Wisdom Wednesday: Thank goodness for...

It's that middle day of the week and here we go on a GeneaBlogger's blogging prompt called Wisdom Wednesdays. This week it's all about what I'm thankful for, even though it's not November, which, for those of you not in the USA, is when we celebrate my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. I was talking to Mom the other day and we were marveling at how genealogy has changed as she entertained me with stories of how she did it when she started in the 1970s! How we laughed! I've seen her stacks of 3 by 5 cards, family group sheets, and the rest, all hand written, and they look strange to my eye used to a computer print out.

So here are all the things I'm thankful for most recently, in no particular order. And I have to say that right now I'm in my usual June slump and just would rather sit in a hammock, and let the laundry pile up and up. (But maybe with a laptop and a cool adult beverage.)

The Internet. I shudder to think how slow my progress both in learning about genealogy, meeting up with cousins and fellow researchers, as well as digging as deep as I can into those records, would be if there was no internet and web service! Ugh!

Google Satellite View. I sit here in sunny Southern California emailing Cousin Andrew who lives back east about our shared ancestors who were Welsh. And we're talking about the Barque Tiberius on which our Thomas ancestors sailed out of Newport Harbor, Wales, on 30 June, 1838, and that's 175 years ago this week!!
Wait, I thought to myself, where is Newport Harbor? And I'm especially curious because we don't know where these Thomas folks lived when they were recruited to be coal miners in the George's Creek mines in Western Maryland by the Consolidation Coal Company. Wow, I think, looking at the satellite view, we drove right by there on the M4 when we went to Wales that time in the 1980s! Love you, Google Satellite View!

Latest Guilty Pleasure: Shades of the Departed! A cuppa and a cookie and I sit down to thumb through Shades, the most fabulous on-line magazine this gal has ever seen!  Shades carries the imagination back into the past and over hills and valleys to towns and farm lands to meet ancestors we never knew or people of the past not even connected to us. I feel as though I'm sitting in a late 1800s train station and people arrive and sit and chat and reveal themselves to me, and I can gaze as long as I like without being rude. This is absolutely my new "guilty pleasure" and I use that term because I probably should be doing something else like laundry, but don't really care one fig.

Blog posts that come along at the right time. Here's an example. Research and connecting the dots on the ancestors is especially difficult for me in West Virginia and if you have the magic potion to help me find them, then please have mercy on a stumbling fool and let me know! I always feel like many of the dead-end brick wall situations on the tree lead over to West Virginia... or Ireland and Wales. I can understand the last two because it's a Pond hop. But WV, even though it's just "over the hill a bit" is all messed up! I just love The Legal Genealogist blog by Judy G. Russell. I've learned so much from her. Then she did a blog post about the forming of West Virginia and a light went off: it's not so much me as it is them! Whew. WV, you are difficult. (Go WVU Mountaineers!)

The Encouragers! I do like those in the land of genealogy who encourage and help. Look, we're all trying to learn. So here's to the encouragers, and most are, who daily take up blogging to share and maybe help others, as well as those many helpful and dear souls who come to the local groups to help and find help. Hugs to all!! What a nice community we are!

Thank goodness for so much stuff to be grateful about! (Am feeling so good I might even do some laundry, but later.)

 

Eckhart Cemetery, Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland.

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/06/wisdom-wednesday-thank-goodness-for.html

Surname Saturday: The Thomas Family From Wales

It's off to Wales once again for Surname Saturday, the blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers. We've been to Wales a couple of times before as we explored the roots of the Williams, Price, and James clans before these Thomas folks. Unfortunately for Mom and I the records only go back too short a ways for us, in spite of the old saying that a proper Welshman could recite his ancestry back nine generations. Imagine: if all of our Welshmen could have done so how happy Mom and I would now be!

We're here in the 5th generation back sitting amongst the 2nd great grandmothers.

1. Diane Kelly Weintraub

2. Francis Patrick Kelly 1916 - 2007
3. Virginia Williams, living and loving it!

6. Cambria Williams 1897 - 1960
7. Emma Susan Whetstone 1897 - 1956

12. Daniel Williams 1852 - 1920
13. Jane Price 1862 - 1939

26. William Price 1829 - 1872
27. Diane Thomas about 1832 - 1871
They had these children:
William Henry Price 1852 - 1910.
Benjamin Price 1854 - 1906.
Diane Price 1856 - ????.
13. Jane Price 1862 - 1939.
Ellen Nellie Price 1864 - ????.
James H. Price 1856 - 1933.
Mary Price 1869 - ????
Victoria Price 1871 - ????

54. Benjamin Thomas (1793 - 1846)
55. Hannah Evans (1798- 1868)
Too little is known about this family for our liking. Benjamin Thomas is the founding member of this family and I previously blogged about them all here.
Benjamin and Hannah were born in Wales but we don't know where. They made their way to America in 1838 with the intention that the males work for the George's Creek Coal company. They landed in Baltimore on 11 Sept, 1838 after a voyage of 46 days. Here's the list of their children followed by an image of the  manifest. As you can see there are five able-bodied men willing to go to work as coal miners, or "colliers".
The children are:
John W. Thomas (1817 - ????) Born in South Wales, John married Lucinda Rice on 29 Aug 1846 in Allegany County, Maryland.
Benjamin L. Thomas (1818 - ????) Also born in Wales, Benjamin L. married Catherine Jones on 20 Feb 1840. She also was born in Wales. They both died in Mt. Savage, Allegany, MD.
James Benjamin Thomas (1822 - 1884) Born in Wales. He married Margaret Lewis on 17 June 1840 in Allegany County, MD.
William Benjamin Thomas (1823 - 1885) Born in Wales, he married Elizabeth Lewis, also born in Wales.
27. Diane Thomas (about 1832 - 1871)
Joseph Thomas ( 1835 - 1915) Born in Wales and died in Eckhart, Allegany, MD, he had three wives: Martha Davis, Rebecca Mosser, and Jane Watkins.
Philip Thomas (1836 - 1885) Also born in Wales, he married Ann Davis.
Jane Thomas (1837 b- 1917) Born in Wales, she married Joseph Scott Robertson.
Ann Eliz Thomas (abt. 1839 - ????) Born in Ocean Mines, MD, she married John Howells.
Maria Ellen Thomas (1841 - 1908) Born in Lonaconing, she married John James Anthony.

Well, there you have it. Obviously, Mom and I are not done here! And a new-to-me cousin, Robert, contacted me through Ancestry.com messages and we chatted so now we'll be working on this line together. So much to do, so little time!

Manifest from the Barque Tiberius, landing in Baltimore 11 Sept 1838.

(Photo by me taken in the Frostburg Museum, Frostburg, Allegany, MD, October, 2012.)

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/04/surname-saturday-thomas-family-from.html

Ya Never Know Till You Look: Benjamin Thomas (1793 - 1846)

Was working on my tree on Ancestry.com this morning. It's the really short and abbreviated version of the GEDCOM that Mom built (hers with over 60,000 individuals on it!) Specifically, was adding photos to the small handful of ancestors there because I think it's nice when people find old photos of their ancestors, and maybe they didn't know what they looked like or didn't have that particular picture.

So there I was and you know how those little green leaves go wagging around at you... and I started wandering off task. I knew that Benjamin Thomas (Abt. 1793, Wales - 1846 Lonaconing, MD) came over on the Tiberias in 1838 into the port of Baltimore but I personally didn't have a copy of the ship's manifest. And one of those leaves was wagging about that so I had to go check it out.

Let me tell you who Benjamin Thomas is to me. My Mom's Father was Cambria Williams (13 JUL 1897 Ocean Mines MD - 13 SEP 1960, Frostburg MD). Everyone called him Camey and he was named after the Cambrian Mountains of Wales. His Mother was Jane Price (5 May 1862 Mt. Savage MD - 2 Feb 1939 Frostburg MD), and her Mother was Diane Thomas (Abt 1832 Wales - 17 Jul 1871 Mt. Savage MD). Benjamin Thomas was her Father and my 3rd GGF.

OK, back to Ancestry and those leaves and the Tiberias. The search result had it at "Liberias" but his name was spot on as well as the birth year so I had to take a closer look. There he was: Benjamin Thomas, 45 and wife Hannah, 40 with children: John 23, James 20, Benjamin 18, William 15, Diana 6 (my GGGM), Joseph 3, Phillip 2 and little Jane an infant. A party of ten!

His occupation was listed as collier. But wait! Look at the rest of the men on the ships list: all colliers!! Now what was a collier? Googled and Wiki said that anyone who worked with coal was a collier. That seems about right for the region at the time. Then I took a zoom look at the ship's list page and saw a notation in modern hand that said " Invitation (? perhaps) is Georges' Creek Co. for all except Mary Bannista of Baltimore." And I do know about Georges' Creek Iron and Coal Company. See this link for real interesting bits about it from the site, Western Maryland's Historical Library, or WHILBR: http://www.whilbr.org/GeorgesCreek/index.aspx



So that was the deal: the Georges' Creek Co. recruited Welsh coal miners and shipped them with family over to staff their booming coal and iron business. Benjamin Thomas was 45. Was he a miner all his working life? Probably. Am thinking that they wouldn't have paid him to come all that way if he didn't know the business. However, he was long-in-the-tooth for a coal miner when they started kids working at about 16 years old and even younger.  But his son was coming too and he was a strong young man of 23.

I'm still amazed at how one thing leads to another in this genealogy stuff!

Photo of the day from Aunt Betty's archive.

And mother to my Grandfather, Cambria Williams.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/02/ya-never-know-till-you-look-benjamin.html