Thursday, November 21, 2019

Jefferson County Holiday Party

SUNDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2019

@ 2:00 – 4:00 PM

 JCNYGS HOLIDAY PARTY

JCNYGS will have its annual holiday party at Greg and Tammy Plantz home at 21787 Reed Road, Watertown. Meat will be provided—guests are asked to bring a dish to pass. 

Guests are also encouraged, although not required, to bring an unwrapped toy for the Toys for Tots Program. 

Society members and their family and friends are invited and welcomed to attend—the more the merrier. Just let Kevin know the expected number of attendees.

RSVP kleesonmedia17@gmail.com or call Kevin at 315-286-3930 or private message Kevin Leeson of Redwood on Facebook before December 6th.  

Thank you—we’ll see you there for a great time!!

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Elmina Spencer at Jefferson Co Genealogical Society

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16TH, @ 1:00 PM
~ Elmina Spencer – Civil War Battlefield Nurse ~
Author Joyce Hawthorne Cook. In her book, Elmina Spencer: Oswego's Civil War Battlefield Nurse, Joyce brings this extraordinary 19th century woman – a U.S. Special Agent, nurse, and confidant for Union soldiers into the spotlight. Elmina, a woman devoted to the care and well-being of Union soldiers before, during and after battle. Joyce’s heavily researched piece allows the reader to almost hear the voices of Elmina, her supporters, and Civil War soldiers speaking to us directly.

Note: This meeting was inadvertently advertised for 9 November in an earlier Facebook posts. This was an error on our part. Because of Veteran's Day weekend, the November meeting is held the third Saturday in the month.
The meeting will be at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ives Street, Watertown, across from Immaculate Heart Central School (IHCS).  Driving directions to the church are:
  • From Route 81, take exit 44 to Route 232 toward Watertown. Drive 1.1 miles and take the second left turn on to Ives Street Road. Continue straight into the city. The church is the second building on the right; across from IHCS. 
  • From Watertown, it is on Ives Street, across from IHCS. Take Washington Street to Barben Avenue. Turn onto Barben Avenue and take it until it ends in a T. Turn left and the church building will be 300 yards on the left, just past IHCS. Or from Watertown, take Massey Street South; veer right onto South Massey and left onto Ives Street. The church building will be on your left, just past IHCS.

Friday, November 1, 2019

Saturday Fun Challenge: An Ancestral Home to Visit

From Randy Seaver's GeneaMusing's Saturday night challenges:

1)  Tell us which ancestral home (an actual building, a village, a town, even a country) you would most like to visit.   Which ancestors lived there, and for how long? 


This is a tough one as there are so many different ones and I would like to visit them all. All of them, even those of my grandparents. Those are one that I visited often as a child and one that I lived in as my parents owned it after my grandparents. I would love to be able to walk through those houses again just as they were when I was a child.

However, I know one ancestral home area that I do not want to visit. At least, next year I do not want to be anywhere near there. Why? Well, because a lot of people want to visit there next year.

My 10th great-grandfather and his wife along with her parents arrived in this country in the year 1620. A young man, John Howland, a teenage girl, Elizabeth Tilley, that would later become his wife, her parents, John Tilley and Joan (Hurst) Tilley are the people. They all landed in Massachusetts from a ship whose name is very familiar— The Mayflower. Next year Plymouth will be celebrating their 400th anniversary of existence.

Although there will be fabulous events taking place and it is a historic anniversary of immense proportions, I do not want to be there. I don’t like crowds and it will definitely be crowded. I am just glad that I have been there twice before.

I was lucky enough to visit there once when I was a teenager. On an extended camping trip throughout New England, my parents and I stopped in Plymouth and saw the main sites.

A few years ago, as an adult, my husband and I visited there for the day. Once again, I got to see the main sites, the famous rock, the Mayflower replica and the burial grounds among others. This trip, I also got to go to Plimouth Plantation and see the recreated original settlement and see how they would have lived upon first arriving here.

Perhaps sometime later, after things have calmed down and there aren’t huge crowds at everything, I’ll go back again.

Monday, October 28, 2019

Saturday Challenge: Heirlooms

From Randy Seaver's GeneaMusings of last week:

1)  The NEHGS Weekly Genealogy newsletter asked an interesting question this week - let's use it for our SNGF this week.

2)  What "family heirlooms" did you inherit or obtain?  What are your most cherished possessions that were owned or created by an ancestor or relative?  They could be photographs, letters or documents, a diary, an audio or video recording, books, jewelry, clothing, quilts, needlework, drawing or painting, toy or doll, collectibles, musical instrument, furniture, something else?








Since I have been interested in family history since a young age and also the youngest of the family, that was the last one around home, I have gotten a lot of family heirlooms over the years. The family photographs and newspaper clippings seem to land in my possession along with other items.

A few that I stick out in my mind as somewhat unique. There are two watercolor paintings hanging on the walls in my house. These were done sometime in the 1940s or 1950s. I had seen them once when my Mom showed me a portfolio shortly before her death. She never thought they were good enough to show to others. Now many of her descendants own these and they are on display.

A couple of other wall hangings are framed cross-stitch pictures. One of them is of such fine work that people mistake it for a painting at first. These also were done by my mother.

Dominating the dining room, as in most homes, is a table. This old oak table is of unknown origins. It is probably from the late 1800s and is solid. The base has a bit of a shelf where the legs go out away from the pedestal. I have heard tales of children at various times sitting on this and hiding with the help of a long tablecloth. There, they listened in on conversations of their elders. These children were my mother and her brothers or their friends.

The history of this table that I know is that my grandfather bought it during their childhoods at an auction and cleaned it up. It then became their dining room table. This would have occurred in the late 1920s or early 1930s. I never did find out how old Mom was when her father brought it home.

After my grandfather’s death in 1976, the household was distributed as is usual. Mom had been promised the table and she decided to go get it. Her older brother, Robert, lived in an apartment in the family home and was out when they arrived. He returned home to find a pick-up in the driveway that he immediately recognized as belonging to my Dad. Walking in, he found Mom and Dad in the dining room with the table flipped upside down, taking it apart to load in the truck. He joked that he had caught a couple of robbers before proceeding to help them load it.

The table resided in our kitchen at the farm for many years after that. It was small for just my parents and me at regular meals, but when family came over, the leaves were quickly added and it expanded to hold many people. After moving to Auburn, they had more furniture than they needed and the table wasn’t used. However, Mom wanted the kitchen table I had, to use as a craft table in the basement, so she refinished the old table and traded with me.

There are lots of other items scattered around the house, but these are probably the more unique ones of them. In actuality could the house be considered an heirloom? It is the house my parents bought and moved to when they left the farm along the lake. After my mother’s death, we bought it from the estate and live there now.