Tombstone Tuesday - Cemetery in Your Basement

Anybody else remember the Dead Milkman and their song "Big Lizard in Your Backyard"? My title kind of reminds me of it. But enough of my wasted youth...

So yeah, there are lots of places that have crypts or tombs in the basement, but how many have the actual cemetery down there? As in, the ground, and gravestones sticking up out of it?

Take a trip to New Haven, Connecticut and you can see for yourself. In the green that still exists in the center of the city there are now 3 churches (it's a long story). Back in the early days of the city in the 1600s the cemetery was there as well, and was there for many many decades.

Eventually, they built other churches on the grounds of the town green, and my focus is on the center church. The picture below, which I got from the church's website: http://www.newhavencenterchurch.org/ shows what it looks like. It's the center church. By the way, that's Yale University in the background there (gorgeous as well).


The church was first built in 1813, right on top of part of the cemetery. Instead of taking the stones away, they just built right on top of them.

Now I know what you're thinking: But what about the rest of the cemetery Leah, that picture doesn't show any headstones.

That's right! They just picked up all the headstones and moved them to another cemetery nearby. There they propped them up against the cemetery wall.

But, you say, what about the bodies???? Didn't they move the remains as well?

NO! :-) They moved the cemetery but they left the bodies!!! They left the bodies and only moved the headstones! They're all still under there as you walk around this gorgeous park-like green. About 5000 people they say! Slightly creepy on that gorgeous day on the green? Yes. Yes it was.

Anyway, the church allows you to tour the Crypt as they call it and it's really wonderful. There were a bunch of the Trowbridge family down there, which is one of my really far back direct ancestors. I learned by the nice guide lady that it's pronounced Tro-bridge, rhymes with "sew" and not Trow-bridge, rhymes with "how". What can I say, at least she didn't laugh outright at me like the nice scottish man who corrected my pronunciation of "Arbuthnott". :-D Yeah, laugh away, dear reader, let's hear how you'd pronounce it!!!

To the right here is the actual Scotsman that laughed at me. Just to be clear, he's the one on the right in the picture. If only he'd been on a horse, I might have taken it better. :-D

The oldest stone in the underground graveyard is for Sarah (Rutherford) Trowbridge. She passed away in 1687. She's my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. How cool is that???

So here are some pictures, but really, you ought to see it for yourself, so if you are ever in New Haven, check it out!

On Censorship and Genealogy

***Warning! This blog entry has been conceived while standing on a soapbox! Warning! Proceed at your own risk! :-) ***

oh, you're still here? Okay, here goes.

Some things have happened over at GenealogyWise, I'm sure you've heard so I won't re-hash. One of the outcomes is that there is now a discussion about the role of censorship on the site. Basically it's come down to the ideas of: no porn, no business, no rudeness.

Naturally, the last one (rudeness) has prompted a lot of discussion. My idea of rudeness is quite different from yours and everyone else's. I might think it's cute to call someone Mr. Poopy-pants, but maybe they think that is darn rude. There's no good answer, other than to let us all act like adults until we don't. I know, it's still subjective, but that is the age we live in now, we need to learn how to deal with it. The anonymity of the Internet, or the distance (both literal and figuratively) that exists even when we do know who each other is, makes it easy to forget to "Be Nice". I'm always surprised by how quickly comments on news stories and blogs turn into name-calling and insults. We are our lowest common denominator. We are human and messy and selfish and mean.

The 2nd one, no business, makes some good sense to me, to a point. The last thing I would want to see are those fake "family crest" businesses set up shop and start bilking inexperienced genealogists out of money. But I would love to see a way to contact legitimate businesses. Maybe a section of the site where professionals can list their contact information and specialties. But I have to go there looking for it, not have it in my face all the time.

And lastly, what prompted me to write this posting: Porn. I can promise you, my definition of porn, like rudeness, is different than yours. At first, I had no problem with the idea, ok, sure, the genealogy site won't have porn on it. Sounds reasonable to me!

But then in all the comments, it immediately went another direction. We should also not allow any nudity...if your grandma was a burlesque dancer, put some black bars on her picture before posting. If you're transcribing text from a letter or book, if there are curse words, use an asterik, like "h*ll".

Huh?

I don't understand why so many of us find the human body offensive, or would consider a naked picture of a woman from 1899 (for instance) to be porn. Those naked women, usually just showing their breasts, from those old photos are still usually wearing more clothes overall than most tweens and teen girls today. So a breast is showing, who cares?

My suggestion would be to not automatically show pictures that users upload on to the site on the main page. Let a user tag a photo from their page for public viewing. That way, you'd have to actually go to my page, and flip through all my pictures to find something to be offended about. And at the same time, we won't be imposing one set of views from one group of people on to another.

As for censoring curse words...well, what do you consider a curse word? The 7 words we can't say on television? Cause I know some people who are really really good at making up new aggregate curse words from already existing words, and they aren't part of the original list.

Now, let me state, out of all the genealogy books, town history books, vital record books, and all those other books, not once do I recall coming across any sort of curse word. But if I did, if there was a court record or something from 1690 where they transribed an ancestor of mine who cursed a blue streak, well, that's history, and I'm not going to alter it. So if I wanted to transribe something, I'm gonna transcribe it. But again, you'd have to search me out to find the information so you could be offended.

Just like this blog, it's not being shoved down anyone's throat, if you think my views are horrible and wrong and irresponsible, you can stop reading and delete your link to me. That is your power. In your world, I will be silenced, and that is as it should be.

And if you're worried about the children, just remember, the more you hide something, ignore something, prohibit something, the more shiny and sparkly and alluring it becomes.

Anyway, that is my 2 cents. I will continue to use genealogywise, I think it is a cool site and a cool idea and I've already made some contacts on there that I'm really grateful for. And I promise not to post any pictures or text that will offend anyone (and I'll even use your definition, not mine, just to be safe).

But censorship makes me sad. It's letting someone else control what I'm allowed to see and know, and to me, there couldn't be a worse fate. I want to see everything, read everything, in its original form and I will be the judge as to whether I want to not look at it again because I thought it offensive.

Earlier today I saw on some other blog that someone had posted funny postcards from the 1930s. They were what I would consider "slightly risque". I chuckled and enjoyed them because it reminded me that the people who created and bought those postcards in the 1930s were just like us.

Like I said earlier, we're human and we're messy. Or at least, I am, since I can only speak for myself.

Ok, stepping off the soapbox now, it's safe. :-)

Wordless Wednesday - 15 July 2009

Surnames and Lots of Other Places that aren't Rehoboth, Mass.

In my last posting I listed out all my surnames that originated (at least once they moved to America) in Rehoboth, MA. One day soon I'd like to visit that town.

Anyway, so below is a list of my other surnames, I like to think of them as "Not-from-Rehoboth-Surnames":

AKINS - the farthest back I have them is the 1800s in Lockwood, NY. They are a brick wall for me.

BROWN - first lived in Swansea, Mass, don't have much on them at all, the name comes from a wife

CHURCHILL - first lived in Wethersfield, CT. Lots of old genealogies try to link my Josiah Churchill to the famous Churchill family but I'm not buying it

COLLINS - first lived in Boston, then moved to Walllingford, CT, came from Herford, England

DOMELLE - immigrated in the 20th century from what was NagyOsz, Hungary (now in Romania) and moved to Lake Village, Indiana

ENSIGN - first lived in Hartford, CT. Some old genealogies try to prove a link to nobility with this one, but again, I'm not buying it.

FIENES - this was a maiden name for the mom of the wife of the first Bliss of mine that came over. Family was from Maiden Newton, Dorset, England

FOOTE - lived in Wethersfield, CT, came from Shalford, Essex, England and Royston, Hertfordshire, England

GEORGE - lived in Braintree, Norfolk, Massachusetts, have little because it was a wife

GIBBS - 1800s in Waterloo, Seneca Co, NY, have little because it was a maiden name

KINGSBURY - another maiden name of a family that first came over, they came from Dedham, Norfolk, England, but that's all I have right now

KIRBY - lots of brick walls in NY in the 1800s - another maiden name in Waterloo, Seneca, NY that comes from who knows where

LYNN - darn those maiden names, it's so hard to prove who the parents were in so many cases! This one was in Connecticut.

MIX - originall in New Haven, CT, then moved to Wallingford, CT, then NY - the cause of all my mysterious maiden names in NY. I know the first Mix came from London, but that's it.

OBENDORFER - married to the Domelle above, so was in Lake Village, Indiana. all I know is that she said she was born in Vienna and that's it!

ROCKWELL - lived in Windsor, CT, came supposedly from Fitzhead, Somerset, England

ROYCE - lived in New London, CT, came suppsedly from Martok, Somerset, England

STEVENS - another maiden name who married a Mix, I got nothing - 1800s in Greene, Chenango County, NY

TROWBRIDGE - lived in Boston, New Haven, CT, Branford, CT. Supposedly came from Devonshire, England

TURNER - like the Mix, I only know he came from London. First lived in Lynn, Massachusetss, then founded New Haven, CT

WHEATLIE - a maiden name of one who came over - is supposed to be from Maiden Newton, Dorset, England


And those are all my surnames to the point of emigration or immigration, whatever you want to call it!!

Surnames and Rehoboth, Massachusetts

I can't keep track of anything anymore (did I ever, or did I just imagine it?) - so I have all these spreadsheets all over the place, for genealogy, for bills, for work. It's not that I'm some kind of excel guru, I don't do all the fancy stuff, it's basically just lists. I like lists, and excel is really good for lists.

So this particular list is my direct line surnames and their place of origin in my records - in other words, what town did they originally inhabit in the US and the originating country?

If I could figure out a way to import excel into my blog, I'd do that, but none of these cute little buttons up top here in blogger.com look like they do that for me, and let's just not even go to the little edit html tab. I can do word or line formatting in html, but there's no way I can format me up a table. I'll put that on my list of things to learn!

Anyway, I have a bunch of families who first lived in Rehoboth Massachusetts, we're talking 1600s here. On my mom's side, most of the families were early New Englanders.

I must disclaim at this point - some of the originating towns in England/Wales etc. are conjecture as far as I am concerned. There's all those great genealogy books from the late 19th century and I love them to pieces for the great lists of descendents in America; but some of them you just have to take with a grain of salt when they go back to England or Scotland because a lot of them were really just trying to prove links to nobility that didn't exist.

And so, my ancestors who came to America in the 1600s and first lived in Rehoboth, Massachusetts (or almost first lived there):

BLISS - first lived in Rehoboth, came from Northampton England, either Daventry or Preston Parva

BOSWORTH - first lived in Rehoboth, came from Hingham, Norfolk, England

BOWEN - first lived in Rehoboth, came from Ilston, Glamorganshire, Wales

COOPER - first lived in Hingham, Masschusetts, moved to Rehoboth, came from Hingham, Norfolk, England

DAGGETT - first lived in Rehoboth, not sure where they came from yet

IDE - first lived in Rehoboth, my line moved to Clarendon Vermont, came from Ide, Devon, England

KENT - first lived in Taunton Masschusetts, then Swansea, Masschusetts, then Rehoboth, not sure where they came from yet

PECK - first lived in Hingham, Massachusetts, moved to Rehoboth, came from Beccles, Suffolk and Hingham, Norfolk, England

PERRY - lived in Rehoboth, not sure where they came from yet

SMITH - lived in Rehoboth, not sure where they came from yet


I just re-discovered the Daggetts the other day and found an awesome book online. Amazing that I can forget about a direct line surname for years. It's the Problem Of The Wives, darn name changes.