Emptyknitster

It has been a dream of mine for many years to go to New England and visit the area my ancestors lived two hundred years ago. In 2007 I was contacted by the current owner of my third great grandfather's home and that only solidified my wish to visit... The original family came from England and are now known as part of "The First Settlers to America." They arrived in Roxbury in 1635 and were mention by Reverend John Elliot in his record of the church. "John Cheny (-1666) he came into the Land in the yeare 1635. He brought 4 children, Mary, Martha, John, Daniel. Sarah his 5th child was borne in the last month of the same year 1635, cold February. He removed from or church to Newbury the end of the next suer 1636. Martha Cheny the wife of John Cheny." (Cheney Genealogy, Charles Henry Pope, 1897) Four generations of the Cheney family lived in Newbury, Massachusetts. Records show land belonging to the family was sold in 1765 and Timothy Sr.(1713-1772) moved ...

I'm trying to consolidate my genealogy information into one area of the house and specifically into a four drawer file cabinet. Slowly I'm going through papers. Not an easy task because I'd rather be on Ancestry winding my way through family trees looking for connecting branches of the family. I haven't looked at the Hedges/Jamison Family Bible for many years. It's so fragile, that many years ago I copied the family information and carefully put it back in its place. I came across the copies this week and while looking at them I saw a name whose place in the family I'd never been able to discover: Who was this Mary Shoemaker? I asked myself. This search necessitated me to really use my genealogy detective skills. If she was in this Bible she must have been a Hedges or Jamison so I went to Ancestry and began my sleuthing about the site. It didn't take long for me to hit pay dirt, using Find a Grave : I quickly went back to the Family Bible and confir...

I have photos of three family photos taken in Lyndon, Kansas by a photography studio by the name of Ford. The families maybe Hedges but could be photos of Catherine Hedges's daughters or nieces which would have had different surnames...  I haven't been able to identify them - YET - please Ancestry, don't let me down!

  For over forty-five years I've had a photo album which I've come to believe belonged to my Great Grandmother Catherine Hedges Jamison. Most photos were labeled and I knew them as family members but there were several my mother did not know how they were connected to the family. One of these unknown photos was a beautiful toddler and on the back was the name, "Claude Nolan Harper, 2 years." From the moment I saw this photo I called him "Clod Hopper."  Mom would correct me but I always thought of him by the nickname I'd given him. So imagine my surprise the other day while doing some research on Ancestry when I found Claude Harper among my Hedges family. I read and reread the name and started chuckling at the play on the name "Clod Hopper"...  and then I thought, "Wait a minute! This is my long lost Claude Harper!!!" He was my Great-grandmother's grandnephew and Mom's second cousin and she never knew it! Also in the ...

I’ve been working on my families genealogy for many years. It has always been an interest of mine, however, I found I didn't sleep at night when working on my investigations. I either got to caught up with the research and worked most of the night or couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about past ancestors, their lives, and how I could glean more information about their lives. Now retirement allows for many things, one of them is to pursue my passion for genealogy. I’d been interested in Ancestry.com for years but felt the cost, currently $200 a year, was to much when I had a job which should and did occupy most of my time. Last January I bought a membership thinking I would recover as much information as I could from the site and then pull out. This idea has now been revised however. Back in the day when I send off a request and three dollars via snail mail I’d wait weeks for get a response. I might get a response if the Clerk of Court took pity on me or I had a relative ...

There are members in every family who have no one to carry on their life story. Perhaps they didn't marry, or never had children, or saddest of all the children didn't live to adulthood. It is with these relatives in mind that I'm going to journal from time to time on a family member who doesn't have a DIRECT descendant to remember them. This week I've been working on my maternal grandfather's family. Grandfather Jonathan had two brothers, Charles and Henry, and one sister, Mary Caroline.   Grandfather Jonathan Plowman Cheney , was the youngest child in his family. He married Sadie (Sarah) Jamison and they had three children, eleven grandchildren, eighteen great grandchildren and at least 13 gg grandchildren. Although the youngest growing up, he was the second of the siblings to pass away. Charles Murray Cheney, the oldest of the siblings, married and had three daughters. I believe he had only 2 granddaughters and there are several great grandch...

Bro' Mike and wife came into town this last week. He'd shown and interest in my family research and wanted to sit down and take a look at what I'd found. My father never knew much about his father's family, not because Dad wasn't interested but my grandfather died when he was twelve and my grandmother just wouldn't talk about family to anyone. Dad's older sister told me a few things she thought were the dynamics of their family but she certainly didn't state them as factual. Dad often asked me to search for information about his family and to help him learn about his father. At the time I just didn't have any facts to hinge a valid search on. I promised Dad I would continue to look for that tiny bit of information needed to "break the case wide open" and so, from time to time over the years I have searched on internet trying to find anything that might get me started on a solid search of Dad's family. And in the fall of 2015 I fo...

I have two budding genealogists in SadieLouWho and ChloeALittleBit. Last year Chloe wrote the following essay as an 8th grader last year and just last week SadieLou handed in a project and will be giving a talk on the family abolitionists. Chloe  Protons 05.21.15 Coming to America: My Tenth-Great Grandfather John Cheney This essay is about the life of my ancestor, John Cheney, who emigrated to America from England in the mid 17th century. John Cheney was my tenth-Great Grandfather. Using several different sources, I researched his journey to America and the life that he built with his family after he arrived.  During the mid-17th century, colonists from England had started setting in the North East of America in large numbers, known as the Great Migration. Between 1630 and 1640 over twenty thousand Puritans made the long and often dangerous journey in search of a new life. Some of them did not like the life in America so they went back to England. The Massachusetts...

"One Burritt family tradition states that the Burritt's came from Glamorganshire, Wales, but this remains unproven. Burrit itself is a Scotch name meaning people with thick bristly hair. This trait continues among many Burritts down to modern times." FNBBryan... Isabella's grandson, Murray, bristly hair and all!  

 So, I have recently discovered Betsey's mother was Isabella (Sybil) Burritt Murray.And wanted to see if I could find any information on her. This is what I've found. -->                            Isabella Burritt Murray                                                                            Birth:  1748                                      ...