G2G: 52 Ancestors Week 47: This Ancestor Stayed Home

Question

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 47

The theme for Week 47 is "This Ancestor Stayed Home." Like last week, there are numerous ways to interpret this theme! Homemakers, ancestors who lived their entire lives in one place, and someone who lived in a "home," are just a few possibilities.

Basically, people who heard there was gold in them thar hills and said “Nah. I’m good.”

Comments

What happens when all of your siblings go to America and you don’t? https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2023/11/52-ancestors-week-47-this-ancestor.html

Answer 1

I feel as if I should begin with "Once upon a time" as this reply goes back some 400 years. If those before me have done their due diligence, one of my 9th great grandfathers was Francis Martin, born 1606 in England, died 16?? Maryland. Two generations later, my 6th great grandmother, Elizabeth Martin (Dallam, Smith) Elizabeth (Martin) Smith was born in Maryland near her grandfathers home. She married Richard Dallam and lived on what is described as 'Cranberry', one of the finest estates in all of Maryland. My paternal 6th great grandfather, William Smith, lived on the adjoining property named 'Blenheim'. Upon Richard Dallam's death, William, being a widower, married Dallam's widow, 'Pretty Betty Martin'. In William's will, he left a portion of his estate known as 'Broom's Bloom' to their daughter Elizabeth Smith Paca. To this day, you can enjoy lunch and dairy products at Broom's Bloom Dairy located in Maryland, still owned and operated by descendants of the Dallam family. It is my understanding one of the original houses from the 1700's still remains on the property. Fast forward 150 years and a trek through Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky, a branch of the Smith line settled in the 'Hot Bed' of the Civil War, Jackson County, Mo. Since the 1840's, nine generations have called this area home. Having no children of my own and only one nephew and few cousins that bear the name, future genealogists will have to pick up a cold trail to see where it leads.

Comments

K, great answer, you certainly did go back with generations staying home.

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I do not have a photo but, the profile has an artistic rendition that is associated with the profile.

Answer 2

This was surprising.  Most of my ancestors seem to have moved. But fresh in my mind was James Holly Bartlett, my 2nd GG, born Nov. 18, 1807 in Saint John, New Brunswick.  I just used him for the celebration of November Ancestors.  James was a conductor for the Intercolonial Railway and lived on Princess Street with his wife and children most of his life.  Then the Great Fire happened in 1877 and destroyed most of Saint John.  You'd think he would move.  Many people did.  And yes, James moved a few blocks north of Princess to Coburg Street. On the map the yellow-green dots are the choices for where his second house was located and blue dots for the railway terminal.  Princess Street was near King Square.  James died in 1883 in Saint John, the city he loved before the fire and after the fire. http://WikiTree.com/wiki/Bartlett-7692. 

Comments

Pat, you are amazing with your knowledge about your ancestors. I love your map!

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Thank you, Alexis. They mapped out the city of Saint John in 1875 and some of the maps include the names of the property owners, which was very helpful.  That was 2 years before the fire.  Thank goodness for modern fire fighting and fire fighters.  A whole city isn't destroyed anymore.

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Thank you Pat for sharing this great map

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Thank you, Susan. I like maps.

Answer 3

This is a photo of my great uncle Ray Alvin Long. It was taken about 1920. Ray stayed of the family farm, where he was born, after all of his eleven siblings had left. It was good that he was able to stay and help his parents, as his father had a heat stroke and wasn't able to work the farm in the hot western Oklahoma summers. 

Ray and Hazel raised their five children on this same farm. After Hazel's death, Ray lived alone on the farm. I remember that in 1959, I was really excited to see that Ray had grown a bunch of okra as big as bananas. I was ready to pick okra, but my mother told me that it wasn't any good, and it should have been picked sooner.

Comments

Wonderful story, Alexis.  Yes, my great aunt Frances told my father the same thing about these over-sized but prize-winning vegetables. For display, not for eating. 

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Alexis, who was the shutter bug with the discerning eye in your family. Wasit one person or a genetic characteristic?

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K, thank you for your comment that gave me a big smile. Most of the photos that I have were saved for me by my paternal grandmother, Pearl Lovelace. My biggest frustration is that she did not add names. She did save hundreds of photos. 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/McCleery-119 

This photo is part of a collection that belonged to Ray’s daughter, Anita. She and I were very dear friends. Thank you again for your nice comment.

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Pat, thank you for your comment that once again shows how much we have in common. Alvin and his brother Ed loved to compete with who could grow the largest watermelons and cantaloupes. I have eaten so many cantaloupes that now I am allergic to them.

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Thank you Alexis for sharing this wonderful photo of your great uncle what a treasure ❤️

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Susan, thank you for your support and your always nice comments.

Answer 4

My paternal grandparents were both born in Oregon. Except for a few years in Tulelake, CA, my grandfather, Douglas J. Puckett, lived his entire life in Klamath county, OR., with the exception of WWI in France.   My grandmother, Leta Gray Puckett, was born in Lane county, her parents moved to Klamath county, when she was young. As an old lady, she lived with her grand daughter in Coos county.

My father was born in Klamath county, with the exception of attending college, in Lane county, and being a B-17 pilot in WWII, in England, he lived his entire life in Klamath county.

Answer 5

I went into the LNAB of "Heim" (home). There I found Eleanor S Heim. I started with her maternal cousin Charles William Rader, better said with his wife Marie Elizabeth (Whitehouse) Rader. So I started looking at the list of profiles for Whitehouse, and I found her grandfather Henry connected.

Answer 6

The home on my paternal grandfather's farm is in the National Registry of Historic Places. It is a beautiful home, and my memories of it go into two different directions. I think about the historical aspects of the home, like its beautiful flooring and amazing kitchen. I also have fond family memories, including eating Sunday meals in  the dining room and using the secret passageway to go up to the second floor.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=1569

Answer 7

My dad's side of the family is German-from-Russia. My grandfather was born in Russia and came to the U.S. as a young boy. My grandmother was born here (in South Dakota) to recent immigrants. They both had many cousins, aunts and uncles who stayed in the Russian Empire (the southern Volga region and what is now Ukraine). My grandmother had a big ledger with all the family names in it, but there's one rather chilling entry: "All who remained were lost contact with after 1917".

Obviously 1917 was the Russian revolution and the start of the USSR. And then the rise of Stalin, who disliked Germans (among many other ethnic groups). He forced a starvation across Ukraine, relocated families to inhospitable areas of Kazakhstan and Siberia, and killed many outright. Churches were bulldozed and tombstones used for paving blocks. We have no idea what happened to our extended family who chose to stay at their homes.

Comments

Oh, gosh, Rob. That's brutal, a grim reminder that sometimes staying home can be dangerous.