Bits of This and That

No new foals have arrived since 30 June.  We're still expecting quite a few, so there may be a few more before Pony Penning Week (July 20 - 27), and there will probably be about 10 or so born after Pony Penning.  It's hard to believe that two weeks from today the combined herds will be getting their final assessment by the veterinarians before the Pony Swim, and decisions will be in the making on which foals to keep as Buy Backs for the breeding pool.  It also seems very strange not to be gossiping about the foals with Maureen Beebe this year...  Gosh, I miss her!

At the old Beebe homestead - left to right: Paul, Ricky and Clarence (Grandpa) Beebe; 

a Jeffries cousin, and Maureen Beebe.

 
Spent the last week in Old Town Louisville with two black Labrador Retrievers, Ivy and Esmé.  Esmé's owner has allowed her to revert to grabbing her hand with her mouth again - and she asked me to work with her on it while I was there.  I believe that the problem is the dogs don't see the owner as the pack leader...  As soon as I entered the house to do my week's stay, Esmé tried to grab my hand in her mouth.  I pulled it back, said "No!" in a loud voice, and stomped one foot at the same time I said 'no.'  Esmé did not try to grab my hand again during the entire stay, nor did she reach for peoples' hands as we walked around town and folks petted her.
  Not sure I'm going to continue working for this client. On Friday, the company that mows the lawn and does the edge trimming arrived, and I made certain the dogs were inside and closed and locked the doggie door to the back yard.  I had stepped out onto the porch to let the men know the dogs were safely inside, when the owner called me.  She was in a panic - where was Esmé?  Someone down the street had sent her the photo of a dog she found wandering down the street, and insisted it was Esmé.  I told her that her dog was inside the house, and she asked if I was sure.  I went back inside and sat down on the sofa, and I told her I had a dog sitting on either side of me, and that the identity tags said "Ivy" and "Esmé" so I was pretty sure the dogs were at home and with me...  It was crazy.

Old Town Louisville Main Street - I house-sit 6 blocks from here

A black bear on the outskirts of Boulder found an unlocked Subaru on a hillside driveway.  There were discarded food wrappers and a few left-over snacks in bags on the car's floor.  The bear opened the door of the car and climbed in.  The door closed behind him.  He made a mess of the interior trying to get out, and somehow, finally (using the police description) "butt shifted" the vehicle into reverse.  Since the parking brake was not on, the car rolled down the driveway, across the two lane road and on into a field, hitting several trees before stopping.  The striking of the trees caused the driver's door to pop open and the bear escaped, apparently undamaged....

Been working on genealogies for four sets of people - when I hit a roadblock on one family I switch to another and then head onward again. It's definitely not boring, though some people may think that looking at old records is a terrible way to spend a day and/or night.  My cousin asked me to look at someone in her husband's family, and I started at 2 in the afternoon; at 8 she told me she had named the wrong relative, so I switched my search over to the correct man and worked on him and his family until 4 this morning.  Found myself looking at Tribal Records from the Cherokee Nation, since the family was originally Shawnee, but had been adopted into the Cherokee.  It was extremely interesting!

Blue Jacket, a Chief of the Shawnee

Captain Joshua L Chandler "of Chincoteague" - Genealogy Digging

My Mom was born and raised on Chincoteague Island, and her maternal forebears go back to the first Whealton family to settle on Mosquito Creek and then move on to the island.  Mom married a US Navy man, and we traveled the Navy bases until Dad retired, when I was five.  We never visited his family in Kansas and Missouri - we only spent time away from our house on Chincoteague and Assateague.
  One of the first things I remember is driving onto the island, turning north onto Main Street and driving past Peterson Street, where the family home was, and going straight to the turntable at the very end of North Main so that we, as a family, could pay our respects to Captain Chandler by placing a penny apiece on the edge of his grave site. I still do it, at the age of 63...
  A few days ago, Captain Dan Davis, who does the Foal Patrol tours of Assateague commented that he'd had descendants of Captain Chandler on board, and wondered if anyone knew his history.  It took me a few days to start looking, but I was surprised by what I found.    First, Captain Chandler is buried in isolation on  the north end of the island - there were few inhabitants there when he died in October of 1877.  There are no other graves near him.  In fact, there is no one else named Chandler buried on the island!  So what was the story?

This is a photo of his original grave stone - with many pennies.  If you're an older person who either grew up on Chincoteague, or has spent a lot of time there, you can quote the stone with ease.

"Capt. Joshua L. Chandler  -  Born  Oct. 1829     Died  Oct.21,1877  -

Farewell wife and children dear, I am not dead but sleeping here.

As I am some day you will be, Prepare for death and follow me."

So who was Captain Joshua L. Chandler?  He was born in Delaware, and, according to his Delaware death records, his father's name was James, and his mother's name was Ellen.  In 1850, he was a Printer's apprentice in Wilmington, New Castle County, Delaware.  He was then 19 years of age, and was living with the family of another Printer's apprentice; the head of the household was widow Jane Cloud.

  In 1851 or early 1852, Joshua married Catherine Mary Lynch.  Their first son, William James, was born in Pennsylvania in 1852.  In 1854 another son, Joshua Burton joined the family.  In 1856 a daughter was born, but died soon after birth; and in 1858 son Ebe Townsend was born.  The last three children were born in Delaware.

  In 1860, Captain Joshua Chandler and his family were living in Baltimore Hundred, Sussex County, Delaware.  The Census of that year lists him as a Mariner, owning real estate worth $750, and having a personal estate of  $500.  Joshua and Catherine's last child, Mary Catherine, was born in 1861 there in Baltimore Hundred.  Due to the Civil War, Joshua joined Company D of the 6th Delaware Infantry of the United States Army, where he served as a Private for 2 years.  Afterwards, he returned to the water in Sussex County, Delaware.

  The 1870 Census finds Joshua Chandler and all of his family living in the village of Roxana in Baltimore Hundred, Sussex, Delaware.  Joshua's employment is listed as "Light Boating" and both of his eldest sons are listed as being employed "Boating."  At that point in time, the Real Estate is listed under Catharine's name and is named at $700.  Joshua has a person estate value of $200.

  In about 1872, the entire Chandler family moved to Chincoteague Island,Virginia.  Joshua's eldest son, William James, worked for the US Life Saving Service on Assateague, but had a new wife and child on Chincoteague.  Joshua was now "Captain Joshua" again - employed as a captain of a schooner and an oyster dredger, depending on the season, trade and tides.  Now his two younger sons, Joshua and Ebe, worked on the boats with him.   Apparently, things were going well for the family.

  However, on 21 October 1877, Captain Joshua and the two boys had the schooner on Cat's Creek at Wallops Island.  A lightning storm appeared and lightning struck Captain Joshua Chandler and the mast of the schooner, disabling it.  Captain Chandler died instantly.  Young Joshua and Ebe poled the schooner from Wallops back to Chincoteague, and then Ebe carried his father's body home to his mother.

   Within 6 months, all of the family, except William, the eldest son, moved back to Delaware.  Joshua became a hugely successful farmer, and was the largest strawberry grower in Sussex County at one time.  Ebe worked the water all his life, living to be 98 years old, and having 3 ships sink under him.

Oldest son William became a member of Christ's Sanctified Holy Church and moved away from Chincoteague in 1884. Joshua's widow never remarried and passed away in 1918.  His daughter Mary Catherine (Cassie) married twice and had eight children; she died two weeks before her 90th birthday.

   So Captain Joshua L. Chandler lived on Chincoteague for about five years of his life, and none of his family are buried here with  him...  I guess we do owe him respect...  and a penny on his grave every visit.

This and That

I was greatly cheered to learn that the Mets baseball team had sent Tim Tebow to their AA minor team, the Rumble Ponies, in Binghamton, New York.  On his at bat, on the first throw, he hit a three-run homer....  Way to go, Tim Tebow!  I've always loved the man and he is following his dream.  Good on him!
   The new American Spring League Football season will start the week after the 2019 Super Bowl.  There will be 8 teams the first year and the league has been set up by ex-professional football players. The announcement of the first city to host a team and the first announced head coach for that team made me sit up and smile - Orlando Florida and Steve Spurrier.  Hoping to see some great things - take me back to the Tampa Bay Bandits!
  At the moment the weather forecast for the Spring Round-up on Assateague Island at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is fantastic for mid-April.  I hope everything goes well this Friday and Saturday and that the long-unseen will turn up alive and well...
  I found a name yesterday in the 1900 US Census yesterday that I really liked - Tilelka - and then I just rolled laughing because another name hit me just smack dab on the funny-bone: a man named Rolla A. Hole....
  We're a little over 3 weeks away from the first Saturday in May - which always, for me, means the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville.  This year will be the 144th Run For the Roses, and will be broadcast live on NBC television.  The race is scheduled to begin at 6:50 pm (EDT), and there will probably be the full number of entries, limited to 20, and based on points earned in other graded races...
1.   Good Magic  (134)
2.   Audible   (110)
      Noble Indy   (110)
3.   Vino Rosso   (107)
4.   Bolt d'Oro   (104)
5.   Enticed   (103)
6.   Mendelssohn   (100)
      Justify   (100)
7.   Flameaway  (70)
8.   Bravazo   (54)
9.   Promises Fulfilled   (52)
10.  Magnum Moon   (50)
       Runaway Ghost   (50)
       Quip   (50)
11.  Free Drop Billy   (44)
12.  Lone Sailor   (42)
13.  Hofburg   (40)
14.  Firenze Fire   (39)
15.  Solomini   (38)
16.  My Boy Jack   (32)
17.  Instilled Regard   (29)
18.  Snapper Sinclair   (22)
       Combatant   (22)
       Blended Citizen   (22)
19.  Reride   (20)
       Dream Baby Dream   (20)
       Restoring Hope   (20)
       Old Time Revival   (20)

This and That

The wind began to blow yesterday afternoon around 2 o'clock, and it's still blowing.  The National Weather Service station here says we'll have sustained winds of 25 to 40 mph all day, with gusts of 45 to 75 mph.  We still have snow and ice from the two snowfalls (more than 10 days ago) in our parking lot, and snow is clearly visible on the Flatirons and Front Range.  And in the last few days, the high temperatures have been in the 50s and 60s.  So it seems incredible to also read that we are under a Red Flag warning for extremely high danger of fire...  Current temperature says 34 degrees, humidity is 23%, and the wind is blowing at 25 mph.  It's a day that weather means I'll stay inside....
 
   Almost finished with Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen.  I had to look up the story about Ed Watson and Belle Starr to see what was "really" what.  Ed was a sharecropper on Indian lands he leased from Belle Starr.  At a dance, she refused to take the floor with Ed.  He had been drinking and was angered by her refusal, according to witnesses.  She was found dead the next day.  Ed Watson was arrested, but, as there was only circumstantial evidence against him he was tried and acquitted.  He left, returning to Florida soon after his acquittal.

  I think that the 45th President is not sleeping well...  It seems that Special Investigator Robert Mueller's team is getting closer to naming him as a defendant each day...

  Had my taxes done by AARP-IRS volunteers at the Boulder Senior Center on Thursday.  I don't owe anything to either the federal or state government, but I'm not getting back either.  Since my birthday is in June, I'll have to wait for another 2 years before I can apply to the City and County, and get my food tax refund.  Last year they paid back $62; this year it's $83...  Since I need a crown for a dead tooth, and it's going to cost $700, it would've been nice to get a little bit of cash back!

  Still working away on my family tree, and my room-mate, Beatrice's.  I'm lucky that there are so many church and tax records for most of my family.  I have to admit that I've divided my family tree into three parts, not four.  That's due to the scarcity of Swedish records for my mother's paternal side.  I have over 4,000 entries for my father's paternal Nocks family; and I have over 2,000 for his maternal Lancaster/Mobley/Washburn side.  I have about 1,500 for my mother's family, in entirety...
   For Beatrice, I started with her parents names, her maternal grandmother, and her paternal grandfather's names.  As they are African American, and the families were slaves on plantations in Louisiana, I am very happy to have found more than 1,100 hundred relatives so far.  Her second-great-grandfather was the son of the plantation owner, and I have been able to trace the owner's family back to the late 1500s in Europe.  But we're still stuck at her grandfather Bell - we don't know his parents' names, and I've found 12 different Henry Bells that were born around the same time and near the right place....  I'll continue to look, and hope to have a break-through.

 

Intriguing Bits of Genealogy

I find history and genealogy fascinating.  I was astounded, and delighted to find that my sister (and I) are eighth cousins of her husband.  My husband and I were twenty-third cousins.  When my sister brought Jim home (to Florida, from Colorado), my parents, sister and Jim went on a two week vacation, going to favorite beaches and the Everglades.  Everywhere they went, folks assumed that Jim was the son of my parents, and that Kathy was his lady friend. Jim looks/looked a lot like my father.  And we're related through families that were early immigrants to New England.
   In assisting another couple with their family trees, we discovered that I was related to the wife through my Mother's family, and to the husband through my father's family.  I happily call them both cousins, and we stay in touch.
   Earlier this week, I had to laugh out loud when I discovered another, unknown to me, family connection.  Mom is from Chincoteague Island in Virginia, and the families there married folks from nearby states and counties.  The Truitt family from Sussex County, Delaware and from Worcester County, Maryland has married into the family tree on Chincoteague many times.  Dad's family pretty much started out in New England, then hit Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.  I was filling in missing information on Dad's side of the family, when I stopped short and laughed. 
   My second-great-grandfather was Benjamin Nocks, and his brother was named William. Uncle William's second child, Lucy Alice (called Alice), married a man named Peter Truitt. In Indiana.  Peter Truitt's parents were born in Worcester County, Maryland. - And, yes, they are related to the Truitts who married into Mom's family in Virginia.
    That made me start thinking - is there a genetic trait, or subconscious stamp, that draws men and women together?  Here's a Nocks girl who marries a man who is one generation away from the watermen of the Eastern Shore in 1875.  Then, Dad, a Nocks Kansas farm boy joins the Navy, and gets sent to the Eastern Shore in 1947, where he meets and marries a waterman's daughter, with some of the same blood that his Aunt Alice married...
   I really have no clear idea - but it's something for me to ponder when my mind is otherwise disengaged....

This & That

The orange-painted idiot made me upset again with his "shit hole countries" comment, so I've stayed away from the blog.  Then the accidental Ballistic Missiles Incoming message in Hawaii on Saturday was frightening, with the White House comment that it was a normal drill for the state, a hateful follow-up.  -  I must say that I am looking forward to Steve Bannon giving testimony to the Intelligence committee, and to Mueller...
 
     My cats are fine and dandy, and I'm currently watching over (taking care of) Pip and Squeak.  They get two meals each day that are served in two separate servings - both girls had intestinal blockages requiring surgery when they were less than a year old.  So they get a mixture of canned food, cooked squash, and water for the first course of each meal, followed by a heaping tablespoon of dry food.  They also get L-Lysine every other day mixed into the wet morning meal.  They are both very loving kitties, and greet me at the door, pawing at the glass each time I arrive.  They make me feel good.

    In genealogy, I've been cleaning up  and placing "standardized" dates and places into the family tree on the Family Search website....  I've spent two days working on straightening out one set of cousins.   In Virginia, between 1860 and 1920, births were reported to the city, county, state, and voting district the parents lived in.  A lot of the children, while having a birth date recorded, were also marked "sex unknown;"  someone has gone through those birth registrations and entered both a boy and girl baby to the family, without checking to see whose birth date matches the registration.  It's a bit frustrating, but I also feel good about getting the records set straight.  (As in, no, this couple did not have 23 kids, they had 12 - eleven of the entries were over-zealous double and triple entries...)
   I'm working on my family tree at the moment, because I know and recognize the names easily.  When I'm working on Beatrice's tree, I get frustrated because of several factors - the spelling of  French Creole names is very arbitrary, and I needed a respite from trying to imagine any and every way a name could be spelled.  I looked a long time for the parents of a lady named Lorinda Cadie (according to her husband's death certificate); I found that her father's first name was Toussan, or a variant thereof.  I finally found her parents, whose last name was spelled Cadet, by looking up the first name Toussaint, with a guesstimated birth date, in and around the Parish where the girl was born. 
   It's always a learning experience when doing the family tree - I've discovered several more Beebe family and Quillen family connections in my clean-up efforts - and also found that we are related to the Captain Timothy Hill family, which I didn't know before....

Genealogy Research - And Odd or Unusual Names

I started working on my family genealogy soon after my father passed away when I was 24 years old.  I realized that I had never met any of my father's relatives, that I could remember.  In actuality, I saw several of them before I was four years old, and I believe Dad's sister visited us in Texas before I was 5.  Otherwise, Dad's family were just old photos from the 1940s and names.  I spoke with his sister-in-law on the day that he died on the telephone.  I really don't know why we didn't visit Dad's family over  the years - we visited his friends from 20-plus years in the Navy, and their families; and we spent most vacations on the island in Virginia, where Mom's family had lived for over 350 years.  But Dad's family?  I wouldn't have known them had I met them in the street.
   I started building information on my Dad's family through his sister-in-law, Theoda Gwenn Smith Nocks, who was married to Dad's older brother.  She sent me copies of obituaries and old photos, and got me filled in on the previous two generations of her husband's family.  This was in the mid-1980s, when the internet wasn't easily available, nor was much genealogy information on line, at that time.  I spent a lot of time in the University of Florida archives, reading through old US Federal Censi on microfilm, and hoping to find a break.
   In the late 1980's I was referred to the Church of Latter Day Saints' local research library, and I was able to build my tree even more.  Since the world-wide-web has come into being, with all sorts of information, I have been able to delve even further back.  I am still stuck on my Swedish great-great-grandparents, though.  I have seen three different renderings of their names, but have been unable to locate any of them, separately, or together in the Swedish records that are available (for free) on-line.  I hope to find and document them at some time...
   In the meantime, I have run into quite a few remarkable and memorable names...  Some belong to my family, and some have just caught my eye as I was looking for someone else.  My favorites from family are:  Hepzibah Starbuck (of Nantucket) who married Captain Joshua Hussey, producing the full name of Hepzibah Starbuck Hussey.  It rolls rather pleasantly from the tongue, doesn't it?  Another relative is Hatevil Hall - actually there are more than thirty (30) Hateveil Halls in my family lineage, as each eldest son of each son born into the Hall family, named their first-born son Hatevil.  (And it is pronounced like two words - Hate Evil.)  Some wrote an article about unusual names, and wondered if Hatevil Hall really hated evil.  Well, the first few Hatevil Halls were Quaker elders, so I would say that they did hate evil.  I also have a great-uncle named Eighty One (or Eight One) Mobley - his father George gave most of his children unusual names: Respino, Kilpatrick DeGrosse, Genoa Veve, etc.  Eight One got his name because he was born one minute after midnight on 1 January 1881...   My grandmother's brother was named Robert Raymond Lancaster, and he'd tell the Census-takers that the R. R. stood for different names every ten years - Rocky Road, Rail Ryder, River Raider, and so on.  At least I knew ahead of time that Uncle Ray had a warped sense of humor.
   Recently I have also found the names John Diklis, Joe Fuzee Cretein, Worty Wartes, and a couple named Johnson - the wife was Eused and the husband was Noway....
   If you decide to look into your family tree, I highly recommend the LDS website called Family Search.  You can choose to share your family tree information, or not to do so.  The site can be found at:  https://www.familysearch.org/   

Snow and Genealogy

I think Mother Nature likes to make me crazy.  It was 60 degrees here on Monday and Tuesday, the last two days of January.  On the first day of February, it was 40 degrees, and then the temperature kept dropping and sleet and freezing drizzle began to fall.  Yesterday, we had a very light fine, dry snow fall all day, and it's still coming down... one or two flakes at a time.  It was 14 degrees when I left this morning to care for the hens and cats on Dellwood; I had asked my nephew if he would shovel the sidewalks at Dellwood if it snowed, as he lives one block away.  He never answered, so I shoveled like mad this morning.  It was still 14 degrees when I returned home, 90 minutes later.  At 11 a.m., it's 19 degrees.  -  But it's supposed to be 58 Saturday, Sunday and Monday....  Is the Lady upstairs having hot flashes?
     In any event, I've hit a couple of walls in my genealogy work - Elizabeth Cox was born on 25 Jun 1675 according to her grave stone, and died on 10 May 1837.  According to Family Search, she was married to Hezekiah Hall on 11 Nov 1784.  But there are no records of her parents that I have been able to find....  The other wall, at the moment is Moses Cleveland's grandfather, Richard Cleveland. The church records of St Nicholas Parish in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, record Moyses Cleveland being baptized on 26 February 1604, and that his father's name is Isack Cleveland.  Church records indicate that Isaac was married to a woman named Alice, and that Isaac was born 1 Jan 1584 and that he died on 3 June 1626.  Church records also indicate that his father (Isack's) was Richard Cleveland, who was baptized in July of 1542 at St Nicholas Parish in Ipswich, Suffolk.
   I need to find Elizabeth Cox's parents, and I need to find Richard Cleveland's parents....   Of course, there are lots of other dead-ends, also.
   I start taking care of Maggie May today - her folks are heading off to Vail for a wedding in the family.  That means we should have a vehicle available for the rest of the weekend.  Then, next weekend, Rosie's parents will be gone and we will again have wheels...  Having a vehicle for use is heavenly.

This 'n' That

We had about three and a half inches of wet snow fall during the first half of Monday - Martin Luther King, Jr Day.  About one in the afternoon, I stepped out onto our balcony and used the dustpan to scoop the wet snow off the railings, and to uncover Penny and Wendell's solar batteries.  Nedi came out, but Lovey decided it was too wet for her little toesies.  This morning there's a think sheet of ice on the balcony floor, but that's all that's left.
   On Saturday, 28 January (my Mom's birthday), the inaugural running of the Pegasus World Cup will take place at Gulfstream Park in Florida.  Twelve people, or racing entities, each put up $1 million to enter a single horse in the race.  It will cover a distance of one and one-eighth miles on the main dirt track.  The names of the horses running were turned in yesterday.  I'm not sure when the draw for post positions will be held, but NBC is covering the race live from 4:30 until 6 p.m. EST.  The twelve declared runners are:  California Chrome; Shaman Ghost; Keen Ice; War Story; Neolithic; Breaking Lucky; Prayer for Relief; War Envoy; Ralis; Noble Bird; Arrogate; and Eragon.
    Well, as usual, I was tracking backwards on my family tree yesterday.  I had started with a woman named Miriam "Mary" Swett, who was born in 1672 and died in 1734.  As it got later, I was (honestly) hoping that her ancestors would disappear...  However, about 10:30 last night, I came upon one of her (and my) ancestors whose name was William de Braose.  He was known as "Black William" Baron of Abergavenny; he was born around 1204 and he died on 2 May 1230.  I had no problem with that.  However, under cause of death, it stated that he, Black Will, had been hanged inside his own castle, Aber Castle, by Llywelyn ap Iorwerth.  Both of these men are my many-times-great-grandfathers....  I decided to stop investigating for the night.  I had already run into an ancestor, who, along with his son-in-law, were killed in battle at Blore Heath, the first battle in the War of the Roses....   Too much history.  (I'm currently reading an excellent account of the years 1775 & 1776 in and around Boston, Massachusetts, from both the English and American point of views.)
    I start taking care of Roxie and Finney today - as well as walking Rosie.  The first two are Brittany Spaniels, and Finney just returned from 4 weeks of Hunting School.  Not that her owners use her for hunting; she just has a huge drive to hunt and point at prey, so it was decided to use her energy in a non-harmful way.  She used to point at squirrels in the yard, and one had to grab her by the collar and pull her away to get her to break the point.  I'll have to see what we'll be doing while the owners are gone...
    I hope you have a great week!

My Ancestor, Thomas Nock, 1617 - 1666

Yesterday, just for the heck of it, I decided to see if any information had appeared on the man who is the "end" of of my father's male ancestry.  Tracing my Dad back, father to father, I end up with Thomas Nock, who was born in 1617 in England and died in 1666 in Dover, New Hampshire.  The church has the recording of his birth date, as he told his wife (Rebecca Tibbetts) and the minister recorded his death date.
    This is what I  know of Thomas Nock, from multiple years of research:  he was born in England according to his wife.  He married his wife, Rebecca Tibbetts, in Dover.  Thomas had an established home in Dover in 1652, and was recognized as a free man.  Thomas and Rebecca's first child was born in 1654; as she was born about July 1636, it is posited that they were married in 1652 or 1653 in Dover.  They had five documented children, and the last, Henry, was born four months after his father's death in October 1666.  Thomas and Rebecca's second son, Sylvanus, married Elizabeth Emery, and their third child, daughter Rebecca, married William Willey.  (Less than two years after the death of Thomas Nock, his widow, Rebecca, married Philip Benmore.)
   I searched  long and hard to find out about the the surname "Nock" in England.  Both the Tibbetts and the Emery families, who married into the family, have stated that the name is from the old "atten Oakes" name, meaning the family originally lived near oak trees.  In England, that name has been changed by time to several variations - Knock, Knocke, Noake, Noakes, Nock, Nocks.  But there is another possibility - old English also contains the word "nock" which means a small round hill; and a person with that last name would have lived near such a hill.
   There were, and are, a lot of Nock and Nocks families in Shropshire, England.  There are small pockets of families with the same names in almost every area of England; there are some in Scotland (not  spelled Knox); and there are some in Wales, Ireland, and Northern Ireland.  Both the Emery and the Tibbetts families have declared that the Thomas Nock family is from Shropshire - but there is no solid proof that has yet been discovered.
   The whole reason I'm writing this particular blog is due to a visit to Rootsweb, a part of Ancestry.com.  Anyone can fill out a family tree and send it in, and get it posted there.  That is one of the reasons I've been recently writing a lot about checking sources, research and facts.   I looked up Thomas Nock, to see if anyone had any factual information that might have turned up regarding his parentage and place of birth.
   I really laughed out loud, and startled Rosie, the elderly dog I'm currently caring for...  First were the listings that said that "my" Thomas Nock was born in 1654 (that was actually his first son, Thomas, with Rebecca Tibbetts) and that the son had married the mother (said Rebecca Tibbetts), and had died in 1666, having had 5 children with his mother).   I know that it's confusing when first sons are always named the same - but...  really!
    And then I saw a new listing that said that "my" Thomas Nock was the son of Thomas Knox and Jayne Marie Cristy of Shropshire, England.  I began to investigate that, and it immediately fell apart.  Jayne Marie Cristy was the wife of Harold Thomas Knox, Jr (1932 - 1987); and Jayne herself was born in Illinois in 1931 and passed away in 2003.  How someone decided that Jayne was born in Romney Marsh in England in 1609, and was the mother of a man born in 1617 is a thing that has me scratching my head in puzzlement...
     The family surname was Nock when Thomas arrived in colonial America; in several generations, the "s" was added, and became Nocks.  Then we had the large wave of Scots immigrants in the northeast, and the learned people who could write decided the name was Scots and changed the spelling to Knox.  Some of my grandfather's aunts and uncles spelled the name Knox, some spelled it Nock, and Great-grandpa James Loren spelled his last name Nocks....  A part of the family came from England with the surname Waterhouse; after eight generations in Maine, they became Watrous....
   Check your facts, if you are doing genealogy!!!  Just flat out copying can lead to huge mistakes.
 

Genealogy and History

Genealogy is a great way to start an interest in history - in following my family tree, I've noted several incidents that ancestors were involved in, which made me want to learn more...  I grew up considering myself to be a Southerner in the United States.  Mom was from Virginia, Dad was born in Oklahoma and spent the majority of his youth in Kansas.  I was born in Virginia, and grew up in Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, and Florida.
   I was extremely surprised to learn that Chincoteague Island, Mom's Virginia hometown, declared for the Union (not the Confederacy), and while people fought for both sides, Chincoteague was a Northern ally.  So I read a great deal about the agricultural and seafood economies of Accomack County, and came away with a much better understanding of why the citizens decided to support the Union, rather than the South.  I had no idea that the Eastern Shore was not a part of the Confederacy - I was never taught that, nor did I ever see it mentioned in my history texts at school and college.
   Digging nuggets of information along family branches, I found that a great-grandfather (many generations ago) was hung for his part in Bacon's Rebellion at Jamestown in Virginia...  So I read up on that bit of history.
   I've found that one of my great-great-grandfathers was a part of the jury that found abolitionist John Brown and his sons guilty in absentia for the Pottawatomie Massacre.  That relative went on to be burned out during the Civil War, and became a Justice of the Peace and a Judge in Missouri.  At the same time, the great-great-grand Uncle of my sister's husband was one of the seven men supplying John Brown and his abolitionist followers with money and firearms that led to Harper's Ferry.  Jim's great Uncle somehow avoided trial and conviction, while many others did not.
   An ancestor supported Lord Calvert of Maryland in the only English Civil War battle that occurred in the American colonies, was caught and sentenced to prison.  He escaped, left the main land, and settled in Accomack County, Virginia, where he prospered.  Another ancestor, a Cleveland, was imprisoned during the British Commonwealth period, for writing "scurrilous verses" about Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.  The ancestor was incarcerated in the Clink Prison for six months.
   Ancestors and relatives of my parents fought in the Civil War, the War of 1812, multiple Indian Wars, the Revolutionary War, and I've traced a few who fought in the Wars of the Roses in England, the Crusades, and even a couple of battles that contained warlords and troops of Roman Legions...  Right now, I'm reading about the Roman Empire, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and the beginning of Charlemagne's  Frankish Empire that became the Holy Roman Empire.  It's fascinating stuff - especially when you realize that someone you're related to lived though it.

Family Genealogy

Instead of blogging, I spent the weekend working on my family tree.  Since items and histories are added to the internet on a daily basis, I can usually find something new.  Sometimes I'm lucky in looking for a specific person, and sometimes I look for years without any entries turning up.  I've been looking for my maternal Swedish great-great-grandparents since 1981, and a few months ago, discovered that my great-grandfather's brother had filled out his parents' names on his wedding license in Manhattan, New York City in 1901.  In 1940, the third brother's widow filled in completely different names on her husband's death certificate.  I have both sets of names, but I trust the son's memory more than I do the daughter-in-law's.
   Many people have problems sorting out different generations when there are repeated names, and especially if the surnames are common ones - say, Smith, Jones, Green, White, Carter, Johnson and Hall, in the United States.  I was going through one of my family trees and realized that a connection I had accepted as correct simply could not be correct - unless the woman had had a child in her 60s. (Now, that might be possible today, but in the 1700s - no.)  So I erased that entire line and am starting over with what I can prove.
   Mom's family line is mainly English, with a strong helping of Swede, and two generations back, the addition of a Dane.  I can trace the Dane's family back to the 1500s, thanks to the Lutheran Church's records in Gylling, Aarhus, Denmark.  Still seeking information on all the Swedes, and Englishmen who settled in Accomack County, Virginia and Chincoteague Island.  I know that some of them flowed down the coast from the more northern settlements, and I'm continuously checking on that.
   Dad's family is the one that has a lot of very traceable lines - I'm still looking for the forebears of Thomas Nock, who was born in England in 1617 and came to the colonies before 1642.  The Clevelands can be traced back to Rollo, the Viking first Duke of Normandy.  Then there are the Lancasters, the Washbournes, the Winslows, and the Crewes'.  In looking at the family tree of Job Winslow yesterday, I realized that I had no information on his wife other than her name - Ruth Chase Cole.  I started digging with pleasure and went to bed this morning at 2 a.m., having traced her family back to a man born in the year 880....  Talk about exciting!  Writing down information about an ancestor who lived more than 1,000 years ago is mind-boggling, for me...  I wonder exactly what kind of life they had - what would they have considered as a "special treat?"  It's just amazing....

What's In A Name?

It's pretty amazing how some companies want to tell you exactly what your surname means and where it comes from.  I laugh very frequently when I read all the many different responses I get regarding my maiden name - Nocks.    While growing up, I never thought to question my father about his knowledge of his surname.  He frequently told me that his mother's maiden name was Lancaster, and that her family could be traced back to the Lancaster family from the War of the Roses in England.  (DNA testing has shown that's not true, recently.)  But he was never very vocal about the name Nocks.  There was some speculation that it was an Americanized version of the Scots Knox, or that it was a garbled version of the German Nachts.  But there was no surety.
   I've been told by various "surname research" companies that the name is from the Scots, is  from the German, is from Dutch, French and Danish. And that it's changed with time....
   In doing my genealogy research, I've been able to trace my father's family name, from father to father to father, back to the man who arrived from England.  His name was Thomas Nock.  His church records state that he was born on 12 November 1617 in England; that he had a residence and family in Dover, New Hampshire by 1652; and that he died in Dover in late October of 1666.  Several researchers say that Thomas Nock was from Shropshire;  I have been unable to verify this. After three or four generations in North America, the family name had an "s" added to the end.  Parts of the family stayed Nock, and parts were Nocks.  Then there was a large influx of Scots settlers into the northeastern colonies, and, suddenly, because of the learned scrivners, Nock and Nocks had Knox added to the spellings.  In looking at Dad's lineage, we start with a Nock, which becomes Nocks, then switches to Knox for two generations, then switches back to Nocks....   It can make you crazy...
   And what does Nock or Nocks mean?  In doing my own research on Old English and Anglo-Saxon names, I have two distinct possibilities.  Since the original spelling of "nock" was just that,  I, personally, believe that the name was from the Anglo-Saxon - a nock was a small rounded hill, and having that surname meant that you lived beside a small rounded hill.  The other meaning, which has been thrown at me with great intensity (to the point that I resent it) is that Nock is a corruption of "Noke" or "Nokes."  Noke and Nokes is derived from Old English, and means "near the oaks" or "near oak trees."  -  And that is a quite plausible take on my surname...  but I just don't like it; which is silly.  
   The meaning of Nock, or Nocks, is actually unimportant.  What matters is that I know that Thomas Nock was born somewhere in England in late 1617.  Now I just need to find out where, in all of England, that was - and I mean something that is without question - not a "he might have been the third son of so-and-so, but we don't have his Christian name..."
   

Random Thoughts

Yesterday, Bea and I visited Estes Park, just to get out of Boulder…  It was grand, as usual.  There were a few idiots driving along 36 - I was driving (yes, I admit it) 7 miles over the speed limit on a two-lane black top that has a 50 to 90 foot drop down to a very rocky creek bed.  The other side of the road os blasted rock that is almost perpendicular.  Beatrice and I were amazed when four separate vehicles passed us as if we were standing still.  I have no idea where they were headed in such a hurry, but I was afraid we'd see an accident ahead of us, once they had passed.  We didn't, so I guess angels were looking out for those drivers (and us).
    We poked around and looked at houses, and drove down some roads we hadn't gone down before.  Besides mule deer outside of Rocky Mountain National Park, we saw elk in Estes Park and in Big Thompson Canyon.  On the way home we took another back road and drove past a herd of bison…  I enjoy getting out and seeing wildlife.
    This morning, at a traffic light, I had a green, and was driving at 45 mph.  Some ditzy blond in a Cadillac Escalade turned from the red light side directly in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and watched in disbelief as she made a huge U-turn, and headed in the opposite direction of my stopped progress.  My jaw was, literally, hanging open.  Maybe she didn't see me at all, but a 3/4 turn to go in a totally different direction?  I also felt a bit unsafe as I was driving the Prius this morning, as opposed to the Lexus SUV….
    We drove by Larimer County's Devil's Backbone Open Space yesterday, and I noted that the area is currently closed due to raptor nesting season.
    There are crocus blooming in the back yard this morning.  They are beautiful, but I also know full well that Boulder usually has it's last freeze on or about May 6 - and today is only March 9.  Our little ivy plant inside the apartment is growing very nicely - it's put on about 20 new leaves, and the stems have grown about three inches each.  Usually the only thing I can grow and keep alive is catnip.
    I sat down to do some intensive genealogy work Monday, and was surprised to learn that one of my favorite websites that I use for "quick and dirty" research was totally down and won't be back up until March 15 or so.  The site says that have "hardware" problems…..   Did one of their servers crash and burn?  It's just weird that when I finally get the urge to research, the site is down.  It's pretty frustrating, too.
    As much as I loved driving in the mountains yesterday, I kept talking to Beatrice about Chincoteague and Assateague.  Thank goodness I'm heading back for 11 days in July!  I have foals and fawns on my mind, as well as hatchlings and new growth….   Yes, I miss the islands.

Family Tree Research

I glanced out the window multiple times yesterday and was surprised, but happy, to see more snow falling.  Even though it was only 30 degrees out this morning, there was no snow left on the ground, and sidewalks, roads, and dirt areas just looked slightly damp.  Vehicles in the parking lot had heavy frost on them and one vehicle at the bakery had several inches of snow on the trunk and rear bumper...  But it's bright and sunny this morning, and we're supposed to reach 62 degrees this afternoon, even though the grass and leaves in the back yard are covered in a hard shell of frost.
   I'm still digging into our Busey family connections, as, as usual, I am amazed at how many children were produced by families during our history.  Large families came about from (a) no family planning, (b) no birth control, (c) the need of more help to produce more food for more mouths, and (d) the high mortality rate of children during those times.  Being one of only two siblings, I simply can't imagine being one of ten, twelve, or twenty-four offspring...  What is even more frightening to realize is how many children were miscarried, or were stillbirths, and their existence simply isn't recorded anywhere...  My father's mother had seven children that I'm aware of - the first two died in the Spanish Flu pandemic, and Aunt Louisa lived for only a few minutes before dying.  That left four healthy children, three of who had kids of their own.  I'm just taken aback at listing a norm of eight to twelve children per couple, of whom six to nine went on to have another large generation of offspring...  It's like rabbits - we multiply geometrically.
  I thought it was amazing to have 79 relatives with the same first name of Hatevil (pronounced Hate-evil); there are so many repetitions in the Busey family of Christian names that it can be very confusing - you have to be certain of the year that person was born, the names of the parents, and the name of the spouse.  It's also a bit confusing when one man marries multiple sisters - one dies in childbirth, and he marries the next, who dies, and he marries the next...  That just seems weird to me.  But, I suppose, back when families were scarce, you had to keep going back to the same well for replenishment.  I'll continue to dig.

Pieces

Today is the final day of the 2015 Denver National Western Stock Show and I wish I was present.  I love the livestock, the exhibitions, the shows, the vendors, and the food.  The only thing I don't appreciate is the crowd...  I'm always happy when the Stock Show breaks attendance records, but I hate being in a large crowd.  That's why I don't go to football games or concerts any longer.  Too many people in one place make me feel like I'm suffocating.
  It's beautiful outside today - the sky is a bright blue to the east, the sun is brightly shining, and one can almost see the Indian Peaks to the west (there's cloud cover up there, again).  The squirrels and birds are playing, eating, and singing, and my cats are enjoying running in and out through the patio door.  We're at 50 degrees already, and should approach 60 this afternoon.  When the weathermen started predicting highs in the mid- to upper-60s for Monday and Tuesday, people thought we'd be setting a record high temperature; we won't, though.  The high temperature records for Monday and Tuesday are in the mid-70s, so while we'll be 20 degrees above normal, we aren't setting records.  Even so, 65 to 68 degrees in January, in Colorado, seems a little strange to me...
   I've been working on genealogy for a friend, and finding out how often Ellis Island clerks changed the names of immigrants.  In one family, twin brothers, aged seven, got separated from the rest of the family while going through "processing" and were assigned the surname of Cagman, while the rest of the family was given the surname of Cohen.  They met up again, outside the walls, and found out they'd been given different surnames.  They went back in and tried to get the surnames to be made the same, but it wasn't allowed....  Silly rules.  So the youngest two brothers in a family of six children had a different last name than their parents and siblings.
   I am enjoying re-reading the Preston & Child Agent Pendergast books again - there are always so many twists and turns that I'm always surprised - good reading, if you don't mind a bit of gore!
 

Hatevil Hall, Vikings, Weather

It's glorious outside - upper 40s in temperature, bright sunshine, very light occasional breeze, and a cloudless sky.  The weather folks say we'll have a high of about 75 degrees today, and a high of about 70 with cloudy skies tomorrow.  They say that our high temperature on Sunday will be just after midnight, and that Boulder will get 5 to 7 inches of snow in the afternoon and evening - and the temperature will rebound to the 60s on Monday.  It's our usual wacko Spring weather!
   Last night's episode of Vikings was enthralling. From the hints on Facebook,  I had deduced that King Aelle of Northumbria would be the visitor to King Ecbert in Wessex, and that Floki would wed Helga.  I had not foreseen that Floki would become restive under Ragnar's rule, and did not invite Ragnar to his wedding.  Bjorn still looks up to Floki for some guidance, and Siggy is still telling "secrets" to King Horik - for Rollo's preferment, she says. Jarl Borg met his end via the Blood Eagle, but he did not cry out, so he entered Valhalla as a warrior.  Athelstan, meanwhile, observed the wedding of King Aelle's daughter, Judith, and King Ecbert's son, Aethelwulfe.  And the two Kings made a pact, to take over Mercia (the land between theirs) and split it between them, while agreeing to unite to fight the menace of the Northmen...
  I'm still working on my father's maternal family tree.  While I haven't discovered anything earth-shattering so far, it's nice to see that most were farmers, merchants, teachers, and men of the law.  I have found two surnames to add to my unusual names list - one is a family named Palpeter, and the other is a family named Cripliver.  I wonder how those two surnames evolved?  Some of the names I come across while reading the US Census from many years ago cause me to shake my head - so many grandiloquent names for so many who died so young.  I still have to laugh when I see the old newspaper write up on unusual names that asks if Hatevil Hall hated evil...  He's one of my ancestors, and he was a Quaker elder,so I think I can fairly say that, yes, Hatevil Hall hated evil.  He had a multitude of sons, and each of those sons named their first born son Hatevil, as did the second and third generations.  I have about 70 Hatevil Halls in my family tree, that I know of.  (And, yes, the name is pronounced Hate Evil...)

This And That

It's very windy out, again.  Yesterday, the building next to mine measured the wind speed at 71.3 miles per hour...  It isn't a constant wind - it dies down, and one can hear birds and traffic; then it blasts through the trees again, and one hears the branches waving, sighing, moving, in the wind.  At my sister's house, this morning, Rosie and I were listening to the limbs of three cottonwood trees and one weeping willow rub against one another.  The differences in sound were amazing.  The wind began Sunday evening, and seems to die down in the mid-afternoon hours, but then picks up again once the sun sets.  And we're expecting the wind to continue through Friday...   *sigh*
  Otherwise, it's sunny and bright outside, after being cloudy yesterday.  It's been interesting watching things blow around, through, and over the back yard....  Multiple plastic bags, styrofoam packing pieces, light-weight trash, even boxes fly through the air (and over the 6-foot-high privacy fence) in this type of weather.
The kits enjoy running in and out with weather like this, so I allow them to do so until the sound of the wind whining through the door starts to bother me.  Then the kits come inside and the door is firmly closed.
   My recurrent shingles hit Sunday - this time inside my left nostril...  It feels like the left side of my head is the size of a huge beach ball, even though it looks normal.  It feels totally weird.  Lovey can't understand why I don't want her to wash the left side of my face right now - but she still goes to town cleaning the right side, once we get in bed.   --  And I admit to wasting $4 today - I purchased two lottery tickets with the extremely faint hope of winning the $400 million jackpot....
   I have been digging into the Lancaster and Mobley families for the past week - Dad's maternal side - and have found more Judges, Reverends, Medical Doctors, and Sheriffs in the family tree.  Have found, also, how the families split over the Civil War - it's very interesting.  Right now I'm trying to trace Ezekiel Boone, to see how, exactly, he was related to Daniel Boone - a Great Aunt married Ezekiel...   I've been finding a treasure trove of old family photos that have been shared on-line, too.
   And Boulder is celebrating because the Boulder International Film Festival was once again a success, with Shirley MacLaine here; and because one of "Boulder's own" won the bronze medal in the Olympic Snowboard Cross...  I put "Boulder's own" in quotation marks, because the guy actually grew up in Vermont, but is now living in Boulder....  So, congratulations, Alex Diebold!

Critters and Genealogy

Today is grey and dreary so far. I felt great when I awoke this morning, but i have developed a headache just to the outside of my left eye - and that usually doesn't bode well. I'll take my preventative migraine medicine, but I don't know if it will work. Rosie and Remy were very good yesterday for their walk, and luckily, most of the snow had melted. Today, other than a few piles of snow in shaded parking lots, all sign of Tuesday's snow is gone. But the weather guys are now saying possible showers throughout the weekend and Monday, with more snow on Tuesday... We'll see. Maggie May decided to stay by my side for several hours yesterday - I was doing research on the computer, and she was stretched out next to the keyboard, occasionally touching my hand to let me know she wanted her chin scratched. The ravens and crows are noisily playing with Nedi this morning, while Lovey has draped herself across my shoulders and doesn't want to be dislodged.

   I just finished reading Creole Belle by James Lee Burke, and I immediately started Pope Joan afterwards. I've already read over 100 pages - the book is written episodically, and moves quickly. I'm reading it to answer some questions that came up after watching the 4-hour TV movie on Easter Sunday... so far, my few questions have been amply answered. I also looked at two travel books - one for Sweden and one for Denmark. I was disappointed not to find anything about the small town that great-great-grandfather came from in Denmark - I realize that it's a small farming community, but the local church was built in the 11th century, the baptismal font is from the 10th century, and there are also two Viking rune stones inside the church... The travel guide for Sweden was excellent - but I'm still not sure where Cap'n Walt and his parents lived while they were in Sweden. I have been assuming they lived in southern Sweden, as the majority of old photographs in the family album (all unidentified) were taken at the studio of Karl Karlson in Karlskrona, a few were taken in Malmo, and a couple in Kristianstad... It doesn't help that the family surname is Johanesson, or a variation of it... So, I'm still digging on the Swedish side.

I Hate Being Ill!

It's nice and bright outside today, but the wind has started to pick up, and the weather forecast is "Windy with a high of 36 degrees." So, even if we get up to 16, it will still feel like it's in the teens... Lovey and Nedi let me sleep in this morning, I'm not sure why, but they did. I wonder if they somehow osmosed what the doctor told me last night: "You're not going to get better unless you rest. Rest, rest, rest!" He listened to my lungs, looked at my ears, nose and throat, and said I still had an acute upper respiratory infection... I now have an inhaler, Tessalon Perles for coughing, and another round of antibiotics. Plus I've been told to stay on bed rest until Valentine's Day... I got him to say it was OK for me to sit up and read, so here I am. Other than walking dogs, I don't have any jobs until the 17th of February, so I've notified the folks that pay me to walk and play with their dogs...
  I enjoyed NCIS and Vegas last night on the television. Yesterday afternoon I spent with my friend Bea, and we had a leisurely lunch at The China Gourmet, then we wandered through Lucky's Market and also visited the newly opened Lucky's Bakehouse and Creamery. It's a good thing that we were so stuffed from lunch, because I lusted after/over almost every single item in the new store. Everything looked tempting and it certainly smelled tempting, too. Then we went to the Carnegie Library and started working on Bea's family tree. Unfortunately, her Mom's surname was Jones, so it's becoming a search for a needle in a haystack, in seeking her Mother's parents. Since they were from Louisiana and had strong ties to the church, I hope to find the answers in Parish records.
  Besides looking for Bea's ancestors and my usual computer play, I am half-way through reading The Man on the Donkey, then I have Wolf Hall to read (thanks to Alexy), and then the next two Chronicles of Camulod books by Jack Whyte. At least I won't be bored!