History is Important, isn't it?

What happens when you become the family historian? Or, hopefully, one of the family historians? I have found several,  most of whom are researching their own line. I started with Daniel and Charlotte Holmes and worked my way down, so mine is more of an overview of all of their twelve children. And I finally was able to do a write up about the family in the book I distributed at the reunion this summer. I titled it "A Homestead on the Old Post Road," because that is where Daniel built his house, brought his bride, and, together with his wife, raised twelve children. It was torn down when the Trans-Canada Highway was built. Their house sat where the off-ramp is now.I can't remember when that was but I think probably in the '60s. I had great footsteps to follow: one distant cousin, who is now 95,  researched Daniel's ancestry the old fashioned way, and shared much of what he learned with me.

These are some of the people who helped me write my book, in one way or another. Some of them are family historians. That's me in the middle, wearing the hat.

Before I was able to hand out the book to the folks at the reunion, my cousin handed me "Riverbank Visitors." My book is now out of date. New information about one of Daniel and Charlotte's children, Maggie, and her husband, Billy, changed their story. And probably that is only the first major change. I think anyone who writes such a book can probably say the same thing. If you keep at your genealogy, it changes. New information comes in all the time, from other family members, from new transcriptions on the internet, from data and histories that you find. And that's okay. One of these days, if people request it, I'll fix the errors in the book, change "my Karl" to "my cousin Karl," and update it with new information.

Back to my question: what happens when you become the family historian? You become the keeper.You start to inherit. People send you stuff. They don't want it, but Peggy will. That's true, or, at least, I don't want to see it disappear forever. If you don't want it, please send it to me. Don't toss it. If you do want it, but think I might like to see it, send it to me, I'll copy it and send it back. My mother found some Moore clippings the other day. She'll give them to me the next time she sees me, and she said, "I don't want them back."  The stuff starts to accumulate: papers of all kinds - vital records, military records, photographs (many of them unlabeled), books, diaries (I wish I had more diaries), newspapers and scrapbooks, etcetera. And naturally, you are glad to get the stuff, or at least, I am. And there it sits, waiting. Or, worse yet, the work you were currently doing sits, waiting, while you delve into the new stuff. Every now and then I go on a binge, and sort and file. And sometimes I can't find what I want but I know it's here in my house; where to begin to look for it is the problem.

Do I say this to you to discourage you from starting your own genealogy or family history? Oh, no, not at all. I just want you to be aware of what might happen to you. And if you want a piece of advice, do as I say and not as I do (well, sometimes I do, but not as much as I should). Before you even look at a family tree program, get yourself a filing method - a cabinet, binders, CD's - whatever suits you, and file as you go. And backup. Backup. Backup.

If you are like me, this will become a passion. Well, maybe an obsession. Maybe, an addiction? I try to rationalize it. History is important. Keeping the family together is important. Bringing the family together is important. Isn't it?

Finding Ralph

I am not satisfied, but I can't think of anything else to do to get to know Ralph. Now, if he appeared in my family tree, I would, but what I am putting in my Riverbank notes is basically what you would read in an obituary, so I don't think I'll spend any more time on him. When I finish the thirty-nine pages of the book, I will go back to each individual, editing and reviewing  and revising what I have written. I don't know if any of you are interested in the process I used to find Ralph (and anyone else I am looking for), but if you are, you can read my methods here. If you have any other ideas for me, please share in the comment box.

What you should not use is another person's family tree, except maybe to kick-start your research or, if you can't find anything, to use as a hint. That is how many budding family historians (including myself) started out. Pretty soon you will have seven year olds or ninety-seven year olds fathering children as you pick up all the faux pas people have made. Having said that, don't trust my research either, except, as noted above, to use it as a segue. Find yourself a good family tree program and start building with yourself (or an ancestor you especially want to research - I used Daniel Holmes as my home person in one tree). I use Family Tree Maker (ancestry.com), but it is costly. If you want to try it out, but are not sure you will be interested enough to go very far with it, you could build your tree on familysearch.com and see how it goes before investing. Family Tree has changed and is now a great source of original documents and transcriptions.  One friend of mine subscribes to an old newspaper website which she finds helpful and worth the expense.

I do most of my research on-line, but there is no substitute for the thrill of actually going to an archives and thumbing through old tomes and finding your ancestor's name on the page. Nowadays, many copies of those old tomes are on the internet. Whatever the source, try your best to find the original, not the transcription. Until you begin your research, you have no idea how many errors you will find in transcriptions, even if you are a beginner. That's mainly because the writing is hard to read, but you know for a fact that great-grandpa's name was Moore, not Hoar or Warren or something totally different. Spelling way back when was not as important as it was when I was I growing up.

Now, on to Ralph P Dick.

Where do I begin? I started by opening three windows: my ancestry.com, familysearch, and PANB (New Brunswick archives). I typed in "Ralph P Dick" and the fact that he lived at one time in Saint John, New Brunswick. That was all I knew. Sometimes you will strike the pot of gold on the first try, but more often than not, you will have to dig and dig and dig.  Put your findings in a sieve, give them a good shake, and sort them out. I never heard "Dick" used as a last name, but I found out there were lots of Dicks, lots of Ralph Dicks in the world, and in New Brunswick, two Ralph Dicks. Fortunately, Ralph B Dick was about thirty years younger than Ralph P Dick. After I found what I could about Ralph on ancestry, I went to the other two websites I mentioned and repeated the process. Also, it's a good idea to google the name of the individual you are researching. If they had some claim to fame, they might show up. If there are several people by the same name, I find it helpful to narrow my search by Census, or Military, or Newspaper, etcetra.

What do I look for? I look, first, for dates: birth, marriage, death. Since Ralph was probably in New Brunswick, I looked at PANB first. New Brunswick has a great archival site; unfortunately, Manitoba does not. But I am getting ahead of myself. I didn't find Ralph on PANB, but vital records were not necessarily kept when Ralph was born. So, I typed in just "Dick." and sorted through all the "Dicks." I found a John Q Dick, born in Saint John, with parents John M Dick and Elizabeth W Leavitt. Type in "John M Dick." Hmmmm . . . he's born in Bathurst. Could he be the father of Ralph? Try it out at ancestry or familysearch and see? Yes, there, in the 1891 and 1901 Census, is the John M Dick family: I have a match (after several mixes and sieves). But there, the story seems to come to an end, which is what we consider a Brick Wall. We need to hammer it down, bit by bit, piece by piece. It takes time.

What did I find? I decided, in this case, to research all of Ralph's siblings. What I found confused me, although after researching since about 2005, not much surprises me. I am amazed at the distances people traveled back in the day, and where they ended up. Ralph had eight siblings. I followed the process for each sibling as well as the two parents. Was the John Dick who died as the result of falling down the stairs, the father of Ralph et al? I am convinced, after checking out several sources, that he was. But as there were several John Dicks, I had to be careful. But what's this? A lead for a Ralph Dick crossing the border from British Columbia into Sumas, Washington. My Ralph? Check out the City Directories. Seems there were a lot of Dicks in Seattle. If I wanted to go further with my research, I would check out all those Dicks to see if the widow, Elizabeth Dick, went to stay with family after her husband's untimely demise. Elizabeth, their mother, went there with two of her sons, John Q and Ralph P.That is what I mean by using a segue. Genealogy is, in my opinion, an idea, followed by a hypothesis, and hopefully completed with the proving or disproving of your hypothesis: a mathemathical process, all based on good, sound research and citations. If you are not positive, say so in the notes box on your tree or the book you are writing.

Using Ralph P Dick as my example, and not finding as much as I would like but enough to write a blurb about him, this is what I was able to piece together. Like I said, if he were in my tree, I'd probably dig some more. I don't know if he married and fathered children, or why he died so young. I could pay the Manitoba archives for a copy of his death certificate, which would probably help me with some of those details, but I don't want to know that badly.

I found Ralph's date of birth on the 1901 census. I also found out that he had eight siblings, and that he was a twin. I verified that with the 1891 census. I found his paternal grandparents, who were married in Quebec and then appeared in Bathurst, New Brunswick, on census records. I found that John and Bessie gave all of their children family names as their middle names. There were two with the middle name "Grey," two with "Montgomery," and two with "Leavitt." That caused me a wonder: what did the P in Ralph's middle name represent. Checking on his grandparents, James and Matilda Dick, I found that Matilda's father was Ralph Pritchard. Was that Ralph's "P"? Yes, indeed, it was. And that was the clue that led me to the Manitoba Death Index. But all that the Province of Manitoba will allow me to see is the transcription, which includes his age at death, his approximate birth year, his death date and place. Small comfort, but since the name is so unusual, I feel fairly confident that this is my Ralph P.

The other thing I took note of, in researching Ralph's siblings, is that most of them left New Brunswick and scattered. Even Elizabeth left for a time, although she did return home, lived with her daughter, and died at her daughter's home in Saint John. She is buried in the Fernhill Cemetery, where my Uncle Bryce and Aunt Inez are buried. The inhabitants of the Fernhill Cemetary are not listed on line, so if ever I go to Saint John, I might go and have a visit with Uncle Bryce and Aunt Inez and Mrs. Elizabeth Wiggins Leavitt Dick, and see if Mrs. Dick is buried beside Mr. Dick. But for now, I am left with the wonder, what happened to Ralph? Why did he die so young? Why can't I find his WWI Draft Registration or Attestation papers? Perhaps he was not healty? Did he marry? Unfortunately, I will never know, for I am through researching Ralph  and I must move on: to J W Gifford of Portage Vale. Sigh . . . what does J W represent? Worse yet . . .  my great-grandmother, as did others, signed Mrs. Chas. Holmes. Phoebe . . . she is Phoebe. Peggy . . . I am Peggy . . . not Mrs. Bill, even tho' I am Mrs. Bill.

My last task is to write up a blurb about Ralph in my Riverbank Visitors book. In one of my how - to books on researching and writing family history, I read, and I paraphrase . . . "know much more than you write." That is difficult for me, but a good editor helps. I had a good editor. In fact, she is still editing . . . this blog! Even tho' I didn't ask her too. I understand, it just has to be. It's in the genes.  I have a good editor.

That was a long lesson, and I may have lost most of you before I came to this concluding paragraph. If you are not interested in the process of researching your history, or even reading your history that someone else has researched and written, I probably lost you after the first couple of paragraphs. But, if you are interested, I hope you found my lesson helpful, and if you are a fellow researcher, I hope you will share some additional ideas in your comments.

The Lure to Seattle

When I started my Holmes family research, I wondered what lured people to New England in the early decades of the 1900s. Generally, they went to the Boston area, but some went elsewhere in the vicinity. I decided it was probably jobs, education, and fun, and probably in that order. And, I've found, the same could be said for every family of this corner of the world; many families went to New England. I've just started seriously working on my Moores, but I'll be surprised if some of them didn't jump on the Boston Bandwagon as well.

When I started with the Steeves family (which one, there are so many? you may ask, especially if you live around here; I mean Carrie Holmes who married Charles Alfred Steeves, son of Lewis Steeves and Lucy Jones), I was curious why several of the children moved clear across the country, from Boston to Seattle. The more I researched, the more they kept going. Not just Steeveses, but others as well. Not in droves, like the ones to New England, but enough to make me sit up and take notice.

It happened again last night. A fellow who visited Riverbank fell out of the genealogy grid windows I had open. He was there, and he was gone. I couldn't find him for looking. He had a last name I've never heard of: Ralph P Dick. Seems there are Dicks in New Brunswick, but its the first time I've encountered them, either in research or in person. And just to confuse matters, there were a Ralph P Dick and a Ralph B Dick. Ralph P Dick was born to John Montgomery Dick and Elizabeth Wiggins Leavitt in 1889. There they are in the 1891 and 1901 censuses, although John M Dick died in 1910 after he fell down the stairs. After that, vamoose. What I did see, out of the corner of my eye, was a brother, John Q Dick. Don't laugh, its true. And John Q married a girl in Alameda, California. That's true too, I saw the original document and the parents are on there.

Then, I found that a Ralph Dick crossed the border into Washington state. Was he my Ralph? Besides Ralph B and Ralph P, there are other Ralph Dicks. Type in Washington. Aha! Bingo! There was a Ralph P Dick living in Seattle in the US Directories of 1915 and 1916. Ummmm. Still not sure. Look all around the pages: Ralph on 37th Avenue in 1915 and Bigelow Ave in 1916. There, in the same house as Ralph P, is John Q. Could there be, in this world, two people with those names living in the same house as that? If it was Ralph and John Smith, or Jones, or Steeves, I'd be skeptical, but Dicks? I'm pretty sure. Don't worry; I'll investigate fully.

What were they doing there? Draft dodging? What was going on in Seattle at that time that lured Canadians away from here to there?

I still have research to do on Ralph P. I find a Ralph Dick living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, born New Brunswick, on the 1921 Census. Is he my Ralph? I should think there would be a WWI Draft Registration or an Attestation Paper for a young man, but I've yet to locate it. Perhaps it's there; it was late last night when I was searching.

Why do I care? Is it necessary to know? As far as I know, I am not related to the Dicks of New Brunswick. But, he visited Riverbank in 1909 and 1910, and I wonder why. Why did Uncle Billy and Aunt Maggie open up their home to people when they were 82 and 72? Why did people come to this off the beaten track place? Why did many of them come back a second and third time? How did they hear about it? Was it advertised in the newspapers of Sussex, Saint John, Boston, London, Havana?

I have a historical document that I feel is important to the people of New Brunswick. I am a keeper of our history. I want to make sure I have transcribed it correctly and annotated it to the best of my ability. It won't include stories like "A Homestead on the Old Post Road;" its more genealogical and factual than that, since I will probably be sharing it more with historical societies than family members. Therefore, I have to be very careful that I have the correct Ralph Dick: Ralph with a "P".

This picture is significant to me. When he visited on July 19, 1909, he was with the Davidsons. Here, on July 28, 2010, he appears to be with the Costers. Did the Davidsons know the Costers and the Warners? Git out the genealogical shovel and dig, Peg.

Quill and Ink

I've been wondering what Daniel and Charlotte (my great-great maternal grandparents) wrote with. First of all, I know that Daniel was literate. He took the 1871 Canada Census for his area - Petitcodiac, in the Salisbury parish of New Brunswick, and from that I can see his handwriting.

While discussing old mills with the mayor of Petitcodiac, he told me that he found several clay inkwells when he was searching around the remains of another old old mill. He donated them to Kings Landing. So, of course, I wanted a clay inkwell. If you read yesterdays post, you know that I found one. The lip of it is broken, but that's okay.

That brings up another question in my mind, which has actully been niggling at me for a couple of months. Where did they get the paper and the ink? As Daniel and his partner owned sawmills, I suppose he had his own supply of paper or birch bark.

First place I go to for information nowadays is Google. Google took me several places, but the one I found most interesting was the Lewis and Clark website: http://lewisandclarktrail.com/quillandink.htm The following is a brief summary from this website.

Their journals were leather-bound with paper pages; pages were bound in elk skin and red leather cases to help protect them.

 Quills were goose or turkey wing feathers: softened in hot water, trimmed at a slant, emptied of pith, shaped  with a split in the middle, and dipped in warm sand to make them harder. A quill only lasted a few days.

Lewis and Clark started off on their journey with a supply of ink powder, to which they added water, making only what they needed at a time. They would have had to make their own when they ran out; one way was to mix together egg white, ashes or charcoal, honey and water.

To write with a quill, write lightly - barely scratch the paper. The fancy, flowing script of the 1800s kept the ink flowing and made writing easier. Use only a wee bit of ink on the quill, scraping the excess off and writing only a word or so at a time. Let the ink dry.

That was informative. I have a sample from Riverbank's Guest Book of a lovely signature of one of my distant cousins, Edith M Steeves, granddaughter of Daniel and Charlotte Holmes. This would not have been made with a quill but a straight pen and bottled ink, but the pen and nib follow the same structure as the quill.

Great-great Aunt Maggie's younger brother, William, " . . . would sit by the table and write out sermons for his own edification. We still have a full volume of them written in his fine hand on lined note paper and bound in brown oilcloth cut from an old table cover." ~ From "Ernest Holmes: His Life and Times," by his son, Fenwicke L Holmes.

Charlotte's uncle, Azor Hoyt, kept a diary from 1810 to 1842. From the introduction: "The original Azor Hoyt diary was written on sheets of paper approximately 6" by 7 3/4", loosely sewn together with thread."  "Ice Out Past My House," the diary of Azor Hoyt, is a transcription of Azor's diary by two descendants. A copy of one of the pages is in the back of the book.

I did this research to help me understand how Daniel and Charlotte, who were born in 1814, wrote. There were general stores in the Petitcodiac area, so it is likely that they purchased their paper and ink. Mr. James Price opened his store in1837, and an Irish peddlar named McLaughlan opened a store in the 1850s, as did Mr. W H T Sumner. ~ "Village of Petitcodiac," presented by the Village Council, 1969. Daniel must have kept records of his sawmill purchases and sales, as well as his land purchases and sales, although I do not have copies of these.

This leads me to one other thought, and that is: everything our forebears did was without waste. Our recycling efforts are nothing compared to theirs. For instance - the goose that supplied the quill. Not only was the goose raised, cooked and eaten. They also used its wings to dust and clean the stove top. There is still a wing at the farm, on the shelf over the place where the stove used to be, and I've seen my mother use it on numerous occasions. And I recall, when I had a cough and cold in my chest, my mother heating up goose grease and applying it to my chest - an old farm remedy that felt so good. Not much of the goose went unused.

I believe that Charlotte, my great-grandmother, was literate. I doubt that she had time to keep a journal, as she had twelve children to raise and help educate, but if she did, I now have an understanding of how she did it and what supplies she used. 

The Reunion is Over

It's been six weeks since the reunion. About two months since I picked up my books from Staples and prepared to distribute them. What do I do now?

Not to worry, I have a list. They won't be done one after the other; they will be done simultaneously. My sister wanted me to work on my Moore ancestors. I began that. My cousin gave me the Riverbank Guestbook which I have begun transcribing and annotating. My friend wants five pair of mittens by Christmas. I want sixty doilies to hand out at the next reunion in the autumn of 2016. Date and place are not set yet. Everything started. Three of us are going to start compiling the Holmes Family Cookbook, to have ready for the 2016 Reunion. That's if people climb on board.

To help me with Riverbank, I started a new ancestry tree. Like any other bed and breakfast/fishing lodge, there are unrelated people who come to visit. People come from all over; some from across the sea. How did they hear about it? Was it advertised? In Sussex, Saint John, Boston, etc? If it was word of mouth, how did these folks know each other? Will I ever know? This wouldn't be so unusual nowadays, but we're talking 1909 to 1915. I just finished writing about Uncle Billy and Aunt Maggie (my great-greats, actually), and saying how they were just plain folk, never went far or did much or had anything to speak of, lived in a beautiful vale but really out in the boonies - and now, out of the blue, this book.

First fellow in the list - a brevet brigadier general retired, from the Civil War, to accept a position as Consol in Saint John, New Brunswick. Had to google brevet. Yes, it's a word. He arrived on Dominion Day, 1909. What day? If you are my age or older, you know. We call it Canada Day now.

Wealthy people with connections came to visit. Farmers down the road stopped in. Some stayed ten days or so. One fellow on the first page was s a musician. Since Uncle Billy played the organ in church and the fiddle at the Saturday night barn dances, I'm sure they had lots to discuss while resting by a tree, timothy dangling from their mouths like their fishing poles dangling into the crick. And Uncle Billy was eighty-two years old.

I still have the quarterly Holmes newsletters to research and write. I've let them slip since last November. I sent them out, but I didn't do much in the way of research. This November's must include some history as well as contemporary stuff. And I know what it will include: this old house, which still exists in Prince Edward Island. That's all the clue I'm giving.

I went gung-ho on the Moores and then Riverbend perked my interest. I took a road trip up to Moore country; some graveyards I wanted to see for several years. I sure had a tour of back-road New Brunswick - dirt roads and all. My ancestors lived in some pretty spots, along rivers, in valleys with magnificant backdrops, and small, lovely villages.

I've been invited to Hampton to visit some long-gone ancestors and their kinfolk, with a tour by Richard and Sandi, after the election near the end of September.

I must, absolutely must, get to Fredericton and talk to the archivist about the restoration of the old map of Petitcodiac that shows Daniel's saw mill site(s). That will be after the genealogy meeting in September. I'm hoping to convince Leslie to go up with me.

I want to go to the creative writing workshops at the library on Saturday mornings. It was a choice: Focus Camera Club, Nature NB Moncton or creative writing. I'd love to do them all, but with volunteering on Wednesdays, I think the others will have to take their turns.

Paul took Mom and I to the Second Chance Antique Store today. I found something and I bought it. Why? Probably no one else would want it, and I did; yes, I know my clay inkpot is broken. Now I need to go to the pond and find a crow feather, or an eagle feather, or a Canada Goose feather. But what did my great-great grandparents use for ink in their inkpots?

It's all part of my plan for someday: my first historical novel. When will it begin? It has begun, in my visits to Kings Landing and the Textile Museum in Dorchester. In the research I did for "A Homestead on the Old Post Road." Someday I will tell Charlotte's story - or a bit of her story embellished with settings, characters, and real life happenings in her era.

Somehow, I have to fit a bit of housework and cooking and other realities into my days as well.