Saturday Serendipity (October 28, 2017)

After a two week absence due to family matters, Saturday Serendipity returns this week with a few recommendations for reading this weekend  .  .  .

1.  If you believe you might descend from a Mayflower passenger, or if you even have a family tree indicating such a descent, but your descent has not been verified and approved by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (GSMD), then you might be interested in a service that is offered by NEHGS (New England Historic Genealogical Society).  NEHGS is offering a Lineage Package whereby their Research Service staff will research, document, and verify your suspected Mayflower lineage if you already have the lineage, but need the supporting documentation and preparation of a membership application to the GSMD, they can provide those services for you too.  A free chart from NEHGS is provided that illustrates and documents your Mayflower descent once your application is completed. You can learn more about this service by contacting NEHGS at (888)296-3447) or by sending a Research Services Estimate request form available online here.                

2.  And speaking of NEHGS, The Weekly Genealogist newsletter of NEHGS noted this week an interesting piece in the Smithsonian blog about how deaths in Presidential families were mourned and memorialized. It is an illustrated post that you can read here.

3.  For users of Family Tree Maker (FTM2017), Russ Worthington of Family Tree Maker User blog has a post this week discussing whether you should link to a picture or use use FTM to make a copy and link from there when adding a picture to your tree.  You can read his answer and get a link to his previous post on the topic by going here.             
        
4.  "Better late than never," as they say. I am not sure how I missed this post by Marian Wood of Climbing My Family Tree blog about ten days ago, but it is an excellent idea for research to enlighten and provide context to your family history. Marian's tip?  Research places and not just names -- and Google Books can be a good place to start.  

5.  Looking for some good Halloween stories to share?  Bill West of West in New England blog continues his annual posts of Halloween tales from New England Folklore. You can read his most recent Halloween tale post here.  [Oh, and don't forget Bill's annual Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge. The deadline is coming up on November 16th.] 

6.  You invest a lot of time and effort into your family history research. And you have quite probably taken the next important step of writing it up to clarify, summarize, and preserve all that work (or you keep meaning to). Why not consider sharing that work with others by entering a genealogy writing contest? UpFront With NGS blog posted this week about this very topic and shares links to the many contests out there for you to consider. You can read the post here.       
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Copyright 2017, John D. Tew

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Saturday Serendipity (October 21, 2017)

After a two week absence due to family matters, Saturday Serendipity returns this week with a few recommendations for reading this weekend  .  .  .

1.  Heather Rojo of Nutfield Genealogy blog recently posted a very nice photo travelogue series about a trip along the Pilgrim Trail in Europe. You can see Part 6 here and get links for the previous postings.

     And as a reminder, Heather will once again be publishing contributions to her Honor Roll Project this Veterans Day.  If you are not familiar with this wonderful project, you can read more about it here. In a nutshell, Heather conceived the idea of having bloggers post photos of war memorials with transcriptions of all the names inscribed on them. Once included in the Honor Roll database, this creates a searchable database for researchers to locate ancestors and relatives that served in various wars and conflicts. I encourage you to visit the Honor Roll website to see if a memorial near you (or one you have visited and photographed) has been transcribed and contributed; if not I encourage you to consider participating next month.           

2.  As readers of this blog know, I am a user of Family Tree Maker (FTM) in conjunction with my trees on Ancestry. I am particularly drawn to the use of FTM because its sync feature allows me to keep all my work from Ancestry on my computer to function as a back-up and against the possibility (however remote) of some momentary or even more prolonged problem with my trees that otherwise exist in the Ancestry cloud.  I have periodically checked in at the blog of H.R. "Russ" Worthington, Family Tree Maker User. Russ is what might be called an FTM "power user" and if I recall correctly he was set up at last April's NERGC vendors hall frequently presenting about the new FTM 2017 by MacKiev Software and answering questions about the software.  If you are an FTM user -- or considering becoming one -- I recommend you bookmark Russ's blog and check in regularly. His most recent post (which is accessed directly at the link above until he adds a new post) is about sync times using FTM 2017.    

3.  Diane Boumenot of One Rhode Island Family blog has a post that involves the homes of some of her Ballou ancestors and relatives in Rhode Island, but it is really about the exhibit by Lori Melucci at the Blackstone Valley Historical Society that combines newly obtained historic photographs with published works containing drawings and etchings of Ballou properties, with historic maps to present a wonderful visual preservation project of times, places, and people long departed.  It is worth the read and a trip to the link to the exhibit show online even if you have no connection to Rhode Island or the Ballou family! You can access the post here and get the link to the exhibit.            
        
4.  Janine Adams of Organize Your Family History blog has an interesting piece about her methods of "going paperless" with her genealogy documents.  You can read her most recent post on the subject here and get a link to her previous discussion of her approach last March.    

5.  Ever heard of "dostadning?" Neither had I until NEHGS mentioned it this week in The Weekly Genealogist.  Long-time readers of this blog will recall that I am a self-confessed Pack Rat (see https://filiopietismprism.blogspot.com/2013/09/pack-rat-solutions-financial-advisors.html and especially see https://filiopietismprism.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-genealogical-artifact-review.html) and so I found this subject of particular interest due to my pack rat proclivities AND because I have a good, long-time friend who is Swedish (the latter reference being a clue to the word "dostadning"). I am not going to explain "dostadning," but I suggest you have a look here to learn about it and see what you think. 😀

6.  And finally, UpFront With NGS blog posted an interesting piece on copyright law allowing LIBRARIES to legally scan and make available materials published from 1923 - 1941. You can read the piece here and get links to further reading.     
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Copyright 2017, John D. Tew

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A Poem by Florence Leonette [Flagg] Cooke for the Ninth Annual Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge of Bill West (October 4, 2017)

Florence Leonette "Nettie" [Flagg] Cooke (1870 - 1904)

Next month is the "Ninth Annual Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge" conceived and hosted by Bill West of West in New England blog. Under the Challenge rules, a poem submitted for inclusion in the Challenge can "be a poem you or one of your ancestors have written." This post is my submission for the Ninth Annual Challenge and it publishes a poem written by my great grandmother, Florence Leonette Flagg (pictured above as a young adult). "Nettie," as she was always called, is the mother of my maternal grandmother, Ruth Eaton [Cooke] Carpenter.

Nettie had a short life that in many ways was tragic and I believe she turned to poetry to try to express her pain, her hope, and her discovery of respite and beauty when and where she could find it. She wrote numerous poems that are mostly sad, but they must have been cathartic for her given her experiences. I am very lucky and privileged to have several originals of her poetic writings and a few others that were transcribed by her eldest child (my grand aunt, Helen R. [Cooke] Roberts) from now lost originals. The poem in this post is one of the original poems in her handwriting that I now have in my collection.

To possibly understand where Nettie's poem originates, it is necessary to provide some brief context and background about Nettie.

Nettie was born in 1870 to George W. Flagg and his wife, Mary J. ("Jennie") Eaton.  When Nettie was just two and half years old, her mother died at age 26. And then Nettie's father died at age 35 of "phthisis" (an archaic name for tuberculosis) when Nettie was barely nine years old.

By the time of the 1880 federal census, ten-year-old Nettie Flagg was living as a "boarder" in the home of Susannah Stanley (age 69) and her daughter Frances Stanley (age 30) in Attleborough, Massachusetts. She apparently lived with the Stanleys until she married Walter W. Cooke in August 1891 in North Attleborough. She and Walter had known one another since they were children. They were both 21 years old when they married.

Nettie's original handwritten poem is shown below. Precisely when Nettie wrote the poem is unknown, but since she died in July 1904 at age 34, the poem is at least 113 years old. So far as is known, it was never published anywhere before appearing here and being submitted as part of Bill West's Ninth Annual Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge.  

When I Have Time

    By Florence Leonette "Nettie" Cooke 

 When I have time

So many things I'll do

To make life happier and more fair

For those whose lives are clouded with care

I'll help to lift them from their low despair

                                     When I have time

When I have time

Kind words and loving smiles

I'll give to those whose pathway runs thro' tears

Who see no joy in the coming years

In many ways their weary lives I'll cheer

                                        When I have time

When I have time

The one I love so well

Shall know no more these weary toilsome days

I'll lead her feet in pleasant paths always

And cheer her heart with words of sweetest praise

                                       When I have time

When you have time

The one you hold so dear

May be beyond the reach of thy sweet intent

May never know that you so kindly meant

To fill her weary life with such content

                                When you had time

Now is the time

Ah, friend No longer wait

To scatter loving smiles and words of cheer

To those around whose lives are now drear

They may not need you in the coming years

                                 Now is the time

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The photograph and handwritten original of the poem are from the personal collection of the author.

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Copyright 2017, John D. Tew

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