I have been away for a couple of weeks while one of my daughters gave birth to a new granddaughter, another leaf on my family tree! There were some issues, though not medical, really. This was not her first child and normally, the 'due date' is fairly accurate, usually within a day or two or three. Obstetrical science has progressed, the technology is marvelous, and the science behind it amazing. Yet it remains a huge unknown; Mother Nature and a woman's body are the final determinants as to when birth will occur, not medical know-how.
In my daughter's case, that meant my leaving her house after a 10-day stay without having had the opportunity to hold my new granddaughter after birth.
It also meant I missed the birth by 24 hours! Twenty. Four. Hours.
Ah, if only...
But 'if only' does not count, so now I am back home and at this family search business, which I have worked on for a couple of years.
I have enjoyed my activities immensely. I have learned many things about my ancestors going back several generations. I have learned things about my immediate grandparents that completely shocked me and changed the preconceived memories I have always had about their pasts. I have learned things about where they came from in England - eventually, I hope to get to Ireland, too, but that will have to wait because validated facts about my Irish ancestry are in very short supply.
In short, I have learned some of the Who, Where, When about some of the people in my past I either did not know well (because I was brought up a Third Culture Kid overseas, the son of a US diplomat) or did not know at all (because of their deaths.) I have been contacted by and am in touch with the only cousin I know about, a second cousin who remembers me and my family from my childhood. I still can barely explain the excitement I feel just knowing her, even though I have no memory of us ever meeting.
Those factors, combined with my insatiable curiosity and drive to fill in the blanks - chasms, really - in my past, have led me to wonder more about the What and Why parts of my ancestors' pasts. What made my ancestors do what they did? Why did they do what they did (beyond the 'improve life for us' immigration issue.) What did they do when they were there, wherever that was? What was going on in their neighborhood, town, state, country, at the time? What did they have to do with the adults of some children whose names I recall from my pre-Middle East life?
The pressing question now is:
Should I continue "going long," meaning going farther and farther back into my past? I will fill out my family tree with names, dates, and places. But that is pretty much all I will be doing...filling in those chasms. I would not know much about the individuals belonging to those names.
Or do I change tack slightly and start "going deep," meaning do I spend more time, energy, and probably money going deeper into the individuals that I already know?
To me, that is akin to putting more leaves on my family tree - as my daughter has just done with the birth of my granddaughter, Charlotte - instead of focusing on adding branches in faraway places like Ireland.
I need your help, dear readers, of all kinds. I do not want to become a semi-professional genealogist; I am still doing this for me, but I am also aware enough of my own personality to know that I will never be able to stop; I never have enough information.
I would like the input of friends, family, the genealogists, professional or not, who have been doing this much longer than me and really anyone reading who might have greater insight into the Who, What, Where, When, and Why, factors involved in climbing up ones family tree.
So let me know. Write a comment. Send me an email. Find a carrier pigeon. Use a smoke signal or semaphore, though, honestly, they probably will not work very well.
Let me hear from you!
Showing posts with label Thompson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thompson. Show all posts
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Who is who in this tree?
As promised, in this post I will name names.
But things are rarely as easy as they seem. So far in this chapter of my story, I have made many formatting changes and content revisions, which is to be expected considering this is a written document. In the interest of getting a product to the 'finished' stage, however, I finally decided on what you are about to read.
First, I decided on content. The one rule and other conventions I will follow are:
James Michael Wilkinson; born 1949, Nashua, New Hampshire.
But things are rarely as easy as they seem. So far in this chapter of my story, I have made many formatting changes and content revisions, which is to be expected considering this is a written document. In the interest of getting a product to the 'finished' stage, however, I finally decided on what you are about to read.
First, I decided on content. The one rule and other conventions I will follow are:
- The one rule: Except for me, I will not name any living relative, which is easy enough and will not take away from my project. All people 'above me' in the tree are deceased; only my siblings, my children, and their children remain alive. To protect their privacy, I will not name them or give any identifiable information about them.
- Birth names are used. Unless otherwise specified, a reader can assume a woman's married last name is the same as her male partner's. Example: My paternal grandparents, Fred and Minnie Wilkinson, shown below.
- Names, spellings, and dates have been verified by at least two separate genealogical source. Considering I have no written history from my ancestors, this has been a challenge. In some cased, determining the "correct" spelling has become a major focus of my journey, even though my family's names are very common and English-based. Example: My paternal grandfather, Fred Wilkinson, appears in some records as Frederick, though not enough to make me wonder if that was his true name; I always knew him a Grampy Fred and my father's name is Fred, not Frederick.
James Michael Wilkinson; born 1949, Nashua, New Hampshire.
- Siblings: Two brothers and two sisters;
- Children: six biological children; four step-children;
- Grandchildren: more than 10;
- Great-grandchildren: None ... yet.
- Since they are all alive, I will not identify any of these people.
- Fred James Wilkinson; born May 3, 1927, Wilton, NH. Died Aug 19, 1990
- Beverly Lorraine Burke; born Nov 22, 1928, Nashua, NH. Died Oct 30, 1987
- John Frances Burke; born July 4, 1891, Wilton, NH. Died Jan 28, 1963
- Nina Lillian Thompson; born Oct 23, 1901, Quebec, Canada. Died Aug 30, 1979
- Fred Wilkinson (no middle name); born Jan 16, 1901, Yorkshire, England. Died Jul 27, 1993
- Minnie Batty (no middle name); born Mar 9, 1898, Lancashire, England. Died May 3, 1968 (she passed away on her son's (my Dad's) 41st birthday)
Next time, I will explain how I learned about these relatives, the sources I used, and any roadblocks I encountered. The search becomes much more complicated and time-consuming as I move back into my past, but there is excitement, too, as I learn about relatives I never heard of in my childhood and those who were close to me when I was young but never met.
Until then, I continue my own climb up my family tree!
Monday, January 16, 2017
Why do this now?
According to professional genealogist Heather Wilkinson Rojo, there are two main Wilkinson lines in New England: the line from which she came and the line from which I came. Hers is much longer and much more New England-based; she can trace her ancestors back to the Pilgrims. On the other hand, my ancestors came to the United States in the wave of European immigrants in the early 20th Century.
So why am I doing this? Why now? The answer is simple and complex.
I am a 68-year old unmarried federal retiree. When I retired on December 31, 2011, I thought of ways to spend the rest of my life "not working" but doing what I wanted to do. I am not much of a television or movie fan and I read a lot, so I created a "bucket list" of skills I wanted to develop plus tasks and 'stuff' I wanted to do.
Learning to drive a truck was on the list and was the first new skill I learned. I grew up the son of a US diplomat in the Middle East, so traveling was really in my blood. It seemed like the traveling over-the-road in an 18-wheeler just fit and for four years, it worked...until the day I decided I had 'checked the block' and stopped. My last day driving a truck was October 17, 2016
After retirement, while I was "cleaning, clearing, and culling the herd, I found a shoebox (a real old-timey shoebox!) filled with pictures and mementos sent to me years ago after my only aunt, my mother's only sibling, passed away. My sister was the executrix of her estate and the box was addressed to me. The pictures were of people I did not recognize. Some of them had notations on the back with names I had heard growing up and I wanted to know who these people were to me.
About the same time that I found those pictures, Ancestry.com began to ramp up its advertising budget as it branched out. I have been told that their executives saw a market in the Baby Boomer Generation - I was born in 1949, so I am an early Boomer. Somehow, I came across either one of their advertisements or a link to their site online. I clicked, typed in my grandfather's name, and my journey up my family tree began.
Next time, I will name names! Until then, thank you for reading and following along. If you have any suggestions of criticisms, please comment. As I said, I love reading. I read everything!
- The four family names in my Wilkinson family tree are: Wilkinson, from my father and his father; Burke, from my mother and her father; Batty, from my paternal grandmother; and Thompson, from my maternal grandmother. My paternal line came straight to the United States from England and my maternal line came here through Canada. Tracing those lines has been exciting and really changed what I thought I knew about my grandparents; learning the true story, of course, is part of the excitement.
- After the death of my paternal grandmother, my grandfather remarried a woman he knew from Wilton, Alyce. Because she is not a "blood" relative, I have chosen not to consider Alyce in my own family tree...for now.
So why am I doing this? Why now? The answer is simple and complex.
I am a 68-year old unmarried federal retiree. When I retired on December 31, 2011, I thought of ways to spend the rest of my life "not working" but doing what I wanted to do. I am not much of a television or movie fan and I read a lot, so I created a "bucket list" of skills I wanted to develop plus tasks and 'stuff' I wanted to do.
Learning to drive a truck was on the list and was the first new skill I learned. I grew up the son of a US diplomat in the Middle East, so traveling was really in my blood. It seemed like the traveling over-the-road in an 18-wheeler just fit and for four years, it worked...until the day I decided I had 'checked the block' and stopped. My last day driving a truck was October 17, 2016
After retirement, while I was "cleaning, clearing, and culling the herd, I found a shoebox (a real old-timey shoebox!) filled with pictures and mementos sent to me years ago after my only aunt, my mother's only sibling, passed away. My sister was the executrix of her estate and the box was addressed to me. The pictures were of people I did not recognize. Some of them had notations on the back with names I had heard growing up and I wanted to know who these people were to me.
- As an aside, my family and I left my parents' hometown, Wilton, New Hampshire, in 1959 when he was posted to Amman, Jordan. We only returned once or twice for 3-month home leave periods. During those times, I was put in school with other students I did not know. Even though Wilton was then and is now a very small town, I always felt like an outsider. As I got older, learning about my past became more important to me.
- When we returned after my Dad resigned from Foreign Service, we relocated as a family to Lexington, Massachusetts, not Wilton.
About the same time that I found those pictures, Ancestry.com began to ramp up its advertising budget as it branched out. I have been told that their executives saw a market in the Baby Boomer Generation - I was born in 1949, so I am an early Boomer. Somehow, I came across either one of their advertisements or a link to their site online. I clicked, typed in my grandfather's name, and my journey up my family tree began.
Next time, I will name names! Until then, thank you for reading and following along. If you have any suggestions of criticisms, please comment. As I said, I love reading. I read everything!
Sunday, January 15, 2017
My family tree - and why and how I do this
This is the kick-off entry to my new Wilkinson Family-related blog. I want to give you, my reader, some background and an sense of where I hope to take this.
First, me. I am neither a professional nor a trained genealogist. Like many others, I am interested in my own family's history. As I age, where I "came from" becomes more important and because my parents and grandparents left no written records of their own past - no family Holy Books, for example - I am left to my own devices on how to discover my past.
I come from two immigrant families, Burke/Thompson (my maternal line) and Wilkinson/Batty (my paternal line). From early childhood, I believed all four of my grandparents emigrated to the USA during the early part of the 20th Century, a time when millions of Europeans came here to settle and work. My grandparents came from England, Scotland, and Ireland and like many others, settled in Hillsborough County in southern New Hampshire in basically the Wilton-Peterborough-Lyndeborough town area to work in various mills and factories there.
My purpose is to describe what I have done so far and explain the steps, stops, stumbles, and roadblocks I, like every other person, have and will experience on my trek up my family tree. I have learned interesting facts that support and conflict with what I "knew" about them as I grew up. I will share those in later posts. I hope to inspire other beginner-level genealogists and anyone wanting to learn a bit more about their own history. I hope to trace my journey in some detail but there will have to be some parts left out. I will not clearly identify my children or grandchildren and will do what I can to protect the identity of any living person. That should be easy enough to do because most genealogy sites do not provide identifying details about any living person for obvious security reasons. Going back, however, I will be specific as to names, places, and details I learn. I am open to hearing from more experienced genealogists of all levels, professional or not. If you have tips, recommendations, corrections or other input on my posts, the Comment section is available for your use. I will read each one.
These details become critically important to validate anything one learns. After a 30-year career as a federal investigator, I know "facts" must be verified before they assume any credibility. As online access to genealogy records becomes more widespread, more people create family trees and begin populating them. Some are private and hidden. Some, like mine, are public and visible. The problem comes when a public, visible tree gets populated with inaccurate, unverified information and links. That inaccurate information then possibly gets shared with other family trees, thus spreading erroneous genealogical information. I have experienced that and hope to minimize my own sharing by validating what I can to the best of my ability and within the limits of my resources.
Climbing ones family tree is time-consuming and can be expensive. Depending on all sorts of external factors, the expense and time can be quite burdensome. I am retired and on fixed income, so I am not able to do what I really want to do: travel to Ireland and England to search records and places in person. My expenses come from paying for membership in genealogical record repositories and, from time to time, sending off for copies of documents the details of which are not included in online records I find.
For me, this exercise has become quite addictive. After having done this for a couple of years, I have a much better, though far from clear, picture of my grandparents. As I mentioned, my own ancestors left no records of their immigration and lives and I have precious few photographs. Following the clues to their journey has been frustrating, slow, and always exciting. In my own way, I hope to leave a trail for my own offspring to follow as they age. Hopefully, the trail of breadcrumbs I leave will stay in place and available for many years.
First, me. I am neither a professional nor a trained genealogist. Like many others, I am interested in my own family's history. As I age, where I "came from" becomes more important and because my parents and grandparents left no written records of their own past - no family Holy Books, for example - I am left to my own devices on how to discover my past.
I come from two immigrant families, Burke/Thompson (my maternal line) and Wilkinson/Batty (my paternal line). From early childhood, I believed all four of my grandparents emigrated to the USA during the early part of the 20th Century, a time when millions of Europeans came here to settle and work. My grandparents came from England, Scotland, and Ireland and like many others, settled in Hillsborough County in southern New Hampshire in basically the Wilton-Peterborough-Lyndeborough town area to work in various mills and factories there.
My purpose is to describe what I have done so far and explain the steps, stops, stumbles, and roadblocks I, like every other person, have and will experience on my trek up my family tree. I have learned interesting facts that support and conflict with what I "knew" about them as I grew up. I will share those in later posts. I hope to inspire other beginner-level genealogists and anyone wanting to learn a bit more about their own history. I hope to trace my journey in some detail but there will have to be some parts left out. I will not clearly identify my children or grandchildren and will do what I can to protect the identity of any living person. That should be easy enough to do because most genealogy sites do not provide identifying details about any living person for obvious security reasons. Going back, however, I will be specific as to names, places, and details I learn. I am open to hearing from more experienced genealogists of all levels, professional or not. If you have tips, recommendations, corrections or other input on my posts, the Comment section is available for your use. I will read each one.
These details become critically important to validate anything one learns. After a 30-year career as a federal investigator, I know "facts" must be verified before they assume any credibility. As online access to genealogy records becomes more widespread, more people create family trees and begin populating them. Some are private and hidden. Some, like mine, are public and visible. The problem comes when a public, visible tree gets populated with inaccurate, unverified information and links. That inaccurate information then possibly gets shared with other family trees, thus spreading erroneous genealogical information. I have experienced that and hope to minimize my own sharing by validating what I can to the best of my ability and within the limits of my resources.
Climbing ones family tree is time-consuming and can be expensive. Depending on all sorts of external factors, the expense and time can be quite burdensome. I am retired and on fixed income, so I am not able to do what I really want to do: travel to Ireland and England to search records and places in person. My expenses come from paying for membership in genealogical record repositories and, from time to time, sending off for copies of documents the details of which are not included in online records I find.
For me, this exercise has become quite addictive. After having done this for a couple of years, I have a much better, though far from clear, picture of my grandparents. As I mentioned, my own ancestors left no records of their immigration and lives and I have precious few photographs. Following the clues to their journey has been frustrating, slow, and always exciting. In my own way, I hope to leave a trail for my own offspring to follow as they age. Hopefully, the trail of breadcrumbs I leave will stay in place and available for many years.
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