Family Friday
One of the signs of Fall for me, besides the fact that I start to pick up my knitting, is the fact that I start to get back into genealogy again. It's been a major interest of mine since I was about nine and I have even started working towards my genealogical certificate. I have hundreds if not thousands of photos some of which are pretty old. Some of which are very amusing. I thought that maybe for a little while, to picque my interest again, I'd post some of my favourites here with a little background on each.
John Wright 1817 - 1893
Mary Tucker 1825 - 1900
Case in point, meet my "American Gothic". Not so much the Mrs. Mary but Mr. John, wow look at the face on that guy, something only a mother could love. If he was holding a pitchfork and in suspenders I'd swear he was the inspiration for that famous painting by Grant Wood.
John Wright was born in Westmeath, Ontario in 1817, he is my Great Great Grandfather. He and Mary had 12 children that I am aware of Eva Louise, Benjamin, Silas, Lucy, Amelia, Helen, Ida, Marie, Charles, John, Joseph and Mary. All strong sturdy names. They are buried in the Westmeath Cemetary and as I have family there to this day, I have visited that cemetary many times and photographed their graves. It's strange going back there, we have ancestors that settled there in the 1700s and most of the people buried in the cemetary before 1950 are related to me in one way or another. Most of the living who belong to the older families are related too.
John Wright's ancestry can be traced back to the 1500s in England and because he is closely related to Philemon Wright, who discovered Hull, Quebec and who is one of the important figures in Canada's political and industrial history, his family's history has been researched and recorded by a professional genealogist and published by the Canadian National Capital Commission. I ordered a copy of the publication and for $29 received about 15 years worth of my time in research. One line of research down, a million to go.
Mary's family, the Tuckers apparently owned quite a bit of land in the area and her father George Washington Tucker was involved in the local politics of the day. He and his wife, Mary's mother Ann Cowdry are also buried in Westmeath's St. Andrew's United Cemetery.
One of the websites that helped to peak my interest in Genealogy many years ago was the Ontario Cemetary Finding Aid. I happened accross that site years ago and it has been a great source for me, with so many ancestors in Ontario. You can search the whole database and with a little bit of fooling around can pretty much find all the people of the same surname in a given area or even everyone listed in a given cemetary which is very helpful as many leads come from looking up names of those buried within the same cemetary (long settled families often have long histories with other families in the same area). Once you know where your ancestor is buried, you can look to see whether that cemetary has been documented by the Ontario Genealogical Society or other volunteers. If it has you can request transcripts of the cemetary to see all of the information that was written on the gravestones. Not only that but these transcripts record the location of the graves so that if you can visit, you can figure out where your family is buried quite quickly. It may sound gruesome to some but trust me, invaluable information can be learned from reading gravestones. Regional Genealogical Societies usually sell transciptions for the cost of copying so I have been able to get transcriptions of entire (small) cemetaries for $6 - 12.
(Now, sauvageblue, you can see why I am so nosey! It is part of my demeaner to fairy out details, every little detail gleans a little nugget of information.)
Oh and I am happy to say there is absolutely NO family resemblance here. Phew!
John Wright 1817 - 1893
Mary Tucker 1825 - 1900
Case in point, meet my "American Gothic". Not so much the Mrs. Mary but Mr. John, wow look at the face on that guy, something only a mother could love. If he was holding a pitchfork and in suspenders I'd swear he was the inspiration for that famous painting by Grant Wood.
John Wright was born in Westmeath, Ontario in 1817, he is my Great Great Grandfather. He and Mary had 12 children that I am aware of Eva Louise, Benjamin, Silas, Lucy, Amelia, Helen, Ida, Marie, Charles, John, Joseph and Mary. All strong sturdy names. They are buried in the Westmeath Cemetary and as I have family there to this day, I have visited that cemetary many times and photographed their graves. It's strange going back there, we have ancestors that settled there in the 1700s and most of the people buried in the cemetary before 1950 are related to me in one way or another. Most of the living who belong to the older families are related too.
John Wright's ancestry can be traced back to the 1500s in England and because he is closely related to Philemon Wright, who discovered Hull, Quebec and who is one of the important figures in Canada's political and industrial history, his family's history has been researched and recorded by a professional genealogist and published by the Canadian National Capital Commission. I ordered a copy of the publication and for $29 received about 15 years worth of my time in research. One line of research down, a million to go.
Mary's family, the Tuckers apparently owned quite a bit of land in the area and her father George Washington Tucker was involved in the local politics of the day. He and his wife, Mary's mother Ann Cowdry are also buried in Westmeath's St. Andrew's United Cemetery.
One of the websites that helped to peak my interest in Genealogy many years ago was the Ontario Cemetary Finding Aid. I happened accross that site years ago and it has been a great source for me, with so many ancestors in Ontario. You can search the whole database and with a little bit of fooling around can pretty much find all the people of the same surname in a given area or even everyone listed in a given cemetary which is very helpful as many leads come from looking up names of those buried within the same cemetary (long settled families often have long histories with other families in the same area). Once you know where your ancestor is buried, you can look to see whether that cemetary has been documented by the Ontario Genealogical Society or other volunteers. If it has you can request transcripts of the cemetary to see all of the information that was written on the gravestones. Not only that but these transcripts record the location of the graves so that if you can visit, you can figure out where your family is buried quite quickly. It may sound gruesome to some but trust me, invaluable information can be learned from reading gravestones. Regional Genealogical Societies usually sell transciptions for the cost of copying so I have been able to get transcriptions of entire (small) cemetaries for $6 - 12.
(Now, sauvageblue, you can see why I am so nosey! It is part of my demeaner to fairy out details, every little detail gleans a little nugget of information.)
Oh and I am happy to say there is absolutely NO family resemblance here. Phew!
posted by ria at Friday, September 23, 2005
1 Comments:
I have a piece of jewelry I guess you could call it. It is maybe bone with a gold nugget attached to the front. The reason I am telling you is that engraved in this piece of 'bone' is the name Philemon Wright.
Can't be too many with that name I suppose.
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