My Regrets and Redemption Lead to a Present for my Family

I am sure that all good family historians have moments that they regret ... I wish I knew what questions to have asked my grandmother, Nana, Marian Evans Dakin, before she died in 1974.  As a result of not knowing ANYTHING about the DAKIN family back then, my work was extensive to piece together the story. I only knew my grandfather's name (he died when my father was 2 years old) and that he had died in the 1918 flu pandemic, along with his son and mother-in-law in less than one week.

When I was in high school, Nana brought some small brownish pictures of something [she said it was a power plant that her husband Rob worked on] to share one year when she came for her annual visit.  Of course, I was the uninterested teenager.  I'm not sure anyone else in my family was much interested either.  I think she brought them out just once during her annual six-month visit.

Years later, I was a 20-something who would drive down to visit her in Connecticut.  I helped her go through various things in her house, and made note of who she wanted them to go to and what things were.  Of course, we didn't find EVERYTHING since there still were surprises when I was her executrix cleaning out her home.  By then, I had enough sense to start asking some questions about the family -- clearly not all of the ones I should have, but I made a start.  On one visit, I asked her about those pictures of the power plant.  "Of, those, I gave them to the power company."

I contacted the power company and was told they did not know where the pictures were, but they did share some information on the power plant which helped me to understand how it worked along with some of the history of the Bulls Bridge Power Plant in Gaylordsville, Connecticut.

What I never asked my grandmother was the "rest of the story" which turned out to be quite interesting.
This year's Christmas present for my family is what I learned about this story AND about the DAKIN family.

In my grandmother's desk, when she died, was one of the surprises for this executrix -- the negatives for the pictures my grandfather, Rob Dakin took of the building of the addition to the power plant.  This book, Bulls Bridge:  The Story of a dreamer, a family farmer, a camera and the building of a power plant, is the result of much research.  It is not only the story of the power plant but includes information on the DAKIN family line, all the way back to Thomas Dakin, the immigrant settler in Concord, Massachusetts by 1652.

The "Readers Digest" version of the story of the power plant is about a politician with a dream to harness the Housatonic River, a farmer who sells a convoluted part of his farm for the canal to be dug right across the fields and past his house, a farm boy who watches the canal and power plant emerge, and then, the power plant is finished and does NOT bring any power to the surrounding neighborhood!  The high school boy, goes off to college (first in family), comes back as an assistant engineer and works on the addition to the plan which brings power to the neighborhood and documents it all with his camera. His pictures from 1912 are included in the book.

I learned a lot about my ancestors as people as I researched this book -- this was not a compilation of just dates.  Oh how I wish I had the sense to talk to my grandmother about this before she died in 1974.

The link for this post is: http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-regrets-and-redemption-lead-to.html
©2013, Erica Dakin Voolich

Contrary to my Kids' Assumptions, I'm only 2.1% Neanderthal!

I signed up for the National Geographic Geno 2.0 DNA test.  This one is supposed to be my deep ancestry following back on my mother's-mother's-mother's-mother's, ... line.  I don't have that direct line back any further than my 8th great grandmother, and I've not proved the last couple of those steps, so even that is iffy.  The ones I do have of those generations were in Connecticut and Massachusetts -- so there is some hope of records once I have the time to spend on them.  Others lines on my mother's side lead to the Mayflower, early settlers of New Amsterdam, and Northern Ireland.

Before doing genealogy, I always assumed I was "Heinz 57" variety, probably from many things mixed together, not like my husband who had four grandparents from what is currently Croatia.

So when I got my results, my deep add-mix looks like this:

They have been taking samples from people around there world and using it as reference populations.

According to the Genographic Project, my DNA compares most closely to the British (UK) population:

and next the German population:

It appears to me that I'm closer to the German population mix and than to the British, when I look at the graphs.

Since my maternal folks that I know about came on the Mayflower to New England, or settled New Amsterdam in what is now NYC, or went to Canada in the early 1800s from Ireland (probably northern), the match of my ancestor's is not surprising here, when described above and with the yellow parts of the Heatmap below.  

The Geno 2.0 project also included what they call their "Heatmap for U5B"  since my Haplogroup was U5B2B. It shows the path out of Africa of my most distant ancestors and the part that is deepest red is where most of their descendants seem to have shown up:

Since this is on my mother's side, and not my father's (we can't trace my father's DNA  since neither he nor my brother is alive), I was surprised to see the red -- that is what I would expect to find as red if my father's DNA were traced -- I've got my father's tree back to the 1600 and 1700s in Sweden.  So I guess those folks before me in Northern Europe headed south before heading west to the north american continent.

Now, for my children who are always trying to get their mother into first the 20th and now the 21st century, here is that Neanderthal piece I mentioned:

I suppose I should remind them that if their mother is a Neanderthal, so are they!

The link to this post is: http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2012/12/contrary-to-my-kids-assumptions-im-only.html

© 2012, Erica Dakin Voolich