Tickling the Noses of Drowsing Women

 

Uncle Peg’s Chronicles

April 6, 2023

“Tickling the Noses of Drowsing Women”

 

Under the stats is a Save the Date (if you are interested).

 

 

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

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:

 

·         Missy Oksen Corda is # iii, daughter of Sabrina Oksen, is # 392.

·         Daniel Davis is # 476.

 

New this week are Joseph Booth and Elaine Enochs.

 

There is a problem with Family Tree Maker so I can’t update the program. Not sure what the problem is, but generally I sync FTM to Ancestry on Tuesdays. It warned me not to update it yesterday, and the warning is still there today (Wednesday). Numbers didn’t change much anyway due to my continued revisions rather than adding new people. I do know that the administrators of FTM are in Ukraine, so the problem may originate there. So, without complaint, for our problems cannot compare right now to the problems of the Ukranian people, we will wait.

 

Joseph Booth is # 472, and I am well acquainted with Joseph, for he is my nephew, the son of my sister, Pat. That puts him in the Charles R Holmes line. Joseph and his wife, Christa, have three elementary school age children, a daughter and two sons. Their house is full of war memorabilia and critters – dogs, cats, and outside, a new venture, banty hens. Their field blooms with milkweed and in the summer, they study monarchs from caterpillar to butterfly. Not often do I see a picture of their children without a frog, lizard or snake in their hands. Joseph is a deputy and Christa is a nurse, and their house always bustles with energy and learning and play.

 

Elaine Enochs is #ii, daughter of Donald E Enochs and Eleanor C Steeves, # 219. I haven’t met Elaine, who is in the Carrie Steeves line. I peeked at her Facebook page and saw photos of Elaine and her husband Larry Kuusela, there in sunny Barefoot Bay, Florida, and I felt a twinge of jealousy, although it is warmish here, finally, in New Brunswick this week. Elaine is the daughter of the late Donald and Eleanor (Steeves) Enochs.

 

Watch for your name.

 

~

 

My genealogy goals for this week were:

 

·         Facilitate the new reading group read for April in our new NBGS website. We are reading: “Genealogy for Pastime and Profession” by Donald Lines Jacobus.

·         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. That will have to wait until after my April presentation.

·         Continue working on my April presentation, “Hook, Lines, and Sinker” for the genealogical society.

·         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.

The new reading group started April 1^st. Only a couple of people participate. I’m reading the book and taking notes to hopefully stimulate some discussion. One person chimes in faithfully. I revise people in our tree, mostly in the William Holmes line, so stats didn’t move much. I have an initial start on Jonathan and Abigail (Holmes) Maltbie – such a sad story. Did a bit more work there. Revising and practicing my presentation for April 15^th – my main focus as that will be on Saturday. Worked on the newspaper index a bit. Have the Steeves line ready to go whenever Liz is ready for it; sitting on a virtual shelf and right now, I can’t sync so I can’t do it anyway.

 

~

 

An update on Mary Ellen Fielding. She seems a bit more chipper and is looking occasionally at Facebook. I snatched this photo after someone washed and braided her hair for her and took her outside for some fresh hair.

 

 

~

 

 

What, or where, pray tell, is this?

 

 

I received a gift this week, an awesome gift. It was totally unexpected, and after I signed for my package at the post office, I found it very heavy. Could hardly wait to get home and rip into it. Actually, no, I cut it open very carefully, for I anticipated something precious. It is the book that is at the start of this chronicle. The map is the first thing you see when you open the book. And on the map, if you can enlarge it, is #7: Dirty Bridge. How much time did I spend trying to find out anything about Dirty Bridge. And, now I can’t find where it is mentioned. At least, when it crops up again, I will know that yes, it did exist. Now, I can see how Stamford sat in relation to Greenwich, North Castle, Pound Ridge, New Canaan, Norwalk and Darien, etc.

 

Elizabeth Barrett Gillespie descended from many of the same people we did: Holmes, Holly, Hobby, Waterbury . . . All the people of Connecticut that she descends from are in this book, with a detailed biography and a descendant chart. I am so familiar by this time with the early Stamford settlers that I feel I know most of the characters in the book, or at least how they fit.

 

The author spent some time on the will of Francis Holmes, but I don’t think it is all there. I have only scratched the surface, the introduction plus the Gillespie chapter. We do not, as far as I know, descend from the Gillespies.

 

He devotes some space to early responsibilities of the Puritan men. I have read these in other books, but he makes them easy to read and understand. At first, I figured a tithingman would have been responsibility for church finances in some way, but no. That came under the jurisdiction of the town. Here is what a tithingman had to do. It gave me a laugh. Page xxiii:

 

 

Tithingman

 

“A town officer chosen chiefly for enforcing observance of the Sabbath and preserving order during church services. He was sometimes equipped with a long pole, one end of which was sharpened for use in subduing unruly boys or for prodding men lulled to sleep by the seemingly endless drone of the minister’s voice going on and on for hour after hour. A feather was sometimes attached to the other end of the pole for use in tickling the noses of drowsing women.”

 

The book, “Ancestry of Elizabeth Barrett Gillespie” was compiled by Paul W. Prindle, Fellow of The American Society of Genealogists. It is an awesome addition to my genealogical collection, and is the biggest genealogy book that I have. Only 350 copies were printed. Copyright 1976.

 

I am so grateful to Annmarie and Byron Holmes for this beautiful gift.

 

~

I devoted the biggest portion of my genealogy time to my presentation on Saturday. It’s mostly a power point presentation, and I’ve written up a few things to add to the slides. Many thanks to cousin Brenda for editing it for me. Here is a copy of one slide. Cute little pink worms wiggle their way throughout the presentation, but not on every slide.

 

 

That’s it for this week.

 

Be sure to stay awake for meetings, or the tithingman might get you.