Look what I found out about the Whetstones, but it makes me sad

Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland), August 9, 1906.

 

 

1906 was a bad year for the Joseph Hampton Whetstone family in the little mountain town of Frostburg Maryland. Little Peter, born in 1895, died in March of '06 and then a fire took the family home in August. My grandmother, Emma born in 1897 and just nine years old, remembered the fire clearly. It was a scary formative event in her life and from the article I can see why. The house was destroyed as well as the contents. Grandma remembered standing out in front of the house with her entire family watching it burn with nothing left but the nightclothes on their backs. That was the sum total of their worldly possessions.

 

I see from the article, and Mom didn't remember this, that the family was at breakfast when they discovered the house was on fire and the flames had already reached the roof. Kate Whetstone, grandma's mother, ran to the bedrooms to rescue the two youngest boys, Tuck and Joe. One of them, I know not which, had to jump to safety.

 

The article states that the value of the house was covered to just one-fourth by insurance. I'm glad of that. At least it was something. And glad too that the two youngest children were saved.

 

November saw another child gone and that was little Viola. She was born September 21 and had died by November 17. Poor Kate was pregnant with Viola when the house burned down. None of us living know if Viola was full term or if the trauma of the fire and running upstairs to rescue her small children somehow caused an early labor for Kate. Either way, Viola was gone before November ended.

 

Poor Joe and Kate. So much loss in such a short amount of time.

 



Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland), November 20, 1906.

Joseph H. Whetstone on the right in his Frostburg Fire Department uniform.

 

Kate and Joe sitting in front of their house about 1920, with some of their grandchildren.
Mom is the one with the big hair bow.

 

Kate and Joe in later life.

 

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/07/look-what-i-found-out-about-whetstones.html

A thought about AncestryDNA retiring products

Maybe you read the news on the blogs or news feeds? AncestryDNA is retiring both the Y-DNA and mtDNA products (along with a couple more products including one I particularly enjoyed, MyCanvas) and deleting all trace from their site, which will include content and matches. See what CeCe Moore posted to her excellent blog, Your Genetic Genealogist here. Below is part of what she wrote.

Q: Will the entire Y-DNA and mtDNA site interface be retired? Will you be able to view and contact your matches?
A: The entire interface will be retired, including the match lists and the ability to contact your matches.

My comments: If you have tested there, I strongly encourage you to contact your matches before September 5th (and so does Ancestry.com) because you will not have another opportunity to do so.  You can download your raw data (CSV file) until September 5th by going to www.DNA.Ancestry.com and upload to other services like Family Tree DNA.

This is scary stuff if you ask me. If you tested with these products your stuff is gone as of September 5th. Just gone. So of course, as CeCe suggests, you need to get on over there and download your stuff soon if you want it.

The reason I find it scary is that some folks paid for a service and aren't going to get it anymore and to me that's a big ol' black eye on Ancestry and calls into question their commitment to products. It's not about the money and paying for a service that one would assume is offered indefinitely, but about it calling into question Ancestry's commitment to those of us who chose to use it. How hard would it be to leave that part of the AncestryDNA web site up and running? What would that cost them? Peanuts, I'm thinking.

But my own take-away is that when we buy a DNA testing service we are depending on that company's commitment to a business model that is dedicated to DNA testing. Ancestry is a gigantic corporate entity with fingers in many pots. It's revenue stream has many sources and a very small part of that is likely the earnings from AncestryDNA's Y and mt testing. If they were making money on it they'd just continue on offering it, wouldn't they? How serious can their commitment be if a product isn't earning as hoped for? It must go... is that what they're thinking? Is their priority the revenue stream and not users? It would seem so, at least in this case. Makes me wonder what will eventually happen to all the Member Trees if revenues from the main site ever falter? Sure, genealogy is real popular now but what's going to happen in 50 years? Will that tree I've been working so hard on with all the photos and documents just up and disappear? For the first time I'm thinking, yeah, maybe.

I don't know about you but I am so far into this DNA matching thing that if either 23andMe, AncestryDNA for autosomal DNA testing, or GEDmatch went away, I'd be a hurting cowgirl! Sure I've downloaded everything you can, but now I depend on the interfaces and how they work, and that point has been driven home recently now that GEDmatch is down for service.

When we buy a DNA product we're buying into a corporate philosophy and commitment... or lack thereof. To us it's not a product so much as it is a tangible connection to our ancestors.

My great grandparents and Mom's grandparents on her mother's side. Gone now but their DNA lives on in Mom and me... and at 23andMe and AncestryDNA.

 



Catherine Elizabeth (House) Whetstone 1865 - 1947
and Joseph Hampton Whetstone 1858 - 1939.

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-thought-about-ancestrydna-retiring.html

Surname Saturday: The Wonderful Whetstone Family

True confession, I like my Whetstone ancestors. Some of my kinfolk give me the chuckles with their misbegotten adventures and I enjoy them because it's fun to watch from the relative safety and comfort of my home as they stumble their way through records and leave a trail a mile wide. But the Whetstones are different: their records are about service to country and community, and of course family.

There's even a major (to us) genealogical fist-fight that's been going on for years about another Jacob Whetstone Jr. from the Somerset PA area (and not our Jacob Whetstone Jr. 1776 - 1889 form Berks County) and a book's claim that it was this other Whettstone line that descended from Capt. Jacob Whetstone Sr. (1738 - 1833) who served in the Revolutionary War. This particular book is given as a source for some applications to the DAR. All of this confusion finds perfect breeding ground throughout the 21 Member Trees on Ancestry.com, and probably counting upward every hour.

The bottom line is that our Jacob Whetstone Jr. was the son of Captain Jacob Whetstone and was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania. The other guy, bless him, was born in Somerset Pennsylvania, I know not when, and perhaps ended up out west... but I try not to pay too close attention and clog up my brain.

We found much more about Capt. Jacob Whetstone from the vast and fabulous Pennsylvania Archives on-line here. Any lookie there! There's a portal just for us genealogy freaks!

Also need to mention the vast array of spelling of the name: Whetstone, Whetstein, Wetzstine, Wettsttne, and the Dutch version, Van Der Woestyne. Maybe Probably I don't have them all;) Good grief!

So let's start the countdown, and look at Mom's mother's Whetstone line as far back as we can.

1. Diane Kelly Weintraub

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

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

14. Joseph Hampton Whetstone 1858 - 1938
15. Catherine Elizabeth House 1865 - 1947
Joseph Hampton Whetstone followed his father's chosen occupation as a stone mason in a time when even the streets were cobble stones and needed to be set by hand. They lived just on the outer edged of the town of Frostburg, Allegany, Maryland.
Catherine Elizabeth kept a garden and was often seen working in it sporting her large sunbonnet. Joseph turned a portion of the basement into a cold cellar with his masonry skills so that what Catherine grew would be well kept over the winter.
When Mom's mother, Emma, was small and maybe less than 8 or 10 years old, their house in town burned to the ground. The entire family was left in the middle of January with only the clothes on their backs. Afterward, Joseph did two things: he joined the Frostburg Fire Department, all volunteers, and built for his family a fine house on the outer edges of town, the one with the big garden and cold cellar in the basement.
Joseph H. and Catherine were the love birds in this line-up. Mom has letters they wrote back and forth while he was away working as a stone mason. They are sweet and tender. Interestingly, she was his housekeeper after his first wife, Amanda Dennison, died. They eventually married.
They had 12 children in all and they are:
Charles Albert Whetstone 1887 - 1965
James Franklin Whetstone 1889 - 1960
Clarance Hampton 1891 - 1976
Grace Elizabeth 1893 - 1959
Peter Whetstone 1895 - 1906
7. Emma Susan Whetstone 1897 - 1956
Edna Whetstone 1900 - 1922
Margaret Ann Whetstone 1902 - 1996
Joseph Edward 1903 - 1972
Leslie Laurance Whetstone 1905 - 1995
Viola Whetstone 1906 - 1997
George Washington Whetstone 1911 - 1975

28. Joseph Edward Whetstone 1816 - 1897
29. Sarah Wagoner/Waggoner 1825 - 1880
Joseph Edward and wife Sarah were born and died in Garrett County Maryland in and around the tiny community of Grantsville. He was a stonemason. The winters are harsh here and my guess is that daily life then was not easy. I blogged not too long ago about a letter Sarah received from her mother, also named Sarah, just before she died and you can read it here to get a feel for the times.
They had these 13 children:
Elizabeth Jane Whetstone 1842 - 1896
Susan Emily Whetstone 1844 - 1877
Peter Yeast Whetstone 1847 - 1918
William Whetstone 1850 - ?
Charles Whetstone 1851 - 1880
Charlotte "Lottie" Whetstone 1852 - 1872
Mary Alice Whetstone 1856 - 1862
14. Joseph Hampton Whetstone 1858 - 1938
G. O. Theodore Whetstone 1860 - 1861
John Edward Whetstone 1862 - 1896
Bradford Whetstone ?
Zoe Violet Whetstone 1864 - 1948
Frank Whetstone 1869 - 1959

56. Jacob Whetstone Jr. 1776 - 1869
57. Christiana Frantz 1744 - ?
Jacob and his brother Solomon married the Frantz girls: Jacob Jr. married Christiana and Solomon married her sister Catherine.
By tracing the birth location of the children we find this couple first living in Berks County, Pennsylvania, then a brief stop in Somerset County (and thus the confusion in records mentioned in the introduction), and lastly in Selbysport, Garrett, Maryland, a move taken as best we can guess about 1815. He was a farmer.
They had the following children:
Female Whetstone born in 1792
Samuel Whetstone 1794 - ?
Female Whetstone born 1795
John W. Whetstone 1796 - 1848
Female Whetstone born 1804
Hannah Whetstone 1808 - ?
Catherine Whetstone 1810 - 1893
Daniel Whetstone 1812 - 1888
28. Joseph Edward Whetstone 1816 - 1897
Rebecca Susan Whetstone 1803 - 1881

112. Jacob Whetstone Sr. 1738 - 1833
113. Anna Marie Schaeffer 1748 - ?
Here's our Revolutionary War ancestor! Mom writes the following in her Notes on Family Tree Maker:
The Whetstone's were from near Mckeansburg and are on record for Pine Grove, Twp. Their company was recruited largely from the North side of the Blue Mountains.
Aug 1777 Jacob Whetstone's Company  mustered under Coloniel Daniel Hunter of Oley, and was on duty around Philadelphia, participating in the Battle of Germantown under General George Washington. The return roster of the company  is given as containing 49 men and 8 officers and includes the following: May 17, 1777
First Company Capt. Jacob Whetstone
Ensign: Heney Whetstone (spelled Wetstein), Conrad Sheffer, Rudolph Buzzard, Ludwig Herring,George Brouch.
Jacob Whetstone was a Captain in the Rev. War. He served from 05 Aug 1777 until 05 Jan 1778.
Their children are:
56. Jacob Whetstone Jr. 1776 - 1869
Solomon Whetstone 1775 - ?
Isaac Whetstone 1777- 1850
John Whetstone 1778 - ?

224. Isaac Whetstone about 1710 - 1789
225. Persus Hunsicker
Isaac came from Baden-Wurtenberg, Germany and his wife, Persus, was born in Tamaqua, Schuylkill, PA.
They had these children:
112. Jacob Whetstone Sr. 1738 - 1833
Abraham Whetstone 1740 - ?, who served in the Berks County Militia in the Revolutionary War.
Henry Whetstone 1742 - ?

28. Joseph Edward Whetstone 1816 - 1897, as a younger man

28. Joseph Edward Whetstone 1816 - 1897, later in life

 

14. Joseph Hampton Whetstone 1858 - 1938 as a younger man.

14. Joseph Hampton Whetstone 1858 - 1938, on right in his

Frostburg Fire Department uniform.

14. Joseph Hampton Whetstone 1858 - 1938 and 15. Catherine Elizabeth House 1865 - 1947

with grandchildren. Mom has the big bow.

15. Catherine Elizabeth House 1865 - 1947, later in life,

standing in her garden behind the house.

 

6. Cambria Williams 1897 - 1960 and 7. Emma Susan Whetstone 1897 - 1956.
Emma was the daughter of 14. Joseph Hampton Whetstone 1858 - 1938 and 15. Catherine Elizabeth House 1865 - 1947.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/02/surname-saturday-wonderful-whetstone.html