For several years fellow blogger Amy Johnson Crow has been running a genealogy challenge that has seen increased popularity in the last couple years. Over on WikiTree, they have decided to pick up this challenge and issue a weekly open-ended prompt on the message boards. Each prompt is designed for members to discuss and respond with an ancestor or story that fits with that week’s prompt. In addition to answering over on WikiTree's G2G forum, I'll also be answering here in a more complete form.
This weeks' theme is "At the Library".
This one was a more difficult topic to tackle because I could not recall a good relative for the subject. My initial train of thought went towards ancestors who may have been librarians or architects that may have built a library. Perhaps a person who attended a dedication ceremony or a prolific library volunteer.
After a day of waffling back and forth on the topic, I settled with Marcius Denison Raymond, the author of “Gray Genealogy,” the 1887 genealogical record of the Gray family in early America. This book, which I’ve written about way back when, was one of the first jumping off points I had in genealogy. It was really like opening the door to Narnia for my research potential.
In contrast to many other anthologies that you find in the genealogical world, Raymond’s book does not carry a numbering system that you frequently find in other works. While this may seem complicated, Raymond is incredibly articulate on who these individuals are and from whom they are descended. He has included copies of historic family letters as well as contemporary letters from his correspondence compiling the book.
Beyond this work, Raymond was the author of several other genealogical books, papers, and lectures both on the Gray family as well as his Raymond line.
Despite this seemingly full-time work load, Raymond was employed as the editor and publisher of two newspapers in upstate New York.
More information about Marcius D Raymond can be found on his Wikipedia or over on his WikiTree.
- Patricia
For several years fellow blogger Amy Johnson Crow has been running a genealogy challenge that has seen increased popularity in the last couple years. Over on WikiTree, they have decided to pick up this challenge and issue a weekly open-ended prompt on the message boards. Each prompt is designed for members to discuss and respond with an ancestor or story that fits with that week’s prompt. In addition to answering over on WikiTree's G2G forum, I'll also be answering here in a more complete form.
This weeks’ theme is "I'd like to meet".
My beautiful grandmother, Harper Edwards, is the person I would most like to meet out of my ancestors.
While she died several decades before I was born, Harper was probably the earliest figure who sparked my interest in my family’s history. Known in our family simply as “Ma Gray,” when my father passed away, I realized I’d never learned what her true name was and there was almost no one available I could ask about these things.
After my father’s death, I began searching for who exactly this mystery woman was that my father spoke of so highly.
Born in northeast Texas in 1894, Harper was the 8th of 11 children. Her family moved from the Clarksville area to McCulloch County, Texas where she married my grandfather, Washington Gray. Together they would have ten children over the next 24 years.
For most of her life, Harper was a dutiful wife and mother. After her husband’s untimely death in 1939, Harper was left to raise their younger children as a single mother. She entered the workforce and eventually moved to El Paso around 1955 where she worked as a nurse’s aide until her death in 1963.
- Patricia
For several years fellow blogger Amy Johnson Crow has been running a genealogy challenge that has seen increased popularity in the last couple years. Over on WikiTree, they have decided to pick up this challenge and issue a weekly open-ended prompt on the message boards. Each prompt is designed for members to discuss and respond with an ancestor or story that fits with that week’s prompt. In addition to answering over on WikiTree's G2G forum, I'll also be answering here in a more complete form.
This is the third week of the challenge, but the first week that I am joining in on the action. I am excited to see where exactly this challenge will end up taking me in my tree and research.
This weeks’ theme is "Unusual Name".
Names tend to go in and out of fashion, albeit slower than clothing or other trends. Looking back through my tree there are some unusual names such as Earskin, Methodite, and Vitallis. However, the name that I chose for this week’s challenge was Blackleach Burrit.
Our relation is null, however, his daughter Diantha married my first cousin five times removed in May of 1793 if that is any consolation.
I chose Blackleach Burrit out of all the other names I had to choose from because I feel his name is Puritanical in nature, fitting in with his overall personality and character.
After graduating from Yale College in 1765, he studied in Connecticut for three years to become a preacher under Rev. Jebidiah Mills before being licensed for the Congregational Church in February of 1768. His growing family soon moved to New York in the early 1770s and he became notable for his extemporaneous preaching during the Great Awakening.
In addition to being an evangelical preacher, Blackleach Burrit was also an early American Revolutionary. By 1779, Blackleach’s work had brought him back to the Congregational Church in Greenwich, Connecticut. From this pulpit, he would take the cause of American support. Angering the British with his political stance, this would lead to his arrest in June of 1779 and subsequent imprisonment of more than a year at the Sugar House Prisons of New York City.
By October of 1780, Blackleach is recorded as preaching once more in New York. The next decade sees the family continue to move around New York and Connecticut following the work of Blackleach. Blackleach’s wife dies in 1786 and he remarries in about 1790. His last appointment was to the Congregational Society of Winhall, Vermont beginning in January of 1793. During the early autumn of 1794, he passed away.
Blackleach was prolific in both preaching and family, the father of 14 children total – 12 with his first wife, Martha Welles, and two with his second wife, Deborah Wells.
- Patricia
