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Gone Too Soon

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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 9: Gone Too Soon I’m sure every family has someone special that has left this life before we were ready. My family is no exception. I couldn’t even whittle this list down to a trivial number of people from my family. In a short span, my husband and I lost 4 members of our immediate family. My children lost 3 grandparents and 1 uncle between 2014 and 2016.   The biggest loss for me from the “Gone Too Soon” category is my mother. Now I know when I say that she did live until she was 68 you might think that isn’t necessarily gone too soon, however, that still seems young by today’s standards. I know I wasn’t ready to live the rest of my life without her at the age of 42.   Just 11 weeks after my mother passed, my husband’s mother, Patsy, unexpectedly passed away at the age of 64.   Within 6 months of Patsy’s passing, my youngest brother in law, Daniel, was struck by an automobile where he suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. At the age of 24, Daniel woul
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I Can Identify

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52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Week 8-I Can Identify It’s been a busy week at our household and now I’m playing catch up. Last week’s writing theme was “I Can Identify.” I have chosen to write about my 3x’s great grandmother Carrie F. Harding Currier. Carrie’s Sep 1868 marriage record (Boston, MA) to John F. Currier shows her name as Carrie F. Harding, daughter of Mary S. and Charles P. Harding. Further research on Carrie F. Harding revealed that Carrie was adopted by her mother’s second husband Charles P. Harding when she was 18 years old in Aug of 1868. The next record we find of Carrie Yallalee when she is 6 yrs old and living with her mother, Mary Yallalee, and her grandmother, Abigail Robinson, in the 1855 Massachusetts State Census in Boston, MA. Thorough genealogical research and correlation of genealogical information helps us identify that Caroline Frances Yallalee was born 05 Sep 1849 in NY to parents Charles H. Yallalee and Mary Stone Robinson and adopted by Charles P. Harding in Bos
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Outcast

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52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Week 7-Outcast In 2019, we did some cosmetic work to the bottom floor of our antique home. We wanted to find a large mirror to hang over the buffet in our dining room. My friend and I went to Crompton Collective in Worcester, Massachusetts in search of an antique mirror. While searching through the various booths in Crompton, we came across a beautiful stained glass window. I fell in love with it on the spot. After a few moments, I decided that I was going to hang this stained glass window above the buffet instead of a mirror. After returning home with my purchase, I contacted the seller about to see if I could find more information about where the window came from. The seller informed me that it was from a Worcester Church that had been dismantled 50 years ago. With that information, I did a search online for churches that were demolished around 1969-1970. I found an article from the Worcester Telegram dated April 29, 2017 written by Mark Sullivan that told the s
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Social Media

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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 6: Social Media My cousin AJ recently sent me this screenshot of someone else's social media post. It made me laugh so much!   Family history research is usually born out of a desire to learn the history of your ancestors. Who they are, where they are from, and what they did in their lives. Many of us family historians become novice and professional genealogists with a desire to share all we have learned with our living family. Sometimes it is very hard to pinpoint what to share with our relatives because over time you can accumulate a great deal of information.   For me, social media has been a fun way to share snippets of family history with living relatives and friends. Social Media has also turned into a way to connect and get to know some newly found family. Many of my social media connections are made up of cousins with shared ancestors going back several generations. Social media has also provided us with a fun way to share a laugh...sometimes w
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Oops

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  52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Week 5-Oops This week’s theme is oops. This theme gave me pause. I wasn’t sure where in my family history research I had a clear oops case that was worth mentioning. Then I thought of my 3x’s maternal Great Grandfather Amon Army. When trying to research the immigrant ancestor on my Army line, I was having a very difficult time. My grandfather and his brother were the first genealogists in the family. They would go to local libraries and town halls and collect birth, marriage and death records. When I became interested in our family history, my Aunt Mary Jane gave me a copy of my grandfather’s research notes and cumulated records. Among the notes, he had listed his great grandfather as Amos or Elmer Army. Since I kept hitting brick walls every time I tried to research this family, I decided to call my Great Aunt Mary to ask her if she knew anything about the research of her husband and my grandfather for the Army family. I told her that I could not find any recor
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Education

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52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Week 4-Education My family is full of hard working, highly educated people. We are primary and secondary school teachers, nurses, software developers, business intelligence managers, chemical engineers, electronic engineers, physician assistants, doctors, speech therapists, technology specialists, genealogists, lawyers, judges, fire fighters, police officers, office managers, financial analysts, psychologists, public accountants, tax specialists, HR executives and professors. I would be remiss if I did not mention those that went through specialized training outside of colleges: our Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen and Airwomen, our hair stylists, electricians, plumbers, landscapers, contractors, preachers, cobblers, coopers and farmers.   For those that persevered before us through formal education or through technical training, we salute you!   What schools did you ancestors go to? #52Ancestors #FamilyHistory #Genealogy #Ancestors #Ancestry #progenofne #Educat
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Out of Place

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  52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (Week 3) Out of Place This week's theme is out of place. The first thing I thought of was how my Great-Great Grandparents, Oscar E. Bigelow (English) and Mary Power (Irish), are not buried together. It seems Mary was Catholic and was buried in St. John's cemetery in Worcester, MA. When her husband Oscar died, the family was not allowed to bury him with his wife as he was not Catholic. Instead, Oscar is buried in the neighboring Hope Cemetery. What cracks me up is that these 2 properties abut each other. In one section, the 2 cemeteries are literally separated by a cyclone fence. It's the same soil, same grass...that fence must be pretty mighty. What seems out of place in your family tree? #52Ancestors #Genealogy #progenofne #Ancestors #FamilyHistory #WorcesterMA #CemeteryRules
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