![Privacy Level: Private with Public Biography and Family Tree Privacy Level: Private with Public Biography and Family Tree (Yellow)](/images/icons/privacy40.png.pagespeed.ce.80OzoudFTP.png)
Linda (Chilson) Dark
Honor Code SignatorySigned 5 Apr 2022 | 1,476 contributions | 41 thank-yous | 1,617 connections
I was born in Roslindale, MA. How that is possible considering my mother lived in Caryville, (a small section of Bellingham, MA is beyond me. It is quiet a distance to travel to have a baby in 1963.
My biological father, Judson Himes, and my mother, Arlene Chilson, were never married. Probably because Judson was already married to someone else (opps). So my best guess for being born in Roslindale is because that is where the doctor my Father's mother hired worked. The deal was, she would pay for my birth, if my mother never contacted that family again. Deal done
For the first 4 years of my life I lived with my mother, her siblings and my grandmother. I am still very close with all my aunts and uncles on that side of my family. My mom was 1 of 11 Children. There are 18 years between her and her youngest sibling Carol. Carol is only 3 years older than I am. We were more like sisters than Aunt/niece.
When I was 4 years old my mother married a man by the name of Joseph Palmer, the only father that I have ever known. When I was 5 my brother Billy was born. When I was 9 my brother Jimmy was born. When I was 11 Joe Palmer legally adopted me.
Our family was not in Caryville long, soon after I was born the Chilson family moved to Milford, MA. I have some vague but fond memories of the house on East St. Once Joe and my mother married in 1967 the 3 of us moved to Holliston, MA. I remember wanting to go back to Milford where there we plenty of people for me to play with. Billy was born in 1968. With the birth of Billy, our family had outgrown the little cottage we rented. Before my brother turned 1, we moved to a first-floor apartment in Ashland, Massachusetts.
We lived in that apartment until I was a freshman in high school. My parents bought their first and only home in a small cul-de-sac in Ashland, close to the border of Southborough. My father still lives there today.
I met Mark in 1983. We married in 1988. We lost a baby in 1989, but went on to have 2 wonderful sons, Christopher born in 1991 and Eric "Klye" born in 1994. We bought our "starter home" in Blackstone when Christopher was only a month old, and have been here ever since.
I was introduced to Genealogy by my mother-in-law in about 1985. I fell in love with it. I love puzzles, and this is one continuous puzzle, always working to make sure the pieces fit together. The 2 biggest highlights I have found over the last 30 plus years are:
1. There are Chilson's in the Dark family. I haven't connected them to my Chilsons yet, but I am still working on it.
2. The land that our house sits on is land that was once owned by the 2nd Walsingham Chilson. It was a pasture, or "common cow lot" back in 1699. But imagine finding out that just by chance you are living on the same land once owned by your 6th great grandfather!
So that is me in a nutshell.
This week's featured connections are Redheads: Linda is 18 degrees from Catherine of Aragón, 20 degrees from Clara Bow, 27 degrees from Julia Gillard, 15 degrees from Nancy Hart, 16 degrees from Rutherford Hayes, 16 degrees from Rita Hayworth, 21 degrees from Leonard Kelly, 21 degrees from Rose Leslie, 21 degrees from Damian Lewis, 18 degrees from Maureen O'Hara, 25 degrees from Jopie Schaft and 37 degrees from Eirik Thorvaldsson on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
I notice you've been working on some pre-1700 English profiles. Links to Ancestry trees are not considered reliable sources for this time period, even if those trees are sourced. The wikitree standards ask that information about the actual record is used to create the citation. Wikitree Sourcer is a great browser extension that you can use which will automatically create excellent citations for pre-1700 profiles. You can find information about it here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:WikiTree_Sourcer Cheers, Elizabeth co-leader England Project
edited by Judith (Labrie) Srom
I'm responding to your note on my profile. Your Chilson ancestry has given you some interesting research challenges in early New England!
The sources you have cited for Walsingham Chilson and his wife Susannah (Edmunds) Chilson do include some of the reliable sources we look for in the pre-1700 period (particularly the marriage and death records from Lynn and Bellingham), so you are doing fine there! AGBI is one of the derivative sources that can be helpful in research, but it is not a reliable source for pre-1700. Are you aware of the 2011 book about this family? (See https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/1928147 for details). I haven't seen it, but if you can access it in a library (or order it from the author), you should look into it. Its publication was announced in American Ancestors, which makes me think it has credibility with NEHGS.
I do suggest that you work on the content of your biographies. In general, we are encouraged not just to list sources, but also to tell what we found in each of the sources. A biography should tell the story of the person's life (at least what we know about it) and how we know it -- and don't be afraid to indicate what we can estimate or infer (but say that it's an estimate or inference). On the Chilson-425 profile, I added a sentence about the marriage with a Wikiformatted inline citation to the record that you had cited for the marriage -- that demonstrates one way to indicate what a source has told us. On Susanna's profile, it seemed like the focus is on saying what you don't know. I would like to see information about what we do know -- the names of the known and inferred children, with information like death dates when that's all you have. I see that you identified Susanna as the widow Chilson who died in Bellingham at age 95 in 1774. In your biography for her, you should indicate that the record does not give the first name of the woman who died, but it is apparent that it was her because she is the only candidate to be the aged widow who died in Bellingham at that date. But you might want to hedge on her age -- ages of old people often were over-estimated in those years, and her documented date of marriage (1709) suggests to me that her birth year was closer to 1689 than 1679.
You've made a good start on your pre-1700 profiles. If only there were more information about these people!
Ellen Smith
Thank you for taking the time to review this. It does mean a lot to me. I will follow your lead/instruction.
Just a little about me, I am not new to Genealogy. I have been doing this for almost 40 years (God, I’m getting old). Back when everything was on paper and charts, I had all the resources. I used to take my boys to graveyards in the summers to research stones.. I am sure they tell stories about that now. Every Thursday you could find me in a library somewhere doing research on one of my many branches. Then ancestry came along, and I got a bit lazy I guess. I had an entire filing cabinet of source information. I ended up getting rid of most of it because I had ancestry. Now I am realizing that was a mistake.
Anyway, I am not new to Gene, but I am new to WikiTree, and I am not the best with Technology so I will learn as I go. And hopefully not driving you and the other leads crazy with my questions.
On the book you referenced, I had no Idea. I know Sue. She flew out here about 20 years ago. We went to Graveyards together to research this family. I used to subscribe to the “Chilson Chatter” A great quarterly that she put out. I am referenced in there several times. As the kids got older and more involved in school, I backed away for Genealogy for several years and lost touch with her. I stopped getting the “Chatter” due to financial hardship at the time. Now I am sorry I didn’t keep it up.
Anyway, Again, thanks so much for getting back to me. I have a lot to look into.
Regards,
Linda
Ellen
Congratulations on certifying to work on pre-1700 profiles! It’s very important to read and understand the Pre-1700 Profiles page. These profiles for deep ancestors are shared by many, and collaborating on them works best if we all follow the guidelines in the certification quiz.
Primary sources should always be added to pre-1700 profiles at the time they are created. If you don't have a source for a pre-1700 profile, it would be best to ask for help in the G2G forum before creating the profile.
Hilary ~ WikiTree Pre-1700 Greeter
Just FYI: The real hero of many of the early Partridge profiles is Carole Partridge. :-)
We are so happy you decided to upgrade to the Family Member level.
Please visit our tutorial pages to learn how to use WikiTree: How To Use WikiTree. They will save you time, energy, and frustration as you add your family profiles.
Exploring the site is the best way to learn. One way to do that is to check out the drop-down menus on the top right side of your profile page. Finding a known ancestor and collaborating with the profile manager is another great way to start.
Questions? You can always use the G2G link in the Help Menu to find answers.
Laura ~ WikiTree Greeter 🙂