News from Nutfield

The Publishing Permutation

There has been a proliferation of Legacy Quickguides published these past few weeks. For New England, you can now find New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island Quickguides, and I’ve been told by secret sources that Massachusetts and Vermont will be coming soon.  All of the Quickguides are available as downloadable files for your desktop or mobile device for only $2.95, and some are available as laminated cards.

How do I know all this about the Legacy Quickguides?  I authored the New Hampshire and Maine versions last month. This is thrilling to me because it is almost time for the NERGC conference April 17 -21st, 2013 in Manchester, New Hampshire. You can order the Quickguides at this link: http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=71&Click=114207

The RootsTech Reaction

Technology +genealogy +archives +documents = Fascinating Discussions   

I’m wicked excited about attending the big conference in Salt Lake City later this month, RootsTech 2013.  I followed the last two RootsTech events online, and was very interested in attending in person instead of virtually being there.  In preparation for being surrounded by other technology nerds and genealogy geeks, I recently visited the MIT Media Lab event “Providing Innovative Access to the Content in the National Archives Records”.   I had a great time at this event and look forward to more of this in Utah. Read my post HERE.

The Snowstorm Solution

Three major blizzards have hit us three weekends in a row, with several smaller storms mixed in between for a bit of variety.  After Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Irene (which almost spoiled the 2011 Geneablogger Bash) and many ice storms, blizzards and the famous 2012 SnowTober storm have taught me to be prepared by backing up all my data.  I also have plans for charging up all my mobile devices and staying connected without power for extended periods. Are you prepared?  What do you run around doing when you hear severe weather alerts?

The Crafter Congruence

“Brown Eyed Baker” at http://www.browneyedbaker.com/ featured my cutting board blog post on their “Friday Things” post 8 February 2013 http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2013/02/08/friday-things-15/   This is a cooking blog, but their recommendation of my blog post led to almost 500 hits this month.  Also, many thanks to the Ravelry.com (a knitting website) discussion group that posted my blog post about the primitive portrait exhibit at their website.  I guess that members were discussing the portrait I had photographed of the “Lady of Essex, County”, which was originally titled “Portrait of an Old Lady Knitting, Essex County, Massachusetts”.  This has had almost 2,000 hits from Ravelry.com and a few comments from the Ravelry community.   I’m very sad that posts to do with arts and crafts have had so many hits lately.  I wish it were genealogists reading blogs, but anyways, maybe it will inspire a few cooks and knitters to explore genealogy? Read the blog post about folk art exhibit at Fruitlands HERE.
 

By the way, the cutting board story has had over 5,000 hits from Pinterest since Christmas time.  Again, this was pushed ahead in my blog statistics by crafters, and only a few genealogists.  I’ve seen a huge increase in blog traffic from Pinterest, but most of it is photo or craft driven, not history or genealogy driven stories.  Is this true for your blog, too?  Read my cutting board story HERE.

The Cousin Corollary

Filiopietism Prism at http://filiopietismprism.blogspot.com/2013/02/finding-cousin-kismet-karma-fate-or.html is authored by John Tew, who began his blogging as a guest writer here at Nutfield Genealogy.  He recently found out that we are cousins through our common ancestors Richard Tew (1605 – 1673) and Mary Clarke (1618 – 1687).  Our Tew connection is how we first connected on line through email correspondence.  I’ve found cousin connections with dozens of bloggers, usually through casual conversations with genealogists on Facebook.  I wish more bloggers would have blog posts or pages with the surnames in their lineages, to make these cousin connections easier. 

I find lots of common cousins through Facebook groups.  Of course, many are made on the several Mayflower pages and groups, but I also meet cousins on surname groups, local history groups, regional genealogy pages and even on tourism pages for New England sites.  There were some recent discussions about descendants of the Salem Witch trials that included families that were accused, accusers, witnesses, and other characters from 1692 Massachusetts. You never know when or where you will meet a cousin next.  Do you remember the days when we all used to post queries on genealogy bulletin boards?  Is Facebook the new version of this?

Londonderry Fluctuations

There has been a lot of interest in Scots Irish genealogy all of a sudden.  I’ve had lots of email from queries to the Londonderry Historical Society, from my blog, and from several websites asking me to do look ups for descendants from some of the old Ulster Presbyterian families.  These names include CARGILL, McMURPHY, STEELE, McCLARY, CILLY, ARCHIBALD, McKNIGHT,  BOYD, WILSON and MORRISON.  Some of these families removed from Londonderry to Pennsylvania and then on to other places along the Appalachian chain.  If you have a Scots Irish name, it just might have originated here in New Hampshire after leaving Northern Ireland, and before migrating south and west.

A member of the Londonderry historical society (not me!) will be attending the big event in Northern Ireland this summer.  The 400^th anniversary of Londonderry will be taking place, with a year of festivals and events.  In 1613 a Royal Charter established the Irish Society and the County of Londonderry.  The Irish Society established Ulster.   You can read more about it at The Honourable Irish Society at this link: http://www.honourableirishsociety.org.uk/about-us/400th-anniversary I hope to report on this more later this year.

Mayflower Implementation

When the Mayflower II went into winter quarters at the Fairhaven Shipyard last fall, it was discovered that repairs could no longer be deferred to the future, and some major rennovations are being completed this winter and spring. The ship is now 56 years old, which is a long time for a wooden sailing ship.  I received several updates on the maintenance by email from the Plimoth Plantation museum, which oversees the Mayflower II.  The museum will be fundraising significant donations towards this winter’s repairs and for more major renovations this year.  The ship will return to Plymouth harbor in May.

Click here to help raise the $380,000 to keep the Mayflower II shipshape and seaworthy!

https://secure3.convio.net/plimot/site/Donation2?1580.donation=form1&df_id=1580&JServSessionIdr004=4oudwza684.app338a  

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo