This week's #family history challenge--What's Your Favorite Discovery--from Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors52Weeks sparked a vivid memory. In mid-January 2009 I discovered first hand what our nation's capital is like in winter. Washington, D.C.'s humid air wraps your body in a vise; a cold breeze off the river increases its grip. I walked briskly from the … Continue reading Grandma Serena Had A Cat
Ira Sayles
His Future Was Not Yet Written
Shortly after my father died I began to search for his ancestors, my ancestors. Within a couple of years I had masses of information about Ira Sayles, my dad's mother's grandfather, including a one-line reference in The Alfred (NY) Sun obituary of one George Parker. A little later [George Parker] was brought north by Prof. … Continue reading His Future Was Not Yet Written
Volunteer! Volunteer! Brave Hearts of Allegany!
The Union army appeared to be making quick work of the southern insurgency as the United States entered the new year of 1862. Recruitment offices around the north just shut down. Why keep something open when it was so clear the war was going to end and soon? But then came General McClellan's attempts to … Continue reading Volunteer! Volunteer! Brave Hearts of Allegany!
Weekly Scribe: Ira Sayles to E.B. Hall, 9 October 1884
This letter was sent to Ira Sayles' pharmacist buddy, E.B. Hall, during the USGS employee's field work several months after the June correspondence. Though Ira does not name the son who is traveling with him through the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, it can be deduced. Ira and estranged-wife Serena lost their daughter, Florette, in 1858 … Continue reading Weekly Scribe: Ira Sayles to E.B. Hall, 9 October 1884
Weekly Scribe: Ira Sayles to Edwin B Hall, 1884
Today I transcribed this letter posted from my 2x great-grandfather, Ira Sayles, to his long time friend, Edwin B. Hall, at the end of June, 1884. I suspect that the friends first met in the 1860s after Ira's sister, Rhobe Sayles Crandall, moved with their elderly parents to Wellsville (Allegany County, New York) where Hall … Continue reading Weekly Scribe: Ira Sayles to Edwin B Hall, 1884
Shoots, Roots, and Leaves 