As part of Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, he suggested we participate in the Ancestors GeneaMeme created by Jill Ball on the Geniaus blog.
Here are the directions:
The list should be annotated in the following manner:
Things you have already done or found: bold face type
Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional)
Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type
You are encouraged to add extra comments in brackets after each item
Things you have already done or found: bold face type
Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional)
Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type
You are encouraged to add extra comments in brackets after each item
Which of these apply to you?
1. Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents [Robert DAKIN, Hannah Maria COLBY, Stephen SMITH, Abigail JENNINGS, Charles EVANS, Hannah Elizabeth RADFORD, Eric HELSTEN, Mary HEARTY, William RICHARDSON, Mary AC BOGART, Robert Searing WORTHINGTON, Elnora Esther COBB, Enoch Dole HARVEY, Mary Hubbard NYE, Charles COPELAND, Hannah Elizabeth BLODGETT.]
2. Can name over 50 direct ancestors
3. Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents [7, not 8; unfortunately, no one seems to have a picture of Joseph E HARVEY; I checked with various distant relatives who might have HARVEY pictures with no success.]4. Have an ancestor who was married more than three times [Dennison WORTHINGTON buried three wives, but I don't think he tried a forth time. I don't know of anyone else who had more than three. Will keep my eyes open!]
5. Have an ancestor who was a bigamist [not to my knowledge, we did discover a family "friend" was a bigamist years ago.]
6. Met all four of my grandparents [never will happen -- my father's father, Robert Edward DAKIN died when my father was 2 years old in 1918.]
7. Met one or more of my great-grandparents [all died before I was born, however, my great grand daughter can answer this question yes!]
8. Named a child after an ancestor
9. Bear an ancestor's given name/s [only by accident. My mother thought no one in the family had the name, when told my name, my grandmother announced "you named her after my grandfather Eric HELSTEN! Thank you!" Years later, doing family history, I discovered Eric had a sister Erica.]
10. Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland
11. Have an ancestor from Asia [not to my knowledge]
12. Have an ancestor from Continental Europe
13. Have an ancestor from Africa [not to my knowledge]
14. Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer [lots of farmers in the old censuses]
15. Have an ancestor who had large land holdings [not to my knowledge, unless those "royality in everyone's background" counts]
16. Have an ancestor who was a holy man - minister, priest, rabbi [Rev John REED 1751-1831) and his father Rev Solomon REED (1719-1785), I think there might be more but I don't remember who they were.]
17. Have an ancestor who was a midwife [not to my knowledge]
18. Have an ancestor who was an author [after my father died, I discovered he wrote an article: "The Effect of Penicillin on the Development of the the Primary Lesion of Syphilis" in VENEREAL DISEASE INFORMATION (December 1944). In 1895, my GGgrandfather Eric HELSTEN saved a man from drowning and wrote and sold a pamphlet on his method. I've written weaving and math books, but I'm not my own ancestor!]
19. Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones [my G grandmother was Mary Alice SMITH (1855-1931) and I have her line traced back into the 1600s in Connecticut: Stephen SMITH, Aaron SMITH, Peabody SMITH, Stephen SMITH, Stephen SMITH, John SMITH.], [I have Mary JONES (b. 1698) possible line: Isaac JONES, Wm JONES]
20. Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng
21. Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X
22. Have an ancestor with a forename beginnining with Z [Zachariah SOULE (1694-1751), Zachary BICKNELL (abt 1590-abt 1637)
23. Have an ancestor born on 25th December [I have a cousin born on 25 December 1983]
24. Have an ancestor born on New Year's Day [Thomas DAKIN's 1st wife, Susanna SLATER, not a direct descendant.]
25. Have blue blood in your family lines [supposedly if Royal Descendants book is right]
26. Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth [my husband can claim this, not me.]
27. Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth [my husband can claim this, but not me; my most recent immigrants were GG grandparents, Eric HELSTEN from Sweden and his wife Mary HEARTY from Ireland.]
28. Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century [numerous direct lines]
29. Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier [numerous direct lines]
30. Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents [Edward DAKIN, Mary Alice Smith DAKIN, Charles Harold EVANS, Harry Bogart RICHARDSON]
31. Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X [probably true, not seen yet.]
32. Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university [after watching a canal for the hydroelectric power plant being dug thru their family farm, he grew up and went to university and became a civil engineer and supervised the addition to the plant which brought electricity to his neighborhood; when he died young, his wife went to school to become first extension nutritionist for the state of Connecticut: Robert DAKIN and Marion Evans DAKIN. I suspect he paid for college with the money they got from the sale of part of their farm to the power company.]
33. Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence [probably, but not to my knowledge]
34. Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime [probably, but not to my knowledge]
35. Have shared an ancestor's story online or in a magazine [see my blogs, this one and Will the real Ursula Wright please stand up.
36. Have published a family history online or in print [part of my family tree is on Ancestry.com]
37. Have visited an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries [my mother grew up in the house built for her grandmother as a wedding gift by her father who built the house next door. They were married in 1889. For my mother's 80th birthday, we had a family portrait taken in the photography studio that is located there now]
38. Still have an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family
39. Have a family bible from the 19th Century [1806, it includes listing of births in late 1700s.]
40. Have a pre-19th century family bible
