Racavan, County Antrim

and then I saw a bright light (ir)
Originally uploaded by skiwiman

The home of Sam the Butcher and Big Jenny. (Muirhead) This lane is the path to go to the graveyard... beginning to celebrate my Irish roots and must plan the trip there soon (2011??)

Corfe Castle and the Pollard Family

Mind the Gap
Originally uploaded by StubbyFingers

Odd how things happen. Yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time looking up photos and sources for the Pollard line of my family tree - (on the Puzey side). I've been thinking about how to get to know some of the lines that aren't the BIG FOUR - the Rhodes/Root and Puzey/Toone surnames but instead those surnames that branch off those lines.

Then, today at lunch I listened to a podcast that advised me to get to know the cities, towns, villages, famous buildings etc in the places your ancestors came from. I absolutely agree that it adds so much more to researching a line when you have some familiarity with the location.

Ever since visiting Derbyshire and some of the locations there, it is great to find a record and know that Norton is that place where I drove around looking for Backmoor and that Bolsover has an amazing castle.

And speaking of castles, one name that had always stuck in my head since the first time I wrote it on a pedigree chart was Corfe Castle. I didn't have any recollection of who was connected to this location but that has now changed. Ancestry.com is offline for maintenance tonight so determined to not indulge my research compulsion tonight in some other way but to just do one last thing and turn off the computer, I clicked over to Flickr and checked out a group that I watch. There was a stunning photo of the ruins of a castle and the group "game" is to post a photo to follow that has a matching tag. So I scroll down to the tags for this scene and surprise! It is Corfe Castle. This photo isn't the one I saw first but since that was from quite a distance, I browsed around and liked this tighter shot. Home of the Pollard Family. Okay they didn't live IN the castle but this is a castle that they would have seen, known, and now I finally have a picture to go with the name.

Now just to find out how to pronounce it....

"The Voyage of the Amazon" - Hannah Webb's Passage to America

I was looking for an image of the ship that Hannah Webb traveled to America on, knowing that Charles Dickens had visited the ship before it left England and wrote about his impressions. Instead of the image, I found this Ensign article and Hannah Webb is mentioned as being part of the company of Elijah Larkin's family as the passengers organized into families and wards. Hannah is the mother of George Ernest Toone and my own grandmother Hannah is named after her.

LDS.org - Ensign Article - The Voyage of the iAmazon:/i A Close View of One Immigrant Company

Family Search Labs

The Calgary Family History Center held a workshop last week to review the tools at Family Search Labs. Some are currently available and others are in development. The tool I was particularly interested in was the Family Search Research Wiki. I didn't find too much on first glance in a specific way but the fact that all the research guides and general tools are found in one place is a great start. As links and resources are added, this will be a rich resource. Going to the workshop also reminded me that I want to get back into the indexing project. Anyone can volunteer to help digitize the archival records to assist in search efforts. The site has really improved since I first got in and tried it out. More research helps in deciphering the writing and a lot more projects are underway. We spent some time with the Standard Finder with mixed feelings. I like the idea that I can see variations on spelling - not to correct but to assist in my own searches. I don't see it as a correction tool and agreement on a standard may be difficult in some cases, but it will at least allow you to see what has been used by others. I have a hard time being consistent in my own records and this is something I need to be more conscientious in my record keeping.

For now, I find these tools are designed to be very useful in the future but other sites like Cyndi's list and tools available with my Ancestry.com subscription meet most of these needs now.

Where are the Sharps?

Gibson Condie

Listening to General Conference, I heard President Monson share the story of his ancestors, Gibson and Cecilia Sharp Condie, from Clackmannanshire. Our Hunter line comes from Clackmannanshire and Jean Patterson Sharp Hunter, the mother of Elezebeth Grace Mulholland Toone, is the connection to President Monson's line. But how?

I jumped onto the web first. Confirmed the names I had heard and found a website about his family and their journey to America. http://emily.farrer.googlepages.com/sharpandcondiedatesandplaces
Lots of similar names, Janet, Adam, Cooks and Hunters mixed in with the Sharps and Condies. But do any of them belong to us?

Adam's family would have been contemporaries of Gibson Condie's family. He traveled to America in July, 1849 with his brother and Thomas Sharp. The family joined him later. Gibson Condie traveled with his family for America earlier that same year - January, 1848.

I went to my Ancestry.com file and the new Family Search tree- looking for the Sharp family to see if I could find a common name to link the families.

I've now discovered a research problem for someone to take on. Two conflicting lines.

Adam Hunter

The question to answer is: Who are Adam Patterson Hunter's maternal grandparents? I have two possible choices.

Are they David Patterson and Janet Sharp? This introduces the Sharp line but there are no records for Janet's parentage. This is my Ancestry.com file.

Or are they George Paterson and Elisabeth Blair?

If anyone in the family has source records to confirm either family line - the parents of Margaret Patterson (1794 - 1854) please let me know! I'll put it in my questions to answer log in the meantime.

Until we confirm this, I can't confirm how we may be related to President Monson.