Wordless Wednesday

California Genealogical Society Membership Committee
Sandy Fryer and Nancy Hart Servin
(Not shown: Anne Cyr)

Photograph by Kathryn M. Doyle, July 15, 2008.

Tuesday Tales From the Road - More from Pennsylvania

CGS member Mary Mettler is still on the road. Here is installment four from Mary, still on her dream genealogy tour:

We were successful in finding both of my Patriots' graves. Capt John Lamb and his family were in the Silver Springs Church graveyard and were in great condition. Capt William Scott and his two wives were in the Old Graveyard in Carlisle. I could read the William on his stone, but I will have to accept the 1898 reading on them. Both were marked as Revolutionary War soldiers, even through William was not listed on a monument created by the DAR around 1930. Interestingly, the flags and markers were all brand new in the Old Graveyard in Carlisle. I think they must have been replaced this year sometime.

Capt. John and Hannah Lamb gravestone

Okay, now on to some interesting stuff! I learned one very valuable lesson at the Cumberland County Historical Society! I had taken transcriptions and abstracts on baptisms, marriages, probate, etc. on faith and assumed they were accurate generally. When I have time and access, I do try to find the original documents. There was a book of transcriptions of the baptisms at Silver Springs Church that began about 1813. I found the baptism of my second great grandparents, William and Margaret Lamb's first child, John (John Lamb's grandchild). The originals were not cataloged any place I could find. When I was searching a microfilm that contained the minutes of the Trustees of the Silver Springs Church (John Lamb was President of the Trustees for 7 years), one of the first things on the film was the original book of baptism listings! It was not mentioned on the outside of the microfilm nor in their catalog! Well, all eight of their children were baptized in the Church! I would estimate that the person transcribing the baptisms transcribed only a third of them! So, everyone, please find the original documents if you can.

My nephew, Dave and I spent 5 days at the Cumberland County Historical Society and the Carlisle Court House and retrieved the administrative probate and orphan's court records for John Lamb and William Scott and their fathers, Samuel Lamb and John Scott. I was astonished to find that William and Margaret Scott had 8 children, not just the four that Margaret listed in her pension application. Again, a major reason that we should look at all available original records! The land records overwhelmed us, as I spent two days just identifying abstracts and grantor/grantee records. I located and copied only a few of the 25 different land records. A friend and beginning genealogist once asked me why it was necessary to go to my ancestors' home territories. The above gives you some reasons.

Mary Metter and nephew Dave Mettler

I wanted to share two other very interesting finds. We found a letter from Adam Richey, the brother of Hannah Richey Lamb (John Lamb's widow) to Hannah. It was written in Indiana three days before her death in Pennsylvania. It contained names of their brothers and sisters and also indicated that Hannah probably was not educated. Her brother asked her to find someone to write a letter for her to him. The letter seems to indicate they had not corresponded for a long time, as her brother, Adam told her how many children he had. I think it is spooky that he decided to write her a letter just before she died! Another great find, which you would not find any place else was a thick ledger of all revenues and expenses of John Lamb's properties. It turned out that he was quite wealthy with one large tract of land with two houses on it and another with one house. We poured over these ledgers! They grew rye and wheat and hired workers to thresh them at $1 to $2 per month. One son, James Richey Lamb stayed to help run the properties for his widowed mother. There is an entry that he took five days off "to go sleighing." One other particularly interesting group of entries was the purchase of 150 - 250 pounds of pork and around 150 pounds of beef in mid-December every year. It did not identify the reason for these large purchases, but we thought the most likely reason was to donate these to the Silver Springs Church for distribution for Christmas. The amounts seem to be too great for a large family Christmas Party or even to distribute among all the people who worked for the Lambs over the year. We probably will never know the answer.

We found lots more stuff, but I don't want to send you a book! We are now at a big family reunion at a beach house in Virginia Beach. The weather has been terrific, and we hope it holds for the big 90th birthday party for my sister-in-law on Tuesday. We have 18 family members here and will have around 50 friends join us for the party.

From Your Roving Reporter,
Mary

Photographs courtesy of Mary Mettler.

Read the entire series:
Part One: Salt Lake City
Part Two: Indiana
Part Three: Pennsylvania
Part Four: More From Pennsylvania
Part Five: Washington D.C.
Part Six: Suffield, Connecticut
Part Seven: Vermont
Part Eight: Dorset, Vermont
Part Nine: West Point and Back to Pennsylvania
Part Ten: Some Final Thoughts From Home

CGS News - September 2008

The September 2008 issue of the CGS News, Volume XXXIX, No. 5, should be arriving in members' mailboxes this week and its eight pages are full of news and information:

• Membership Meeting - Best Bet Web Sites - page 1
• Beyond the CGS Electronic Catalog - page 2
• New Digital Publications & Resources - page 3
• Family History Month Classes - page 4
• Lots and Lots of New Books! - page 5-6
• New Members Welcome - page 7
• Calendar of Events - page 8

The CGS News, edited by Jane Hufft and produced by Lois Elling, is published six times a year by the California Genealogical Society. An annual subscription to the bimonthly newsletter is included in a society membership ($35 per year). For membership information, visit the CGS Web site.

Feedback From "Hints on Publishing Your Family History"

Altogether, twenty-one potential authors attended last Saturday's "Hints on Publishing Your Family History" workshop presented by Shirley Pugh Thomson and Matthew Berry. Past-president, Rick Sherman, shared these comments, "I thought the publishing workshop was outstanding. I bought myself a Chicago Manual of Style that very afternoon! I was especially impressed by the good "cast chemistry" among the speakers, and by the good behavior of the audience. There were lots of valuable contributions from the audience, but no one tried to take over the session."

Shirley sent this: ""For my part, Saturday was quite a surprising day. First, I found it very hard to believe that such a large number of interested people wanted to come out for our workshop on a fine weekend day. Then, there was the high level of interest! Those writers and researchers were interested in all aspects of the process to convert good research and writing to printed and bound pages of a book. The participants, it seems, were all historians and genealogists determined to see their research, their families’ histories, their loved ones’ memoirs and papers or other writings preserved in publications to be made available to a wider family circle or to the public. The many wide-ranging questions indicated serious plans were already being considered."

Matt said "For me, Saturday’s event was my first time participating in a CGS event and I had a wonderful time meeting and talking to people. I was happy to see so many people attending and asking great questions. I am now looking forward to participating in other CGS events."

Yellow Fever in New Orleans

So what does a jaundice-producing, tropical viral illness have to do with California genealogy? Nothing, unless you happen to be an industrious Bay Area genealogist who just published her first article in the The Louisiana Genealogical Register.

CGS member Jennifer J. Regan got interested in yellow fever while researching her husband's Louisiana roots. As Regan put it, "I realized I knew little to nothing about the disease, and knowing something about it, and how it affected society, seemed interesting to me."

"Yellow Fever in New Orleans," is a thorough analysis of the social implications of the dreaded "Yellow Jack." Regan doesn't spare her readers any of the gruesome details of "life under yellow fever" and she doesn't shy away from a discussion of the role that racism and classism played in nineteenth century perceptions of the disease.

Jennifer Jones Regan, who admits to being "hooked on the Internet and the vastness of its potential," is the owner of Rainy Day Research, "a family history and genealogy service located in the San Francisco Bay Area" and the accompanying blog, Rainy Day Genealogy Readings. She is married and the mother of a toddler.

The Summer 2008 issue of the Louisiana Genealogical Register, published by the Louisiana Genealogical and Historical Society, is currently on display in the reading room at the California Genealogical Society Library. I hope you will stop by and have a good read.

Abstract:

Any genealogist researching in the delta area of Louisiana, particularly in New Orleans and its outlying communities, will benefit from a greater understanding of yellow fever. Summertime outbreaks of the pernicious "Yellow Jack" were a fact of life for early Louisiana inhabitants, and spates of the disease, when they occurred, often had monumental consequences for our ancestors. Consideration of the disease also brings to light particular social and economic realities of urban life in the South before and after the Civil War, further illuminating our understanding of the past. This article outlines a brief history of the disease, explores what an outbreak of yellow fever was really like for those who experienced it, then goes on to discuss some social dimensions of this disease, noting some specific implications for genealogical researchers.

Jennifer J. Regan, "Yellow Fever in New Orleans," Louisiana Genealogical Register, volume LV, number 1, Summer 2008, pages 87-93.