Celebrate Your Ancestors!

Question

Let's celebrate our ancestors who have a special link to the month of June!  Please answer this post with some words about your ancestor and what you'd like the WikiTree community to know about them.  Don't forget to include their WikiTree ID number so that folks can visit their profile.  Photos are welcome too, though not required.

We'll celebrate your ancestor with a shout out on the Saturday Roundup Livecast; hopefully this can become a regular segment.

If you need inspiration for which of your ancestors to tell us about, go to your Watchlist and then click on the Anniversaries tab.  It will give you a list of all the significant dates in June for anyone in your watchlist.

Answer 1

I want to celebrate the best man I knew - my husband, Stephen Michael Feather. He was born 26 June 1949 and passed away from brain cancer 5 January 2017. 

His bio has his story. 

Comments

Shonda, I really enjoyed the bio!  Thanks for sharing!  You are one of my closest cousins.  Your 8th cousin twice removed

• Your 7th great-grandmother, Mary (Mcmurray) Means (abt.1630-abt.1725), 
• is her 9th great-grandmother.
• Your 7th great-grandfather, Josiah Means (1616-1708), 
• is her 9th great-grandfather.

Three of the Means family,1 Means brother and two sisters, married  into the Draper family, 2 Draper brothers and one sister.  This event happened in the 1830s in Indiana.  The unfolding events that began next has caught the attention of the Iowa Historical Society! 

Ira Dillingham Draper married to Celia Means

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Hi Shonda--My heart was aching as I read Steve's profile.  He sounds like a very wonderful man and I loved all of the photos you included.  Thank you for sharing Steve's life story with all of us.

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Thank you, David.

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Thank you, Betsy! It took me a while to write it as I kept running away from it. I can't talk about him and not cry.

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Shonda, thank you for sharing such a beautiful and heartbreaking story. Your writing is wonderful, and you did a lovely profile for Steve. Yes, your last photo had me crying. Sweet Shonda, you are so very brave. He was lucky to have you in his life.

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Thank you, Alexis! It was a very hard session to do, but I am so glad I have those images, no matter how emotional they are. 

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Shondra my heart goes out to you. Thank you for telling us about Stephen Michael Feather, your husband, and best friend. May you find, peace and comfort in knowing he is no longer suffering. [from a retired Army SICU/Multiple Trauma Nurse, caregiver of two husbands, stationed at Ft. Benning-airborne, Ft. Devens MA next to Special Forces, Walter Reed Army Hospital-last duty station]  Prayers for comfort and peace.

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Thank you, Alice. And thank you for your service. 

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Shonda thank you very much. You are in my thoughts and prayers. If you feel comfortable with it send me your email, mine is alicemthomsen1@gmail.com. I will add you to my happy friends. We remember our veterans but try to keep smiles and laughs going around.

Answer 2

The ancestor that started me on my study of Ancestry through family lore was Captain Silas Talbot.  Talbot-1926 , who is my sixth great-grandfather on my father's side.  My father rather resembled him.  Silas Talbot was orphaned early and managed to succeed at every venture he took on, through grit, honor and determination, eventually to become the Captain of the USS Constitution.  He died June 30, 1813.

Comments

Hi Linda--Silas certainly had a challenging start in life.  And the family resemblance between him and your father is quite something.  I enjoyed reading his profile and now I know what a cenotaph is.

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Wow, Linda. I've just been working on Sarah Talbot, the aunt of your Captain Silas Talbot.  Widow Sarah (Talbot) Kiles married my 5th great grandfather, widower Richard Bartlett in 1739 in Dighton.  Richard died in early 1751 around the time Silas was born, leaving Sarah a widow with small children.  Their son Edward Bartlett served in the war in the fortification of Dorchester Heights (Stoughton Militia).  Thank you for your post.

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Hello Pat, What a nice surprise to find someone else akin to the Talbots--  And that you were working on that part of your tree at just this occasion....I was unaware of this connection!  With the early deaths of Silas' parents, I did not follow the branches of his parent's  brothers and sisters. Now I feel drawn to broaden my knowledge of the family...thank you.  I appreciate  so many great details about the Talbot tree.

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Oh, yes, Linda, I was excited when I saw your post.  The Talbot family were really part of the beginning of Dighton, which was originally part of Taunton.  Dighton was incorporated May 20, 1712 and named after Frances Dighton, wife of Richard Williams.  Capt. Jared Talbot presented the petition for men residing in the new town. Jared was the brother of Samuel Talbot who was the grandfather of Silas. There's a book Town of Dighton on line on HathiTrust concerning the history of Dighton which I must return to as it was interesting.

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Thank you for your wonderful post, and knowledge.  The only difference I have in my tree on Ancestry (which seems to vary from the Wiki tree unresolved) is that Capt Jared/Jarad Israel  Talbot 1640 was Samuel Talbot's father.  He also had brothers Nathaniel, Josiah and Samuel, but I am not sure of Jared.   I was not aware that the town of Dighton was incorporated with their early residence.  I am descended from Frances Dighton, as well, through her son Thomas Williams and daughter Bethiah. who married a Hodges.  Many, many fascinating connections in early ancestry!  Thank you for all of your information!

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He was the father, Linda, but I'll move to your profile so as not to bore others with this.

Answer 3

Besides my parents, the one ancestor I liked the best was my maternal grandmother (Bühner-30).  As a child my mother and I would fly back to Germany every other summer.  I would spend my vacation with them.  My grandmother took me on short day trips around the area even though she did not drive, we mostly walked.  She always had something special in her pantry for me. I still miss her even after all these years.

Comments

What lovely memories, Rolf.  Grandparents can be such special people in our lives, but it's hard when there's a great distance involved.  I wish I had had more visits with my grandfather who lived in Taipei.  I bet she looked forward to your visits with great anticipation.

Answer 4

Great idea, Betsy!

The lifelong (80+ years) puzzle/brickwall of who my mom's grandfather was, was solved back in 2019:

George Ferris Anderson went by the alias of Robert Harrison while married to her grandmother and for a while after. He didn't go back to his real name until he and his second wife entered a veteran's home where he died on June 4, 1965

Comments

That's fascinating, Azure.  What a story and it must have taken some elbow grease and luck to tumble that wall down.  Thanks so much for sharing!

Answer 5

Maude Nichols Parkhurst was my great-grandmother's first cousin.  These two were roughly the same age.  Although they grew up in different places (Madison County, NY and Niagara Falls, Ontario), they must have seen each other frequently enough to form a strong bond.  Maude was there for the home birth of each of my great-grandmother Grace's sons.  Family lore is that Grace could be very stubborn and apparently Maude was the one person who could talk reason into her when necessary.  My mother and aunt recall both Maude and Grace as being somewhat fierce and stern.  After she was widowed in 1940, Maude lived in the former railway station in Wampsville, NY and my mother's family would call in on her there when driving up to Niagara Falls to see Grace.  Maude's birthday is June 10th (1871).  Happy birthday, Maude!!

Comments

Betsy, thank you for your sweet stories about Maude and Grace. They reminded me of a couple of my great aunts.

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What a great story, Betsy. We are so lucky as genealogists to be the guardians of our ancestors stories.

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First cousins can be very close, almost siblings, even when they live in different places.  But sometimes cousins or even siblings act like strangers.  I much prefer the first version so thank you Betsy for sharing the story of  Maude and Grace.

Answer 6

My Aunt Catherine http://wikitree.com/wiki/Miller-56554 married Uncle Bob Best in June 1942.  We used to travel down from Canada to visit them in Scituate, Massachusetts frequently during the 1950s and later.  I have such wonderful memories of these trips. Being an only child from a mother who was an only child, my father's 2 living siblings provided the only family links.  

Comments

Pat, thank you for sharing the story and the photo of such a lovely couple. They must have really enjoyed your visits as much as you and your parents did.

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Thank you, Alexis.  You are so perceptive.  It seems at times from your sweet words that you know my small family well.