The First Mile Marker

Well, it hardly seems possible that it's been one year today . . . on my Mom & Dad's (dec.) wedding anniversary. . . that I set out to chronicle my research explorations. I'd like to give a special thanks to Julie Bartlett, archivist of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, and of the Hampshire Local History Room at Forbes Library in my former hometown of Northampton, MA.

Following my relocation from Western MA to Western NC, I had shared with Julie my desire to one day become an archives tech, library tech, or public records clerk, and asked:

So, the big question is: without going back to school for a Master's degree, how can I best prepare myself to be marketable from what you see in the field?

This was her response:

This is so perfect for you so I hope it works out! The best advice is to volunteer. Sign up for Genealogy Random Acts of Kindness. Find out if you can get on a researcher for hire list at public, academic, state libraries and historical societies. Since you have a full time job with varying schedule, volunteering would be tough. Try for events or projects that don't have to keep to certain shift. Indexing is one that is always needed and can be done on your own schedule. Start going to library and archives conferences--state and regional ones. They usually have special rate for the unemployed which in Mass we define as a non-library job. Having a finished product such as an index or finding aid to show off at an interview is necessary. Does your family reunion group keep a website or blog that you contribute to? Maybe start a blog of all your genealogy research as a way to show off your skills? We recently interviewed someone for a reference job who had little experience but she kept a blog of what she read alone and with her kids proving her readers advisory would be fantastic and her writing skills were great. Of course, I would always be happy to give you a glowing reference for your research skills, knowledge of and love of genealogy, newspaper research, persistence, helpful, friendly, customer service attitude! I wish you all the best!

Thank you Julie for all your support over the years!

Wednesday's Child -- Nichelle Rae Carter

Our baby girl.

 (Photos taken September 2008
on our last trip back to Northampton, MA. 

Spring Grove Cemetery is in Florence, MA.)

Church Record Sunday -- A Call for Volunteers

While researching the descendants of Capt. John KING of Hartford, CT and Northampton, MA, I thoroughly appreciated the availability of Church history resources found at Forbes Library. At the link provided, you can search finding aids, including the Guide to Microfilm Resources at Forbes Library. A few highlights include the following, among many others:

• The Judd Manuscript (reel 15H) records marriages by Mr. Hooker;
• The First Church of Christ, Northampton (reels 22-23) includes Church records from the Old 1st Book (1661-1846) and 3rd Book (thru 1924), list of members. Original record books are kept in the Hampshire Room for Local History and Genealogy;
• First Baptist Church, Northampton, MA (reel 160) includes the Church clerk's records, Church covenant, constituent membership list, detailed meeting records, and a brief history of events leading up to the founding of the church (1826-1848);

In addition to microfilmed and original manuscripts are bound, typewritten transcriptions from the original manuscripts. These were largely compiled by members of The Daughters of the American Revolution, who volunteered their time to preserve and distribute local Church history. Two which I used quite frequently are:

• Congregational Church Records, Southampton, Massachusetts, 1743-1937;
• Church Records of the Town of Chesterfield, Massachusetts, 1st Book, 1762-1820.

Since Northampton was the beginning point of my genealogical gleanings, I had taken for granted that most communities were as rich in Church history resources as Massachusetts towns were; but when I moved South, I found that few churches, especially African-American churches, had such well-preserved records available to the public. 

My research focus for the past four years has been on Craven County, North Carolina. I have found that New Bern-Craven County Public Library houses numerous books of Church records for Virginia, and some for South Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticutt, and even Barbados. 

In the Vertical Files Subject Headings one finds several headings for churches, but only one for AME Zion, with no particular churches listed. 

Among the microfilmed records appear several collections for Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist, Presbyterian and Catholic churches. . . . but none for AME Zion churches.

In speaking with several cousins who attend or have held office in the African-American churches of the Havelock, NC area, I discovered that early records do not exist largely because of the following factors:

• lower levels of literacy during the Reconstruction period,
• fires which destroyed records,
• and church secretaries and officers who had limited foresight in the value of such records in the years to come, who either didn't keep good records, or disposed of them.

Of all the African-American churches located in the Havelock area, only one--Piney Grove AME Zion Church-- has a website, and offers a brief historical account of its founding and development. There is, however, no comparison between such an account and the church records made available of white churches, and especially those of the North, and of New England.

It is my hope that someone with ties to the following churches would have the desire and foresight to gather the existing church records into a manuscript, similar to those created by members of the DAR, so that generations of history are not lost forever:

Craven Corner Missionary Baptist,

Green Chapel Missionary Baptist Church,

Hyman Chapel, 

Pilgrim Rest United Church of Christ, and

Piney Grove AME Zion Church.

Thankful Thursday--A Tribute to Librarians, Archivists and Local Historians

On June 18, 2011 I engaged in a conversation regarding a quote posted on a college chum's Facebook page:

There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.                            =Andrew Carnegie=

The first comment stated that "The 'free' public library...[is] an institution that should either evolve with the changes of the times or its own inefficiencies will shutter its doorways."

My friend offered that "The public library of today is known by other names (Project Gutenberg, Google Books, CCEL...and my personal favorite, Archive.org!)."

However, the public library is often the only resource available for local history preservation. It offers services such as Inter-Library Loan (ILL) to access books and microfilmed records from NARA and State Libraries and Archives.  But more importantly, the public library's greatest resource is PEOPLE. . .

• children's librarians who open new worlds of exploration to our youngsters through the illustrated word,
• reference librarians who serve on the front lines to answer the public's questions and guide them to the books, periodicals, internet sources, CDs and DVDs made available for free use by means of our tax dollars at work,
• archivists, curators and local historians/genealogists who open a door to both the near and distant past by guiding and mentoring enthusiastic researchers,
• and even administrators who must judge the best allocation of funding. 

Special thanks go out today to several of these dedicated 

public servants whom I feel privileged to know:

THANKS TO: Elise Bernier-Feeley, of the Hampshire Room for Local History and Genealogy at Forbes Library, Northampton, MA, who first opened the doors of genealogy to me with my initial search for my Russian Jewish ancestors, who later served as my mentor in family history research with the search for my KING ancestors and the descendants of Capt. John KING of Hartford and Northampton, and who wrote letters of recommendation for me on two applications to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Research Fellowship. . .

THANKS TO: Julie Bartlett, archivist of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum,  and also of the Hampshire Room for Local History and Genealogy at Forbes Library, Northampton, MA, who continues to assist me in accessing information long-distance, and who advises and encourages me in preparing for a future career in archives technology, and. . .

THANKS TO: Victor T. Jones, Jr., Department Head of the Kellenberger Room at New Bern-Craven County Public Library, New Bern, NC, who opened the doors to researching Free Persons of Color in Craven County (my husband's family history: CARTER, GEORGE, HYMAN, et. al.), and who continues to guide and assist me in my research endeavors.

Presently I do not own a Nook, a Kindle, an iBook, nor a Sony Reader. . . nor do I have plans to purchase one in the foreseeable future. Perhaps if I were able to access rare and out-of-print digital books and manuscripts, textbooks, and digitized collections of local history, I might seriously consider it. But nothing will ever take the place of the public library, nor the people who enthusiastically lead us into new areas of reading and exploration.

To all librarians, archivists and local historians everywhere. . .

THANK YOU!

Preserving Family Legacies, No. 1, Part 4

Letters from Aunt Helen, Part 4

An update on the West Clasp Letter Filing System

The next section of the file provided the answer I needed. Instead of each tab being a divider followed by that letter's surnames, the previous section was actually the "D" section with the letters lying on top of the the dividers. 

Therefore, the previous section represented the DARLING Family. . . .

. . . . and now, on to the next section in use: "F" for FIELD.

All roads lead to Northampton, MA

The first letter came from a Mrs. Hugh Victor Mercer from Minneapolis, Minnesota, dated October 23rd, 1940. 

My dear Mrs. Beers: Your letter via the Times has reached me and since I visited our Historical Library last Wednesday, I looked for the Field-Stanley reference about which you inquired. The Field Genealogy does not give Mary Stanley as the wife of Zachariah Field, but I found other references which do name her as his wife viz; Daughters of the American Colonists National Number I899 and 2089; "300 Colonial Ancestors" by Rixford and The Compendium references which you mention. . . .

With the exception of the National Society Daughters of the American Colonists, all the other resources are available on Ancestry.com. I started digging into the Field Genealogy and discovered that my ancestry paths are crossed once again . . . . and I am beginning to wonder if all roads lead to Northampton, MA. 

According to The Field Genealogy, by Frederick Clifton Pierce (1901), 

112. ZECHARIAH FIELD (John, John, Richard, William....), b. East Ardsley, Yorkshire, England, in 1596; md. about 1641, Mary ----. She d. about 1670. He d. June 30, 1666. Res. Dorchester, Mass, in 1629; Hartford, Conn., in 1636; Northampton, in 1659, and Hatfield, Mass., in 1663 (p. 97).

 After several pages of narrative, the genealogy continues:

155. i. MARY, b. about 1643; m. Oct. 6, 1663, Joshua Carter, Jr. of Northampton. He was b. in 1638; was son of Joshua, of Dorchester, Windsor and Hartford. Was in Northampton in 1660, and was one of the first settlers of Deerfield . . . .

156. ii. ZECHARIAH, b. about 1645; m. Sarah Webb.

157. iii. JOHN, b. about 1648; m. Mary Edwards.

158. iv. SAMUEL, b. about 1651; m. Sarah Gilbert.

159. v. JOSEPH, b. about 1658; m. Joanna Wyatt and Mary Belding(pp. 100-101).

The second letter was from Mrs. G. Roy Phelps in Albany, Wisconsin, dated November 13, 1940. 

Dear Mrs. Beers: . . . . I think the other correspondent is correct in thinking there were two Mary Stanleys. It looks so from the references given. I have also seen the History of Hadley. There are several histories in that vicinity which give the Field family, one being the History of Hatfield. The following I am quoting from David Dudley Field book, in case you have not seen it: "Zechariah Field, eldest son, m. Sarah Webb, of Northampton, moved to Deerfield. Had three sons, Zechariah b. Sept. 12, 1669, Ebenezer b. Oct. 31, 1671, John b. Dec. 8, 1673 . . .

So now my searches return to my old stomping grounds, thus rounding out the KING family history. . . .

Preserving Family Legacies, No. 1, Part 1

Letters from Aunt Helen, Part 1

On 17 November 1990 my grand aunt, Helen Gertrude (NEWTON) BEERS, daughter of George Ulysses and Gertrude Ellen (WALTER) NEWTON, and the widow of Ralph Loren BEERS, died in Garden Grove, California at the age of 89. She had been the NEWTON family historian since about 1930. Before she died she had her family history archive divided between my Dad, her oldest brother's oldest son, and my Dad's cousin Doris, the oldest child of Aunt Helen's only surviving sister. 

Dad had no interest in family history, so he passed the information on to his younger brother, David. Eighteen years later, on March 1, 2008, Uncle David and Aunt Sue stopped by our apartment in Asheville, NC to hand-deliver to me the legacy my Dad had forsaken.

Among the file boxes of handwritten and typed family group sheets and notes was a West Easy Clasp File marked, LETTERS. The spine of the file is imprinted:

Frank A. West Co., Inc.

Office Equipment and Supplies

130 State Street

Binghamton, N. Y.

Unlatching the metal clasp, the front opens to reveal a typed carbon copy of the first three pages of the NEWTON genealogy, followed by twenty pages of originals, beginning with "Nahum Newton, born Oct. 25, 1795 . . . " The next  item was a cream colored booklet entitled "Church Membership," which is displayed here.

The poem following a photograph of First Baptist Church in Johnson City, NY, and entitled, "The Church," by Timothy Dwight holds great interest for me. 

The Rev. Timothy Dwight (14 May 1752 - 11 Jan 1817) was the son of Timothy and Mary (EDWARDS) DWIGHT, the grandson of the Rev. Jonathan EDWARDS; the grandson of Col. Timothy and Experience (KING) DWIGHT. He was a Congregational minister, born in Northampton, MA. He led a very distinguished career, his credits including an appointment by the U. S. Congress to the chaplaincy of the Connecticut Continental Brigade, and president of Yale. 

It was believed by some that he was an ancestor of mine . . . a cousin through the KING family tree. However, a family legend yet unproved may show that we may not be linked to this distinguished Northampton family. I had spent the better of three years documenting the KING family history, and one day hope to complete the volume from Capt. John King down through this past generation. 

In any event, it seems remarkable that my Northern Baptist grand aunt's baptismal record of 24 March 1918 includes Dwight's poem, with the exclusion of two stanzas:

             *  *  *  *  

If e'er to bless thy sons
My voice or hands deny,
These hands let useful skill forsake,
This voice in silence die.

             *  *  *  * 

Jesus, thou friend divine,
Our Saviour and our King,
Thy hand from every snare and foe
Shall great deliverance bring.