This image is associated with one of the ancestors I have recently found to add to my family tree. I am finding quite a few “new” ancestors, dating mostly from the 16th and 15th centuries and mostly from the British Isles. It’s quite exciting. I now have identified more than 23,000 ancestors. That tree is bending under the weight.

I was working on my genealogy and I came across this illustration. I was struck by the name “Sydenham”. There was a Sydenham Road near where lived in Dublin Ireland.

Elizabeth Thrift was my 2nd Great Grandmother. She was born in Virginia to missionary parents. The family moved to Ohio, presumably following the Appalachian Trail. In Ohio she met and married Gilman Bryant and they had 11 children. It is from that union of Elizabeth Thrift and Gilman Bryant that I descend. My antecedents were almost all from New England. This branch from Ohio is hardly a twig on the whole scheme of things. And in fact my father came back to New England where he lived for most of his life. With the arrival of the Mayflower, the vast majority of my ancestors were born, lived, and died in New England.

I had a shock today. I was going along, routinely adding ancestors to my family tree, when I found that my 11th Great Grandfather, Dr Rowland “Rev” Taylor was burned at the stake per order of Mary Queen of Scots. I shudder. What a cruel way to die. This took place in Hadleigh Suffolk England on February 9, 1555.. He was 44 years old.

Recommendations of books to read can come from friends, the internet, the local library, etc. I had an email from a bookseller recommending a whole list of books similar to one I had recently purchased. I succumbed to the bait and ended up purchasing an old book that I had somehow missed along the way. The book I bought is a reprint of a book written maybe100 years ago. A book about travel to Tibet. It set me to thinking about the books we had in the bookcase in the living room of the house where I grew up in Belmont Massachusetts.

My mother and father and also my older brother and sisters were great readers. But I think the books in the bookcase represented my father’s taste in reading in the 1920’s and ’30s. I remember the complete set of books by Mark Twain and We by Charles Lindbergh. Also a book by John Marquand.

There were also 2 thin blue books full of genealogical information of my father’s ancestors. These blue books fascinated me and I perused them on many a rainy day. There was also a white box, the size of a men’s shoe box, full of family photos – what a treasure. This too captured my attention for many many hours. What happened to the items in the bookcase?

The years went by, my father died, we children grew up and moved on, and my mother accepted a job in Maui Hawaii. So my mother sold the house and my sisters took some of the contents. I know that my sister Ruth took the 2 genealogy books – I was able to look at them again for many years until she passed away in 2017. I suspect that she took the box of photographs also but I never thought to ask her about that. I don’t think any of the books were distributed to family members. They would have been of interest to an Antiquarian Book Seller, but I’m quite sure that such action didn’t happen. When the house was sold my mother was already in Maui and my sisters just had one day to come from Connecticut and New Hampshire to claim what special items they wanted or could use.

Eight months ago we left our house to move here to Ida Culver Broadview. What a wrench. I missed our home and I missed our cat Katerina most of all. A neighbor very kindly said she would look after Katerina, and another neighbor was standing by to care for Katerina as well. Eight months have gone by and I have sort of got over missing Katerina. I knew full well that I cared for her more than she cared for me. Cats are different from dogs!

When I arrived at the house Katerina was near the front door and she walked away, looking over her shoulder to observe me. She then went into the shrubbery between our house and the neighbors. I tried to coax her to return – and she did but she was wary. When I tried to pat her she moved away and jumped up on the fence and eventually became more interested in a squirrel that was further down the garden.

Maybe I’ll have better luck if I can go back again before another gap of 8 months!

Today I just had a short period of time but I found my Norwegian dictionary and a lot of yarn and one of Ian’s paintings and a miscellany of other items. It was great to be out for something other than a medical appointment!

There were a number of my childhood neighbors who were definitely Irish. Usually it was the parents or at least the grandparents who had come from Ireland. There were the O’Hares, the Sullivans, the Pierces, the Faheys, the Walshes, and more. But the Crowleys – I am surprised to find that they had forebears from Ireland. Somehow I didn’t think of Crowley being an Irish type name. But it is – mainly in the south of Ireland. Investigating a bit further I found that Mrs Crowley, ne Nellie Fawcett, had forebears from the north of Ireland. Her family lived in County Antrim back before Partition in 1922. Partition divided Ireland but we are talking about ancestors who were born at a time when the island was not divided.