property from his estate. This ensured that she was named in the will. Or her upkeep was provided for through the oldest son in the family from his legacy.
2. Quakers and Roman Catholics are two religious backgrounds that encouraged at least one daughter in the family to remain unmarried. These daughters became teachers and nurses or missionaries giving their lives to service of others, through the church.
3. Maiden aunts are often responsible for the traditions and folklore of the family. They gather the information from family members and share it with the next generations. Cultural values and beliefs, myths and superstitions are learned at their knees by young children–usually girls. And family members often expect these maiden ladies to record and pass the lore along.
4. Old maids, especially those who pursue a career or spend their lives in the workplace, write wills that name many relatives. Family members and in-laws, even close friends of the family, are named. With legacies and relationships spelled out in detail, from their personal knowledge, that you would not otherwise know.

Some genealogists carefully account for the males–for family and ethnic naming patterns, for identification of land-holdings, and to ensure that the family unit is complete.

It is recommended that you expend the same effort to identify all the daughters in the family. And track each one to their deaths–searching cemeteries and probate files as well as obituaries for the genealogy gems these ladies leave behind. Break your losing streak!

Be sure you collect all the family evidence your old maids left behind.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun : Celebrity Look Alikes

This was a second try, guys. My prettiest present time picture was a match for Henry Fonda, sorry, that just won't do. Okay, I am vain, but something seems wrong here. How about, that you can choose if it is male or female. If I did a collage of my daughter for Christmas and it had some pretty male face as a celebrity look alike she would not be pleased. Nope. Just won't do.
Forgive me, it is okay, but to me seems a bit of a glitch in the collage program.

Follow Friday

I like Cindy's blog Everything's Relative - Researching Your Family History. I love her format, the appearance of her blog and her methods of presenting her family history. My editor is not letting me post a link to her. So here is her address: http://genealogybycindy.blogspot.com/

A Present Day Treasure Chest.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. Mine was just about as Ideal as one could be. I spent the first three hours of the day helping with Family History Support. We then put the food together and while it was cooking, we made a memory for the future. We went outside and my granddaughter had her first experience of playing in the leaves. Can you remember your first belly whop into a pile of leaves, or the crunching of leaves under your feet while walking through the woods? It was joyous watching my granddaughter and her dad play in the leaves not worrying about the task, rather focusing on each other. Hope you enjoy the video.

Thanksgiving Day Post

I will be busy with my Family History Mission and helping with the new granddaughter as well as "The Dinner".  Thus, I decided to post my blog today.  See you on Friday.  Hope your Thanksgiving with Family and Friends is a special one.
As I told you, I am filled with awe at the knowledge that I have and ancestor that participated in the First Thanksgiving in Plymouth, and loved reading what he had to say about it in "Of Plymouth Plantation"
I was fascinated to learn as I thought my children about the Holiday to learn it wasn't until much later that it became an official day of thanksgiving.  I had just grown up with the wonderful family gatherings thinking it was always there.  I am posting the original Massachusetts Centinel Oct.14 1789 published Proclamation.

I have the Thanksgiving Proclamation framed on my wall next to the painting of George Washington praying at Valley Forge by Art Friberg.
I love the profession of faith, the humbleness of the Proclamation and admonitions for the Nation.  You can get this at the website called Archiving America. Just Click on the yellow lettering.  It is a great site for Colonial periods to the Civil War.  Haven't explored further than that.

The second Thanksgiving Proclamation came from Abraham Lincoln.  Here is his speech as available at the Abraham Lincoln Association
"The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

    "No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

    "It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union."
    Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863
Sorry this was long, but I feel the words deep within myself and wanted to share with whomever would like to read.
May you have a blessed day.

Tombstone Tuesday Thanksgiving Style

My ancestor and a Thanksgiving reminder of the beginning of American Thanksgiving for blessings.

A Genealogical Delima for Some

My sweet daughter married a young man of the last name.  There were many raised eyebrows and titterings about cousins and such.  The funny thing is they may be back in Ireland or England in the 17th century.  The Aylwards of my son-in-law came over to the United States in the 1700's.  The Aylward of our line came to Prince Edward Island in the early 1800's.  Before my daughter even met her future husband, I had researched his line because I had read they were from Prince Edward.  Research revealed that yes, they did but it was Prince Edward Province in Quebec Canada, not the Island.  Our family had immigrated straight to Prince Edward Island and stayed.  It was in 1891, that Edward Aylward immigrated to Chicago.  That is a naturalization I still have not found.  Both family changed their names to Ellsworth when they came to the United States to further complicate things, and no reason for either family.

Well, this is my way of introducing my newest granddaughter Em.  She is beautiful as you can tell in the picture with her mom and dad.  They were of a pioneer spirit and had Em at home.  She was born at 6am this morning. I will say I always get excited and teary eyed when a baby is born, but watching the home birth brings home to me the precariousness of the moment of birth.   I have had a ball caring for them this day.

Hope your day was a joyful as mine.