Notable is the Clerk

 

Uncle Peg’s Chronicles

April 27, 2023

“Notable is the Clerk”

 

 

 

This photo of Karl Holmes made me smile this week. It’s just so . . . Karl. He and Pauline are taking in the pubs and castles in England. I am enjoying Pauline’s virtual tour.

 

~

 

I still cannot update my Family Tree Maker Program.

 

 

Number of pages in Outline Descendant Report: 163, up from 161.

Number of pages in the basic Descendant Report: 246 (up from 246 last chronicle)

 

Francis Holmes is # 1. I am still # 339.

Jonathan Marquez (Frances Anne Holmes Ballantyne line) is last at # 503.

# 502, where he was last week, is now Derrick Hurde.

This should change weekly, if I’m doing my job.

 

 

Stats and Introductions

 

The names I drew last week are:

 

·         Neil Duncan is still # 332.

·         Heather Duncan Kervin is still # 457.

 

New this week are Michelle Gardner and Brenda Marquez.

 

 

Michelle Gardner is # 469 and is in the Charles R Holmes line. I know Michelle well, as she is my niece, daughter of my brother, Paul. I remember holding her in my arms at the airport, as Paul and Ruth were waiting to board the plane that would take them to Alaska for many years. I remember holding her infant daughter, Lauren, and playing with her older sister, Megan, at West Point, where several of us gathered at West Point for nephew and cousin and grandson James Booth’s graduation. All of a sudden, Megan is graduating high school this year. How did that happen? Michelle is the wife of Dr. Ren Garder, and they make their home in Tennessee, a long way and change in weather from Alaska.

 

Brenda Marquez is # 485 and is in the Fanny Holmes Ballantyne line. We used to talk quite a bit years ago. She’s extraordinary, as far as I’m concerned. Checked out her recent Facebook and I think she’s pretty busy; quiet lately, but her profile is a butterfly sitting on her hand and in a recent header photo, she’s wearing her hard hat and safety vest and standing beside the heavy equipment piece she operates, and she’s almost as tall as the tire: an apt gentle fierce combination of a woman who loves her babes and her ancestors. Not sure if she still drives her motorcycle or not, but I bet she does. Brenda is the daughter of Stephen Riggs and Carol Wilson, and has four grown children – Jonathan, Raquel, Katrina and Derrick.

 

Watch for your name.

 

~

 

My genealogy goals for this week were:

 

·         Chronicle several times, and publish on Thursday morning.

·         Add a few more people to the tree so the stats move.

·         Finish researching and writing about Jonathan Maltbie for the “Where There’s a Will” article.

·         Complete the William Holmes line for the Lincoln Historical Society.

·         Continue indexing old New Brunswick obituaries and death notices for the NBGS website project.

·         Get ready to scan Uncle Billy’s guest book for the NBGS website.

·         Get ready for the AGM for NBGS and for our branch, both in May.

I worked on revising the Jonathan and Abigail (Holmes) Maltbie article – such a sad story. I am also done revising and cutting and should be able to get the short version off to News and Notes by the end of the month.  I worked on the newspaper index a bit. I sent the tentative program off to our board of directors for the provincial AGM for their approval. I also went down a rabbit trail that is not Holmes related and found a murdered relative in a collateral line.

From the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick:

 

Daniel F. Johnson : Volume 66 Number 3908

Date April 12 1887
County Saint John
Place Saint John
Newspaper The Daily Telegraph

Woodstock, April 11 - Today Daniel DULEY of Florenceville (Carleton Co.) was brought before Police Magistrate Dibblee to undergo preliminary examination on a serious charge. At an early hour one day last fall, John LOVELY was found lying beneath the Florenceville bridge, fatally injured. He died soon after being found. The circumstances seemed to indicate he had received foul play. Duley was arrested on suspicion of having caused Lovely's death.

 

I remember Dad telling me we had Lovely relatives. This man died long before Dad was born; probably that is why he did not mention the story to me.

~

My special thanks this week to Brenda (Holmes) Batchelor for editing my article for my newsletter for our branch of the New Brunswick Genealogical Society. Editors are as important as clerks.

~

Here is Mary Ellen, in her new, comfy outfit. Her sister, Theresa, along with her husband and son, came for a visit and brought her a gift. An excerpt from her sister’s Facebook post.

“Saturday April 22, 2023

My wonderful Husband Richard & l and our oldest son Richie took a long ride down to make a surprise visit to see our Beautiful Sister Mary Ellen! As you all know, she is residing in a rehab down in Wareham!

I bought her a light orange lounge set. She opened up my gift and her eyes were just lit up like a Christmas tree - she absolutely loved her gift! The nurses came in and we helped her put them on, she got out of bed with help and sat in the wheelchair and visited with us! I tell you it brought tears to my eyes to see her so happy and such a positive outlook about her life and what the future holds! With lots of hugs and kisses and several photographs we had an awesome time together. I seriously wanted to take her home!

I did not want to leave! She gave me a copy of her son Dan’s book! ‘THE ASSET MINDSET.’ “

 

~

 

I look forward to the arrival of my brother and sister, Paul and Pat, tomorrow, for a few days: A Three Peas adventure – no definite plans. Hopefully they won’t freeze.

~

Last week I posted the introduction to my Maltbie story. Today, I give you the conclusion. The story is still eight pages long. I need to cut it to three, plus endnotes. I’ll have the entire edited tale for you next week.

“Important to the entire process of executing a last will and testament are the executor/executrix, judge, witnesses, administrator, inventory takers, distributors, and clerk. Notable is the clerk, for if his handwriting was not legible, the documents are useless. Also important is their consistency and length of service, for their handwriting becomes familiar. Another clerk in another generation writes somewhat differently, and we must adapt our eyes to different writing. Writers of this era all wrote in a similar hand. As centuries went by, people tended to have more unique handwriting.

Jonathan Maltbie Sr, clerk and father and father-in-law of Jonathan Maltbie Jr and Abigail Holmes, kept the town and probate records of Stamford. When he passed, Left Charles Webb, clerk, recorded his will and probate documents. Left John Davenport, clerk, recorded Sarah Maltbie’s intestate papers. When Jonathan III and his wife, Elizabeth Allen, died, Samuel Rowland, their son-in-law, recorded the details. Although Webb and Davenport were not family members to my knowledge, they would have been familiar with the Maltbies and other residents of the towns of Stamford and Fairfield.  It must have been an emotional task to record the probate records of old communities.

There seems to have been no excuse for mourning. These men were appointed to the court: they were literate, in an era when that was rare. They did what they had to do. And what they did was of utmost importance to future genealogists and historians.”

~

I believe that “Left” is the British abbreviation of Lieutenant. (This story took place before and a few years after the Revolution, so they probably still had the British accent and Britishisms.) Back in the day, there were twenty-four letters in the alphabet. “I” and “j” were used interchangeably, as were “u” and “v”. I think the “v” slurred into an “f” sound. Also, my Dad always said “Leftenant” rather than “Lieutenant.” If anyone definitely knows differently for the meaning of Left in front of the names, please let me know.

Unlike our direct Holmes ancestors, Jonathan was not a Loyalist. The Revolutionary War divided our family.

This is a recent photo (see the link due to copyright) and story of the home of distant cousin Jonathan Maltbie III. “On July 7-8, 1779, the Red Coats marched through Fairfield torching houses to punish the locals for seeking independence. They killed locals, destroying anything they could find on their way out, setting fires to homes and civic buildings around the Green. This home was built by Isaac Tucker, later sold to Jonathan Maltbie, sea captain involved with East Indies trade. He later would fight against the British during the Revolution, and after the war, was hired as captain on one of the first cutter ships built, the Argus. During the British invasion of Fairfield, they attempted to set fire to this home three times, but it seemed to never go up in flames when they returned. The tradition holds that an elderly servant, hiding upstairs, put out the flames and saved the house from destruction, after the British Troops torched it. Burn marks apparently remain inside to this day. Since the home was built, the front door facing the street was relocated to the side, and a large multi-pane bay window was installed in its place.”

https://buildingsofnewengland.com/2020/11/07/captain-john-maltbie-house-1766/

Another story in more detail: https://www.theconnecticutsociety.org/maltbie-jonathan/

~

 

Historywill teach us many lessons if we let it.

How Would They Feel About Us?

 

Uncle Peg’s Chronicles

April 20, 2023

“How Would They Feel About Us”

 

This week has been a Facebook watch along of two families who sit vigil, waiting the final breaths of their loved ones. One is a man about my age, and one is a 102-year-old woman. They are not in our family. I feel sad and blessed to read of their journeys, and I think too of my vigil with Mum last year.

 

The heart of genealogy is not those vital statistical dates – birth marriage death – but the individual who lived and breathed and fathered or gave birth and loved and hurt and rejoiced and cried and now rests, perhaps below a stone bearing his or her name. What legacy did they leave us? How do we feel about them as we learn about their lives. Do we feel that we could have loved them if we knew them? Are we ashamed to be their descendant? More importantly – as I read recently – how would they feel about us?

 

~

This photo of Sandra Wellman and Donna Watson walking their kitties made me smile this week.

 

~

 

I still cannot update my Family Tree Maker Program.

 

 

Number of pages in Outline Descendant Report: 163, up from 161.

Number of pages in the basic Descendant Report: 246 (up from 246 last chronicle)

 

Francis Holmes is # 1. I am still # 339.

Jonathan Marquez (Frances Anne Holmes Ballantyne line) is last at # 503.

# 502, where he was last week, is now Derrick Hurde.

This should change weekly, if I’m doing my job.

 

Stats and Introductions

 

The names I drew last week were:

 

·         Joseph Booth is still # 472.

·         Elaine Enochs is still # ii, daughter of # 219.

 

New this week are Neil Duncan and Heather Duncan Last name.  How about that? Father and daughter.

 

Neil Duncan is # 332. My mother and Neil’s mother were double cousins. What, I wonder does that make Neil and I? Second, I guess. I remember early Christmases, when I guess I was old enough to remember . . . in the days after Christmas, Dad and Mum would take us around to visit their friends and relatives. Everyone left gifts around the tree for a few days for this purpose. Even though we could play with our new toys, we’d put them back under the tree as we tired of playing with them. One of those places we went was to the Duncan home. We reconnected years later when we went to the same church for a while, and at the reunions held in Hill Grove.

I decided to look at my DNA results, knowing that Neil’s brother, Bruce, had tested. Bruce is number four on the list of close family members on my maternal side.

 

Here are the first four close family members:

 

1.       My first cousin, Douglas Holmes, son of Uncle Jim and Aunt Phyl Holmes. 962 cM, 14% shared DNA

2.       My first cousin, Brenda Holmes Batchelor, daughter of Jim and Phyl Holmes and sister of Douglas, 793 cM, 11% shared DNA

3.       Randi Hamilton, first cousin once removed, daughter of Mary Jane Holmes Hamilton and granddaughter of Uncle Bryce and Aunt Inez Holmes. 342 cM, 5% shared DNA

4.       Bruce Duncan, second or third cousin (according to Ancestry DNA), son of Phoebe Colpitts Holmes, and common granddaughter with my mother of Charles and Phoebe Holmes and Ben and Lauretta Colpitts, 318 cM, 5 % shared DNA

 

So, we are pretty close to being first cousins once removed.

 

Heather Duncan Kervin is # 457. She is the daughter of Neil and Roxanne (Hopper) Duncan. She married Jason Kervin and has two elementary school children, a son and a daughter.

 

I do this on Tuesdays rather than Thursdays. Watch for your name.

 

~

 

My genealogy goals for this week were:

 

·         Chronicle several times, and publish on Thursday morning.

·         Add a few more people to the tree so the stats move.

·         Start researching and writing about Jonathan Maltbie for the “Where There’s a Will” article.

·         Put away my April presentation. Yeah!

·         Get the Carrie Steeves project off my to-do list for the Lincoln Historical Society. Complete the William Holmes line and get it ready to go.

·         Continue indexing old New Brunswick obituaries and death notices for the NBGS website project.

·         Get ready to scan Uncle Billy’s guest book for the NBGS website.

I revised people in our tree, mostly in the William Holmes line, so stats didn’t move much. Can’t check them anyway. I sent the second portion of the Carrie Holmes Steeves line off to Liz, and I will cross that off my list. I sent off a request to Brian Holmes for a genealogy of the Heath line, so I am working on that. More later. I have a decent start on Jonathan and Abigail (Holmes) Maltbie – such a sad story. I should be able to get the short version off to News and Notes by the end of the month.  My presentation is done, and eleven people requested a copy of the power point presentation. Worked on the newspaper index a bit.

I received a thank-you card in the mail from Jeff, of our program committee. I do love impressionist paintings. This is a Renoir, “Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881.” Isn’t it pretty?

“I wish to thank you for your facilitating of the workshop to our members yesterday. It sparked engaging conversation among the attendees and may result in the budding of future authors in genealogy.” And, an email from Pauline. “Many thanks for your power point on how to write a genealogical article.  You’ve inspired me to continue my project started two years ago.  So far, the only results I have are the timelines for many of my ancestors.  I’ve realized that I need to add an extra page or two of written memories and discoveries to bring them to life. Since you asked for a show of our chosen ancestor at the end of your presentation, I have included my maternal grandfather’s page.  As you can see, it’s missing a lot of sub-points!”

 

An update on Mary Ellen Fielding. I don’t really have an update, but she has posted a few times on Facebook.

 

My gratitude this week to Brian and Jolynda (Tresner) Holmes. Brian sent me the genealogy of the Heath Line, which his father, Fen Holmes, compiled. Jolynda showed up at my presentation. So nice to see you, Jolynda. As I told her, seeing you at my presentations is great moral support. Not sure when I will do it again.

~

 

I spent Tuesday evening following one line of the Heath family. In case you aren’t familiar with this line: Anna Columbia Heath was the wife of William Nelson Holmes, son of Daniel and Charlotte Holmes. I was especially intrigued by the Stetson line, which moved right along until it joined up with some Witherils. (There are many variations of the spelling of that name. As you may or may not recall, Jane (Barber) Williams is a Witheril descendant from Betsy Marinda Holmes Witheril, daughter of our common Samuel Holmes Jr. So, where did they connect? I wondered. Not being able to get much farther than Jared Witheril, I did some BAD genealogy: I used other people’s trees. Mind you, my intention was to delete names if I found no sources. But, I did find sources. I still have some verifying to do, but I found a common ancestor.

 

Still a WIP – use with caution and do your own research if you use this. If my program was working, I’d print it off, but you will have to settle for my scratching.

 

 

William Witherell 1565 – 1626 and Mary Ann Rogers

Born and died in England

 

John Witherell                                                                                   William Witherell

1594 – 1672                                                                                        1600 - 1684

And Grace Fosdick                                                                           and Mary Fisher

 

William Wetherell                                                                           Mary Witherell

1625 – 1691 and                                                                               1635 – 1710 and

Dorothy                                                                                               Thomas Oldham

 

William Wetherell                                                                           Hannah Oldham

1659 – 1729 and                                                                               1665 – 1711 and

Elizabeth Newland                                                                          Joseph Stetson Jr

 

John Wetherell                                                                                 Joseph Stetson III

1688 – 1755 and                                                                               1698 – 1775 and

Hannah Brintnell                                                                              Abigail Hatch

 

Benjamin Witherell                                                                         Abel Stetson

1716 – 1801 and                                                                               1729 – 1776

Sarah Gilbert                                                                                      Lydia Washburn

 

William Witherell                                                                             Hezekiah Stetson

c. 1760 – c. 1795 and                                                                      1752 – 1833 and

Hannah Easton                                                                                  Elizabeth Tilson

 

Jared Witheril                                                                                    Abel Stetson

1781 – 1857 and                                                                               1784/5 – 1850 and

Sally Haling                                                                                         Hannah Benson

 

Henry G Witheril                                                                               Columbia Stetson

1810 – 1851 and                                                                               1812 – 1854 and

Betsy Marinda Holmes   c. 1828 – c. 1865                               Alexander Ryerson

 

                                                                                                                Hannah Jeannette Ryerson

                                                                                                                1833 – 1917 and

                                                                                                                James Sullivan Heath

 

                                                                                                                who disappeared on his way to seek his fortune.

 

                                                                                                                Anna C Heath

                                                                                                              1851 – 1949 and                                                                                                                                                                               William Nelson Holmes

 

                                                                                                                Daniel Holmes

                                                                                                                1813 – 1883 and

                                                                                                                Charlotte Hoyt

                                                                                                               

Daniel was the half-brother of Betsy Marinda Holmes      .

 As this went off kilter while transitioning from Word to Blogspot, if you wish a copy I can email it to you. 

~

 

Here is my introduction for my newsletter story about Abigail Holmes and Jonathan Maltbie. Subject to revision when I finish. My first paragraph, beginning “Two years, Abigail remembered . . .” is creative writing based on my research. I have endnotes. Each piece of clothing I mention was in her inventory. The silver buckle and tea party story and the red hair is Maltbie family lore.

 

Where There’s a Will

The Maltbie Family of Stamford, Connecticut

1698 to 1798

 

It made its first appearance in the month of June;

in August and September rose to its highest pitch . . .^[1]

 

Shafts of lightning will fly with true aim and will leap

from the clouds to the target, as from a well-drawn bow.^[1]

 

 

Two years, Abigail remembered, since they lowered her Jonathan into his grave in the burial ground. She hung her mourning gown on the hook, squeezed herself into her stays, and put on the pretty calico gown Jonathan had loved, covering it with her fine linen apron. She attached her buckles to her shoes and danced around her bedroom, glancing into the looking glass and smiling. She covered her hair, damp and unruly in the humidity, with her best bonnet, and brushed her napping son’s cheek with a kiss, tousling his red curls.^[1] Glancing out the window, she noted the storm clouds gathering and rumbling. Quickly, she donned her gloves^[1] and stepped out on the porch to run next door and join her friends for an afternoon tea.  A rogue streak of lightning sliced the sky and spotted Abigail’s shiny buckle. ^[1]

 

In this year, the town of Stamford in Connecticut was severely distressed

by a malignant dysentery, which swept away seventy inhabitants out of

a few hundreds. The disease was confined to one street.^[1]

 

Up and down that street, the Stamford residents succumbed one by one to the dysentery epidemic of 1745. It struck in late spring and continued well into the fall, if everyone in the 1745 town record’s cause of death was indeed malignant dysentery. As one went to help a neighbour, it wasn’t long before they too fell ill or died: seventy of them, family members and neighbours. Recently married and father of a baby, Jonathan Maltbie Jr died on August 13^th, but somehow, his wife, his parents, and his son were spared the dread disease. Being a young man, he had not written his will, and the dysentery acted quickly, leaving him no time or energy to dictate a few thoughts. These intestate decisions were left to the court; in Jonathan’s case, his father, Jonathan Maltbie Sr, clerk of the court, was involved in the process. He listened and recorded. He wrote every word into the Stamford probate book. With heavy heart, he added Jonathan’s name to the growing list. He recorded the inventory takers’ list of his son’s clothing and furnishings. He recorded the discussion about his infant grandson. He recorded that he accepted the decision of the court to become wee Jonathan’s guardian. Every letter of every word of every sentence; every detail, he managed to write into that record book until it was his turn to go, and other clerks took up his torch.

~

Let’s strive to make our ancestors proud of us this week.

Copy of this genealogy available, just ask.