Old Bones Family Research of New England: March 2014

31 March 2014

The Gravestone Girls

Gravestone at Mabe Church (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This post is directed mostly at the folks living here or near Western Massachusetts. Full Disclosure: I’m promoting a presentation that will take place this Wednesday night at the April meeting of the Western Massachusetts Genealogical Society of which I am a board member. The reason is simple. I think this will be one of the most interesting presentations we’ve had in a long time! We’re hosting the Gravestone Girls.

The presentation will be held at the Agawam Senior Center, 954 Main St, Agawam, Massachusetts. There’s a little bit of Society business at 6:00 PM and then the program begins. Free and open to the public. We’d love to have you there! We’d love to have you join!!

Here’s their press release

Historic Cemetery Documentation and Mortuary Art

The Gravestone Girls’ mission is to “Keep Our Dead Alive!” We create decorative artwork using the beautiful and primitive images carved on olde New England gravestones; give lectures on cemetery art, history and symbolism as well as teach gravestone rubbing classes! Our work aims to entertain and educate on the historical perspective of old cemeteries by documenting and preserving the beautiful art they contain.

To produce our three-dimensional art pieces, we perfected a casting technique which exactly replicated the original gravestone carving. The creations in our collection are derived from 17th-21st century gravestones found in cemeteries throughout the New England region. All our pieces are hand-formed and finished in a process we specifically developed. It’s important to note that no stones are ever harmed by our techniques—preservation is our primary concern!

Artwork by The Gravestone Girls is used to decorate the home and garden, provide a resource for historical education and fundraising as well as assist people in the genealogical documentation of their ancestral gravestones. Wall hangings, jewelry, magnets, clocks and other interior and exterior pieces are the result of our artistic endeavors. We regularly make our craft available to families desiring a memento from a sacred resting place. We also develop collections of important images related to a town’s history to be used as a method to raise money for cemetery restoration projects, fund other historical related projects and help support a group’s future activities.

History lessons are a Gravestone Girls’ specialty! We regularly deliver lectures on the art, history and symbolism of gravestones and the evolution of cemeteries from the 17th century through modern day. Our programs are tailored to the town, group or organization we are speaking to; and a thorough examination of local burial grounds is conducted prior to the event. Photographs are collected from our exploration and used to build a comprehensive ninety minute presentation.

We would be honored by the opportunity to develop a special commission piece of your family’s historic gravestone, present a lecture to an organization you are involved with or participate in another aspect of your local history! Feel free to inquire!

The Gravestone Girls endeavor to help preserve a rich folk art tradition unique to our nation. We hope you are intrigued enough by our activities to investigate and expand on the special history which lives in everyone’s backyards.

Brenda Sullivan, Maggie White & Melissa Anderson

The Gravestone Girls – Putting the ‘Rave’ Back in Grave!

Anne Sullivan Memorial placque and statue, Feeding Hills, Ma, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

grave stone of James B. Stephens and wife Elizabeth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Gravestone Girls

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="75"]

Gravestone at Mabe Church (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

This post is directed mostly at the folks living here or near Western Massachusetts. Full Disclosure: I'm promoting a presentation that will take place this Wednesday night at the April meeting of the Western Massachusetts Genealogical Society of which I am a board member. The reason is simple. I think this will be one of the most interesting presentations we've had in a long time! We're hosting the Gravestone Girls.

The presentation will be held at the Agawam Senior Center, 954 Main St, Agawam, Massachusetts. There's a little bit of Society business at 6:00 PM and then the program begins. Free and open to the public. We'd love to have you there! We'd love to have you join!!

Here's their press release

Historic Cemetery Documentation and Mortuary Art

The Gravestone Girls’ mission is to "Keep Our Dead Alive!” We create decorative artwork using the beautiful and primitive images carved on olde New England gravestones; give lectures on cemetery art, history and symbolism as well as teach gravestone rubbing classes! Our work aims to entertain and educate on the historical perspective of old cemeteries by documenting and preserving the beautiful art they contain.

To produce our three-dimensional art pieces, we perfected a casting technique which exactly replicated the original gravestone carving. The creations in our collection are derived from 17th-21st century gravestones found in cemeteries throughout the New England region. All our pieces are hand-formed and finished in a process we specifically developed. It's important to note that no stones are ever harmed by our techniques—preservation is our primary concern!

Artwork by The Gravestone Girls is used to decorate the home and garden, provide a resource for historical education and fundraising as well as assist people in the genealogical documentation of their ancestral gravestones. Wall hangings, jewelry, magnets, clocks and other interior and exterior pieces are the result of our artistic endeavors. We regularly make our craft available to families desiring a memento from a sacred resting place. We also develop collections of important images related to a town’s history to be used as a method to raise money for cemetery restoration projects, fund other historical related projects and help support a group’s future activities.

History lessons are a Gravestone Girls’ specialty! We regularly deliver lectures on the art, history and symbolism of gravestones and the evolution of cemeteries from the 17^th century through modern day. Our programs are tailored to the town, group or organization we are speaking to; and a thorough examination of local burial grounds is conducted prior to the event. Photographs are collected from our exploration and used to build a comprehensive ninety minute presentation.

We would be honored by the opportunity to develop a special commission piece of your family’s historic gravestone, present a lecture to an organization you are involved with or participate in another aspect of your local history! Feel free to inquire!

The Gravestone Girls endeavor to help preserve a rich folk art tradition unique to our nation. We hope you are intrigued enough by our activities to investigate and expand on the special history which lives in everyone’s backyards.

Brenda Sullivan, Maggie White & Melissa Anderson

The Gravestone Girls - Putting the 'Rave' Back in Grave!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350"]

Anne Sullivan Memorial placque and statue, Feeding Hills, Ma, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350"]

grave stone of James B. Stephens and wife Elizabeth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

A History of Gravestones

Tour of historic South Natick gravestones to be held Sept. 14

Old gravestones tossed in Dare County dumpster

Double Dates - They're Not What You Think!

So you’ve found that elusive colonial era document and you see that your ancestor was born 22 January 1688/89. Your first impulse might be to ignore it, or maybe just assume that someone in the 17th century wasn’t really sure of the exact year.

Actually, 1688/89 is absolutely correct! But it’s a little complicated to explain. (There’s a small but clever chart toward the end that will help explain). Way back in the early Roman Empire, those BCE years, civilization had a difficult time keeping a calendar year lasting, well, a calendar year. In the very early days, September, which has a root root meaning “7″, was the 7th month. Thus, October, 8th month; November 9th month; December, 10th month. You see, the problem was that 10 months of 30 days or so each didn’t “last” a full year based on the very natural occurrence of the vernal equinox. So the powers that be would do the simplest thing they could: Add however many days you needed to keep this running smoothly. However, things didn’t really run smoothly.

So, the length of the year is finally long enough to last a year, right? Wrong! So again, the empire took the easy way out: If you need to add a few days here, a few days there, no problem. As long as the pesky calendar would last a full year! After all, they had to perform certain rituals at certain times of the year to appease the gods. You had to keep the gods happy for a whole spectrum of reasons: no flooding, bountiful crops, fertility, natural disasters like volcanoes (Where did the good people of Pompeii do wrong?) and various other human calamities.

The irregularity affected so many aspects of life in the empire, that somebody had to do something. Along comes the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. First we have a good reason to add at least 2 months to the calendar: July for Julius and August for Augustus. We can discuss exactly how these came about but it’s not to important for this discussion. But Julius was responsible for many great achievements, he’s also credited for the Julian Calendar. 12 months, 365 days with a leap year every four years.

Fixed? No! After a few centuries, they began to realize that a year was now a year plus! How did they know? Back to the natural arrival of the vernal equinox. It was off by about 10 days in 1582. By the 16th century, the addition of approximately 3 days every 400 years was once again causing havoc with the calendar. So along comes Pope Gregory and his advisers. They actually shortened the year and made a huge one time adjustment. Suffice to say that what we now know as the Gregorian Calendar works, sort of. But that’s yet another story. We have to get back to our double dates or no one will finish reading this post!

Most European countries adopted the Gregorian Calendar with the notable exception of the British Empire. Remember that “thing” between Henry VIII and Rome? The English were not ready to jump on a plan that was generated by theRoman Catholic Church. So the British Empire including all of her colonies were staunch Julians. Also, a big factor in double dates had to do with a simple problem: When did the new year start? With all the Gregorian adapters, January 1st was the conventional start of the new year. But those cheeky English continued to celebrate the new year on March 25th, or “Lady’s Day”.

So we’re finally at the end of the story and I’m ready to put the last pieces in the puzzle. If the British considered March 25th the new year, but everybody else considered January 1st the new year, then it makes sens that some people thought that 22 January 1688 was really 1689 because January 1st was the start of the new year; 1688 became 1689. But the British considered January 22nd to be 1688 because the new year, 1689, didn’t start until March 25th. To part of the world, January 22nd was 1688 and to everyone else January 22nd was 1689. Thus, you’ll see January 22nd written “22 January 1688/89″ or “January 22, 1688/89″.

Because the British new year was March 25th, double dates are only used from approximately 1582 until 1752 and only on the days between January 1st (The new style new year) to March 24th (The 25th was old style new year).

Why 1752? That’s the year the British finally adopted the Gregorian calendar for the entire empire including the American colonies. Maybe this will help:

A couple of “small” details: 1) The change in calendar necessitated that 12 days would vanish! The day after September 2, 1752 was September 14, 1752; 2) Russia didn’t “Go Gregorian” until 1918. The Russian Empire kept itself pretty much isolated for a very long time! They also had a little problem with Rome. Then they had this revolution problem! 3) Greece (finally) converted in the 1920′s a little after their revolution problems…

30 March 2014

Double Dates - They're Not What You Think!

So you've found that elusive colonial era document and you see that your ancestor was born 22 January 1688/89. Your first impulse might be to ignore it, or maybe just assume that someone in the 17th century wasn't really sure of the exact year.

Actually, 1688/89 is absolutely correct! But it's a little complicated to explain. (There's a small but clever chart toward the end that will help explain). Way back in the early Roman Empire, those BCE years, civilization had a difficult time keeping a calendar year lasting, well, a calendar year. In the very early days, September, which has a root root meaning "7", was the 7th month. Thus, October, 8th month; November 9th month; December, 10th month. You see, the problem was that 10 months of 30 days or so each didn't "last" a full year based on the very natural occurrence of the vernal equinox. So the powers that be would do the simplest thing they could: Add however many days you needed to keep this running smoothly. However, things didn't really run smoothly.

So, the length of the year is finally long enough to last a year, right? Wrong! So again, the empire took the easy way out: If you need to add a few days here, a few days there, no problem. As long as the pesky calendar would last a full year! After all, they had to perform certain rituals at certain times of the year to appease the gods. You had to keep the gods happy for a whole spectrum of reasons: no flooding, bountiful crops, fertility, natural disasters like volcanoes (Where did the good people of Pompeii do wrong?) and various other human calamities.

The irregularity affected so many aspects of life in the empire, that somebody had to do something. Along comes the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. First we have a good reason to add at least 2 months to the calendar: July for Julius and August for Augustus. We can discuss exactly how these came about but it's not to important for this discussion. But Julius was responsible for many great achievements, he's also credited for the Julian Calendar. 12 months, 365 days with a leap year every four years.

Fixed? No! After a few centuries, they began to realize that a year was now longer than a year should be. How did they know? Back to the natural arrival of the vernal equinox. It was off by about 10 days in 1582. By the 16th century, the addition of approximately 3 days every 400 years was once again causing havoc with the calendar. So along comes Pope Gregory and his advisers. They actually shortened the year and made a huge one time adjustment. Suffice to say that what we now know as the Gregorian Calendar works, sort of. But that's yet another story. We have to get back to our double dates or no one will finish reading this post!

Most European countries adopted the Gregorian Calendar with the notable exception of the British Empire. Remember that "thing" between Henry VIII and Rome? The English were not ready to jump on a plan that was generated by the Roman Catholic Church. So the British Empire including all of her colonies were staunch Julians. Also, a big factor in double dates had to do with a simple problem: When did the new year start? With all the Gregorian adapters, January 1st was the conventional start of the new year. But those cheeky English continued to celebrate the new year on March 25th, or "Lady's Day".

So we're finally at the end of the story and I'm ready to put the last pieces in the puzzle. If the British considered March 25th the new year, but everybody else considered January 1st the new year, then it makes sens that some people thought that 22 January 1688 was really 1689 because January 1st was the start of the new year; 1688 became 1689. But the British considered January 22nd to be 1688 because the new year, 1689, didn't start until March 25th. To part of the world, January 22nd was 1688 and to everyone else January 22nd was 1689. Thus, you'll see January 22nd written "22 January 1688/89" or "January 22, 1688/89".

Because the British new year was March 25th, double dates are only used from approximately 1582 until 1752 and only on the days between January 1st (The new style new year) to March 24th (The 25th was old style new year).

Why 1752? That's the year the British finally adopted the Gregorian calendar for the entire empire including the American colonies. Maybe this will help:

A couple of "small" details: 1) The change in calendar necessitated that 12 days would vanish! The day after September 2, 1752 was September 14, 1752; 2) Russia didn't "Go Gregorian" until 1918. The Russian Empire kept itself pretty much isolated for a very long time! They also had a little problem with Rome. Then they had this revolution problem! 3) Greece (finally) converted in the 1920's a little after their revolution problems...

The Day the Church Altered Time

The Transition to the Gregorian Calendar

Russian Julian Calendar

The ancient origins of new year's celebrations

The geopolitics of the Gregorian calendar

Lessons in Marketing a Genealogist's Website

Although I had to drive about 200 miles round trip to Boston last month, it was worth it and I’d do it again. I belong to the New England Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists. We call it simply NEAPG. That’s a lot easier to get off your tongue! As a matter of fact, I happen to be this year’s vice president. It seems to be just like Joe Biden, who doesn’t seem to have a lot of “real” responsibilities, he just has to try to stay out of trouble!

The big focus for me today was a presentation by fellow genealogist, Marian Pierre-Louis. She’s well suited to today’s subject matter which had to do with marketing your website: Getting focused, making a business plan, using the internet to your advantage and, my biggest mystery, social media.

Last week, the membership was asked to volunteer their websites for Marian’s critique at today’s meeting. Since I just rehashed my own, I wanted to get someone who knows a whole lot more than I do about such mysteries to help me get it polished up. I had no idea how many offered their sites or if she’d pick mine.

website ideas (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

Well, she picked 3 sites, largely because I think that only 3 people offered to participate. Luckily, my site was one of the 3. Well, I learned a great deal about structuring my web site. Truth be known, I had already done a lot of things right! But she had some very helpful insights to tweak it up. For example, she thought I had too many pages, visitors would have to click too many times to get to what I wanted them to see. So, tonight, and it’s well after midnight, I just finished restructuring the largest part of what she suggested I do. I’ve got a few more issues to remedy.

But I was particularly glad that she covered blogs, Facebook, Twitter and a couple of other social media issues. I’m not ready to talk much about it tonight. But I plan on re-reading my notes, tweaking all the sites where I want a presence and watching to see if it impacts the results. Then I can talk about what she suggested, what I did and how well it worked.

I will say that after the first week or so of working this new site, I contracted with a new client out of California. I asked the client, for the sake of knowing which marketing was working for me, how did they find me. They said they simply searched Google for a professional genealogist in this area and my site popped up first!! Not bad for an amateur webmaster!

29 March 2014

First Cousins? Second Cousins? Once Removed? Always Removed!!

In my class on genealogy research, I try to spend some time on relationships. Truthfully, I have family tree software that calculates how I’m related to the 39,700 people in my data base. Really? 39,700??? Yes, really. Many of my maternal lines go as far as Plymouth Colony (Yes, there’s a Mayflower or two in the mix) And you know those folks from way back before TV and the internet….they had kids, lots of kids! So those fecund families spread their names far and wide across this country. That also holds true for my paternal lines. My direct great grandfathers were mostly in Alabama andTennessee but their progenitor, I believe, was an early 1700′s Scotch-Irish immigrant who may have settled first in New England and then gradually migrated south. (Oh….”fecund”…it’s not a bad word but I challenge you to look it up…I just never get a chance to use it!!)

But I digress. Archives.com has published an excellent article that describes in simple terms what those simple terms mean: First cousin, once removed, third cousin 4 times removed and so forth. I won’t get into “Mother-In-Law of the 7th cousin twice removed of the grandson of the 3rd cousin three times removed” but they’re out there.

Anyway, click the “Archives” link above and see if that’s a description you can live with. I also have a chart by Alice J Ramsey that you might like to look at. I can e-mail that to you by you requesting it at dave@oldbones.info.

Have fun!

Neanderthals: They walk among us!

One of the surprises that came with my 23andMe DNA profile was a small reference to the fact that I'm walking around (upright I might add!) with as much as 3% Neanderthal DNA! I can't say that I wasn't surprised, but it made me think of a cartoon that my kids colored for me about 25 years ago. It's a "custom made" Father's Day card of sorts.

Now, how did my kids know 25 years ago that their father was a Neanderthal? I thought it was pretty ironic. I was also a little surprised that I could put my hands on the drawing. When I showed them what I had found and why it was so suddenly appropriate, each had their own unique response, for example, "No kidding!" and other marginally complimentary comments.

I heard an NPR radio broadcast today about the Max Planck research that supported the findings. And the more I read about the significance of these 21st century discoveries, the more I believe this is another case of the naivete of the scientific community. Or at least their slow move to embrace new concepts. It goes without saying that the current, cutting edge theories maintain that Neanderthal wasn't an oafish, bent over, club wielding, thick browed, grunting cave man. On the contrary. We're getting close to the belief that their "culture" was quite advanced. There is strong physical evidence that they were able to communicate, although not in the way we would imagine. Their voices have actually been predicted by modeling the construction of their necks and where and how all the mechanics of speech would have worked. The idea that they "disappeared" is being revised to posit that early humans (Homo Sapien or Cro Magnon) are very likely to have intermingled with Neanderthal but for a variety of reasons, the Neanderthal took a back seat to the development of the species.

: English: First reconstruction of Neanderthal man Español: Primera reconstrucción del Hombre de Neandertal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Much of the current thinking is that Neanderthal branched out from the same species from which we descend. In other words, 2 separate branches or species. There are any number of species of proto-humans such as Homo Afrigensis and others. With this new "blending" theory, it would seem that the two branches actually came back together a mere 200,000 to 250,000 years after the original split.

Well, below is a link to one of the many articles available to explain all this paleoanthropology that I can barely spell, much less completely understand. In addition, I'm reading Chip Walter's "Last Ape Standing: The seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived" which, although filled with scientific data, is pretty interesting and easy to read. It's available at Amazon.com in hardcover, paperback and Kindle. (I use the Kindle editions because their so much cheaper! I read them on my Android or on my laptop. I'm getting accustomed to not having pages to turn.)

Neanderthals: Their genes walk among us. (And links to other articles at the bottom)

Now some of the people I know have looked at me with incredulity when I talk about my new found heritage. It sort of puts a new spin on my genealogy research! They seem to think that this new data goes a long way to explain what makes me tick... I just don't let them get too carried away!

: English: Max Planck (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

31 March 2014

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