All Blog Posts Tagged 'War' (64)

The Toll of Time….and Council’s

Still on the theme of local cemeteries. Following a visit to Eastern Cemetery in Kingston, I was astonished to witness in such a well kept cemetery that an eagerness to protect the visitors, the stones themselves were being damaged.

It looks to me as though the sinking of some older graves, very likely due to some flooding and…

A selection of my photographs from a recent exploration of cemeteries in Hull. Dating back to the early 1800’s, there is certainly much evidence of death, decay and disease. Many of the surviving stones had in fact been relocated from previous locations as the City expanded.

One of the most interesting finds was evidence of the 1849 Cholera epidemic in the City and the…

Being of the surname Billington, my family, though in Yorkshire for over 100 years, is often asked about its Lancashire origins and in particular I am often asked by historians if I have any connections to the Hangmen of Bolton. In the south of England the question is quite different and I am asked of my connections to John Billington who travelled with the Pilgrim father’s…

Last weekend we were in Washington DC, and at the top of my list of things to do in our capital city was to visit the National Archives.  If you read my blog story from last October, “Did George Washington Sign Here?”  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/10/amanuensis-monday-george-washington.html  you will know that I was questioning the authenticity of George Washington’s signature…

My 5x great grandfather Abner Poland served in Revolutionary War, but so did his father, Abner Poland, Sr., and so the records have always been difficult to separate when I started to research the Poland family.   He was born in 1761, and was only fifteen when the Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred in 1775.  He enlisted not long after, on 15 January 1776 as a private in Captain Abraham Dodge’s Company in Ipswich, Massachusetts.   He reenlisted in 1777 for another two years, and…

This week, I will be spending some time researching the Cemeteries of Kingston upon Hull, in East Yorkshire. Between 1880 and 1910, the Cemeteries grew at a rate only equalled by the continued growth of the City. From a tiny medieval town surrounded by green fields, Henry VIII’s favourite stop over expanded to more than 10 times its original size.

Recent records exist of…

My great great grandfather Caleb Rand Bill was a music professor in Salem, Massachusetts before the turn of the 20th century.  Whilst researching his story, I found out about two other early music teachers in Salem, who were both Spanish immigrants.  It is interesting that they became ardent abolitionists around the time of the American Civil War.

Manuel Fenollosa came to Salem from Spain with his brother in law, Manuel Emilio in 1838 on the US navel frigate United States. …

The schooner Fame is moored in Salem, Massachusetts at Pickering Wharf.  She was built in Essex, Massachusetts by Harold Burnham, and launched in 2003.  The Burnhams have been building boats in Essex since the 1640s.  The original schooner Fame was an Essex fishing schooner used as a privateer in the War of 1812.  

The interesting connection is that Abner Poland III served on board the Fame in the War of 1812 by Abner Poland III of Essex, Massachusetts.  I’m descended of his sister,…

My 3x great Grandfather Peter Hoogerzeil was born on 28 October 1803 in Dordrecht, Netherlands. He had stowed away on a Rotterdam ship to America. It was supposedly full of hemp bound for the ropewalk in Salem, Massachusetts. According to family lore, he married the Captain’s daughter. This story always bothered me because of two…

Obituaries (on file at the Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem)

May 20,…

If your ancestors lived in Colonial New England, or if you suspect that your ancestors lived in New England any time up until 1800, then you must have used the New Hampshire State Papers for your genealogical research. I first came across this wonderful resource years ago (before the internet) at the Portsmouth Atheneum library. Now, when I run across a new name in the family tree, I can go to the NH…

Monteville Roberts owned and operated, with the help of family, the combined business establishment of a mill for grinding corn into meal and wheat into flour, a blacksmith shop, and general repair shop, all of which were vitally essential to the people. The combined enterprise, in Hamilton County, Tennessee, provided a flourishing business a home . . . → :…

A story for the Fourth of July!

Fifteen or twenty years ago, when my daughter was in elementary school, we visited Philadelphia Pennsylvania. We toured the city, saw the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin’s house, and ate some cheese steak sandwiches. Of course we didn’t miss Independence Hall, either. The tour was guided, and when we came to the room where the Continental Congress…

Sometime in February 1945 my…

In this family photo, Moises was pasted in…