Heather Wilkinson Rojo's Blog (118)

Google your way to a Quilt



Sometimes after I’ve tried the library, the archives, ancestry.com and NEHGS- I next resort to finding genealogy information is just Googling names to see what comes up. Now, with the addition of Google Books, I’m often surprised at what happens. And sometimes names that didn’t draw any hits six months ago suddenly have interesting results. This is what happened to me last week.



My Munroe lineage… Continue

Leavitt Cemetery, Chichester, New Hampshire



Not too far north of Nutfield is Chichester, New Hampshire. My mother’s grandmother was a Batchelder, and she was born in Chichester, but the family lived in Boston. Their roots were on the New Hampshire seacoast, because the first Batchelder in the New World was the Reverend Stephen Batchelder, who founded Hampton. The Batchelders didn’t have their roots in Chichester, but all the brides,… Continue

Country Girls in the Big City



Years ago I took my Londonderry Girl Scout troop to Lowell National Park, to see how the mill girls lived and worked. The girls were about twelve years old, not much younger than some of the mill workers in the 1830s and 40s. We took a canal boat ride, and toured the noisy Boot Mill (a big hit for kids) and finally went into the boarding house. We earned a merit badge with some of our activities in… Continue

Pinkerton Tavern Ghosts



A Post for Halloween!



In October, thoughts of ghosts and witches come to mind. There were plenty of accused witches, even one who was found guilty in the 1600’s, and New Hampshire has its share of ghosts. When we first moved to Londonderry over 25 years ago, the first ghost we heard about was the one haunting the Pinkerton Tavern, in Derry. At the time, this building was an unfinished furniture store, and… Continue

Photo from "The pride and joy of Ernest Ballard, 84, is this rare, water-powered up and down sawmill he erected at his home in Derry, New Hampshire." (There'll Always be Water Wheels; by Neil M. Clark, December 3, 1955.)





The Taylor Sawmill at Ballard State Forest, Derry, NH



The Ballard State Forest in Derry is 71 Acres surrounding a pond, with picnic tables and walking trails, but the main attraction is the… Continue

Princess Ka’iulani of Hawaii

The Barbarian Princess Controversy?



On the anniversary of her birthday, 16 October 2009 will be the world premiere of a new movie about Princess Ka’iulani of Hawaii. She was born Victoria Ka’iulani Kalaninuiahilapalapa Kawekiu i Lunalilo Cleghorn on 16 October 1875, and was Queen Liliuokalani’s heir to the throne. Her father was Scots, and her mother was sister to the Hawaiian King. At this point in… Continue

Pepperell Family of Kittery, Maine

Photo by Rich Beauchesne seacoastonline.com



The William Pepperell Family



The original settlers of the Maine and New Hampshire coast were known as the “Piscataqua Pioneers.” Early settlements in Strawbery Bank, Portsmouth, Kittery and the Berwicks blended together before boundaries were settled between the colonies. York County, Maine was actually York County, Massachusetts, and the… Continue

In Memory

of

Mr Jabez Treadwell

who departed this Life

22d Day of Decr

1781

In the 67th year of his age.

"Bleƒƒed are the dead which die in

the Lord that they may reƒt

from their Labours; and their

works do follow them."











When I first applied for membership in the Mayflower Society, I had eleven different… Continue

Ocean Born Mary

The Myth:



A Ship of Ulster protestant passengers was on its way to Boston, Massachusetts when, on 28 July 1720, Elizabeth Wilson gave birth to a daughter. About this time a pirate ship attacked, and the captain intended to rob and murder the passengers. Just in the nick of time, the captain heard the newborn child’s cries. He said he would spare all the passengers if the child was named Mary in honor of his mother, and… Continue

Dear Blog Readers,



www.nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com Many of the blog posts are duplicated here at GenealogyWise on my blog.



Last month Family Tree Magazine ran an article and solicited suggestions for the Top 40 Genealogy Blogs. Someone nominated my blog, Nutfield Genealogy. The contest is still on and the nominations were released today. Over 130 blogs are on the list in ten different categories.



You can vote for your favorites (Hint, Hint Nutfield Genealogy… Continue

Spanish ‘Flu of 1918



Years ago I heard the story of a family member who died during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. It was interesting to me at the time, but even more interesting now and worth revisiting and re-investigating the story.



Between 1918 and 1919, an estimated 21/5 million people died of the “Spanish Flu” worldwide. However, the exact numbers are unknown. It is thought that about 675,000 Americans died, more than the… Continue

Buried at a Mall?





Robert Wilson, 3rd died in 1797 in what was then part of Danvers, Massachusetts, at a farm which no longer exists, and the family plot is now located in Peabody, behind the Kappy’s Liquor Store. The Wilson family wouldn’t recognize this land. Where the farm stood is now the cloverleaf intersection of routes 114 and 128, and the North Shore Mall.





Robert Wilson served in the Revolutionary War as… Continue

A photo, early 1950's, of Carrie (Batchelder) Allen wearing the gold nugget, surrounded by her descendants



George Emerson’s parents were from New Hampshire, raised in Milford and removing to South Boston, Massachusetts sometime soon after their marriage in 1810. George was born in 1817, and married Mary Esther Younger in 1845. He was listed as a “boot and shoe worker.” This young family had two babies by the time gold was found in… Continue

The Boyd Farm in Londonderry, now Rolling Meadows Town Houses



A few years, ago two portraits were donated by a descendant to the Londonderry Leach Library, and their story was printed up in the Derry News. They were primitive style paintings of Robert W. Boyd and his wife, Mary Lund Towne painted by the itinerant portrait painter Horace Bundy in 1851. In the days before photography it was common to hire these roaming self taught artists to… Continue

Although I have many ancestors who came from England on the Mayflower or with the Winthrop Fleet, I also have some ancestors who came to Massachusetts via Ellis Island in 1915. My grandmother, Bertha Louise Roberts, was just nineteen years old at the time, and she traveled from Leeds, Yorkshire with her parents and her older brother, Horace. My great –grandparents were John Peter Bowden Roberts and his wife, Emma Frances Warren. John Roberts had a job… Continue

I love this story. "Just regular folks" in the family tree. Thomas Varney was born about 1630 in the Barbados and removed to Massachusetts to settle at the Chebacco section of the town of Ipswich before 1650. His first wife was Abigail Proctor, who was also just a "regular folk" except that her brother John was hung as a witch in 1692. Perhaps being a bit different from all the other puritans in town ran in the family.



Uusally all the women in the family tree have blank spaces next… Continue

It started back when I took the AP American History class at Wachusett Regional High School in Massachusetts. When our teacher told our class we could all write a final paper on any topic (with her approval, of course) I knew that I was going to write about Queen Liliuokalani and how she lost the Hawaiian throne. I was the first student to ask to have my topic approved, and the teacher looked puzzled. It was a topic we barely covered in class, and there was nothing on the subject in our school… Continue

Prisoner of War aboard the ship “John and Sara” From Scotland to Boston, 1651



This is part three of my miniseries of Thanksgiving blogs on the immigration of certain ancestors to America, during the week when our thoughts usually rest with our Mayflower passenger ancestors. My 7x great grandfather William Munroe arrived in Massachusetts a little more than thirty years after the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth. His immigration was forced as a… Continue