52 Ancestors Week 19: Preserve

Question

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 19

The theme for Week 19 is "Preserve." We preserve a lot as genealogists: papers, stories, history itself. There is also the tasty kind of "preserve." (Now I'm hungry for some strawberry jam on fresh-baked bread.) What have you or your ancestors preserved?

Graded 9.0 in near mint condition. 

Comments

So, is strawberry jam your absolute fav, Chris?  Or do you bounce from fav to fav over the years.  My current best is plum butter (no, it doesn't have butter in it) from an Eastern European store.

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It's awesome! These prompts are by Amy, btw. =D

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Doing genealogy is a lot like collecting comics if you think about it: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2024/05/52-ancestors-week-19-preserve.html

Answer 1

I would like to thank Robert Mills Jr. http://WikiTree.com/wiki/Mills-29274, who lived from 1786 until 1839 for his preservation of my family history by listing the names of family members including my 2nd great grandfather, George Miller, in Probate papers concerning his mother's will.  His mother didn't name them.  She just wrote, the children of my daughter Sarah, deceased.  Robert, thankfully, named all nine of them.

Comments

On my mother side of the family, my mom and grandmother preserved important document and photos. Most of which I got.

My dad's side was something different my want told my dad it was none of our business knowing the family history. She didn't want anyone knowing when she died.  The other aunt told us a little, but she didn't know much. We did find out some of the history she was trying hide. Some of it was good, some of it was back but every family has those people in their family.

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So true, Chris.  Everyone has ancestors who behaved well and ancestors who behaved badly, whatever the time period. And no one has any control over them.

Answer 2

Said the lad to the crooked politician,

Preserve your documents.

When I started doing family research, the priority was primarily on building a family tree. The mother lode was found when records were discovered from a massive family gathering in the 1930s that had focused on just that. Suddenly, Mom’s paternal family tree became a redwood. The last 15 or so years have been spent validating that tree with online records and correspondence with cousins also into family history.

The rest of the tree has involved relying on documents from the USA, Canada, Finland, Sweden, and Norway to build the tree one family twig at a time from census and other records.

I initially used MyHeritage, but over time my primary recording application has become WikiTree, with the key sources of documentation online BDM websites of various jurisdictions, governmental archives, FS, Ancestry, etc.  My hope is that WikiTree will survive whatever is coming down the pike to preserve our family documents.

Answer 3

I would like to thank Charles William Richards my 1st cousin 2x removed and William Henry (Harry) Richards my great uncle both descendants of my 2x great-grandfather Charles Richards born 1839 for preserving the Richards family history by commissioning the creation of a family tree for the 1970 centennial of the founding of the family business, the tree was researched by DeBretts of London, England.

A copy of that tree was given to all of the many of his known and traceable descendants. As a 2 x great granddaughter of Charles 1839, I have a poster size copy of that tree.

After many years research by me and several other cousins only 1 error has been found on that tree, the children of one great uncle are listed as the children of another great uncle, this was most likely a mistake made by the draftsmen who created the large paper tree for the company centennial.

The tree includes all the descendants of his 11 children and was complete to 1970.

The Richards family tree can be seen on my profile. It was incredibly helpful to have a well researched tree ( no sources were included but the information was easily verifiable)  when I started researching my Richard's ancestors in 2011. Sometime a long time ago  I counted the number of descendants on the tree and there are over 200. The family has now been researched by a group of distant cousins including myself back to the mid-1600s.

Comments

What a wonderful gift you and other descendants of the Richards family were given, M.  I always love seeing your family photos.  Such an amazing collection.

Answer 4

In 2019, I was contacted on Ancestry.com by a lady who was trying to find someone who was related to the owner of a bible she found.  She was cleaning out her uncle's house and found the bible in a box of stuff bought at a garage sale.  She knew she was not related and found the bible owner listed in my family tree.  It belonged to my grand-uncle Hilary Wilder.  She gladly sent it to me.  The bible listed many births, marriages and deaths-several I didn't know/have. Last time my cousins came to visit, they enjoyed looking at the bible and took several pictures. I will hold on to it unless I can find a direct descendant of Hilary to pass it on to.

In 2017, I was sent a picture of my grandaunt Hazel Wright Brafford.  A lady had found the picture in an antique store and it had the name Hazel Brafford on the back.  She thought that was an uncommon name and could find Hazel's family.  She found Hazel on my tree, contacted me and sent me the picture.  I did not have a picture of Hazel so I was thrilled to get it.

Thanks to both ladies, I will cherish these 2 family items  Maybe one day I can pay it forward.

Answer 5

Preservation means also kind of protection. "Protection" is "Schutz" in German. So I looked for unconnected profiles named "Schutz". I found Mary Elizabeth (Schutz) Stinger. After a bit of digging I could connect her daughter-in-law Lydia (Hampton) Stinger with her granddad. I only had to create the profile of the father/son to connect more than 50 profiles.

Comments

Good catch on “Schultz”. I was always quietly pleased that my given name Raymond means ‘wise protection’.