News from Nutfield

Nutfield Genealogy has another (the fourth!) spin off!  My guest blogger John Tew has started his own blog called Filiopietism Prism.  You can read his first few posts, and his story about his interesting title, at this link: http://filiopietismprism.blogspot.com/   I think you’ll enjoy it!

Another “new to me” distant cousin contacted me just before Christmas, and also had a group of several Salem historians all contact me, too.  They are all descendants of the GARDNERS of Salem, who read my post about Benjamin Gardner.  He is mysterious brickwall ancestor who was a ropemaker in Salem just after the American Revolutionary War.  John Goff, who I knew before as a WYMAN cousin, wrote up a story mentioning Benjamin Gardner for the website “Wicked Local- Salem” http://www.wickedlocal.com/salem , which will appear later in January.  John Goff has a regular column at this website, called “Preservation Perspective”.

Another one of these GARDNER cousins is John Switlik who writes the blog “Thomas Gardner of Salem, MA” at http://thomasgardnerofsalem.blogspot.com/   and he also manages the Thomas Gardner Society website at http://thomasgardnersociety.org/     If you are a GARDNER, or if you have Salem ancestry, you might want to check out these links.

This cairn marked the first sermon by Rev. MacGregor
Where was it located?  It has disappeared since 1919

A geographer named Donald Kirkland is working with Richard Holmes, the Derry town historian, to determine the location of a cairn that marked the site where Rev. MacGregor gave the first sermon in Nutfield (now Derry, somewhere near Beaver Lake).  He read my blog posts on Beaver Lake and sent me this photo which dates from 1919.  Mr. Kirkland was hoping I knew the location of the cairn, or if I had a relative who knew the location. The cairn was somewhere near the northeast side of Beaver Lake.  He has queried seniors and members at the First Parish Church, but no one seems to know the spot.  If you know the location of this former cairn, please contact me (email vrojomit@gmail.com or leave a comment here) and I’ll pass it on to Mr. Kirkland.

A second cousin once removed, who I never knew before, related to my ALLEN lineage has found me via the website www.Genealogywise.com  I hadn’t been on the Genealogywise website in months and almost missed her posting.  Have you tried Genealogywise?  I don’t find it as interesting or useful as Facebook for connecting with other genealogists, but I’m glad I checked back in.  This is a lesson in checking back onto bulletin boards or websites where you may have left messages, because there just might be a return message, or a new post from someone who has potential information for you!

Last week I wrote a post on a Sunday.  I usually never post on Sunday.  However, at Christmas I had receive a very unique gift from my daughter and it was so perfect for family historians that I just had to share.  She had a cutting board made with my mother’s favorite recipe in her OWN HANDWRITING woodburned into the board.  It was made by a crafter at Etsy.com who took a scan of the original recipe card and burned the handwriting.  Think of all the recipes, letters or signatures you have collected that you can share this way.  It was picked up by someone and posted to Pinterest, where it went absolutely viral.  I have had almost 1500 hits to this one post this week, and over 1,000 of the hits came directly from the Pinterest website. I’m so glad I decided to post that whimsical story and photograph.  Isn't that what social media is all about?

Thanksgiving and Christmas have come and gone, and it’s now 2013.  I’ll be attending RootsTech 2013 in Salt Lake City in March and also NERGC in April in Manchester, New Hampshire.  Let’s see what the New Year brings for genealogy mysteries and interesting local history stories…

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo