Anchors Aweigh

[jackb]

I have been into genealogy for a few years and recently had my DNA tested at Ancestry.com. Using the results I have located several members of my extended family that I had no idea existed. One young woman, a second cousin, and I are exchanging email and photos on an almost daily basis. In the process, I came across the ship that my English ancestors arrived on in 1854. My Irish ancestors were already here and God knows when they arrived. The ship was the Andrew Foster and the voyage took all of six weeks! I can not imagine the courage it took for my ancestors to get on this ship with four small children and cross the Atlantic ocean. Consider that there was no refrigeration, sanitary facilities were primitive and I imagine bathing was a real problem. Six weeks of the kids asking: Are we there yet?

A distant cousin in England, who I discovered some years ago and became great friends with, visited Liverpool and saw a mock-up of one of the ships. She said, passengers, got one meal a day, dinner. They had one bunk per family that could hold three people.

Each of us probably has a similar story somewhere in our family history. I guess we should be thankful that our ancestors had the courage it took for them to make the voyage.

 

[Ridgerunner]

According to family tradition and supported by a second cousin that wrote a genealogy book, the first of my paternal line went from Dublin to London in 1635 and took the vessel "Abraham" to Delaware where he settled and married. One of his descendants was one of the early settlers in the Powell Valley in Tennessee. Crossing the Appalachians to live at that time was also a courageous voyage.

On my mother's side, one of my ancestors owned a farm with his wife and a bunch of kids in a house on one end. On the other end of the farm was a house where his common law wife and another bunch of his kids lived. Census records are available but I will not copy them here.

You are right Jack some interesting stories. It's a shame so many are lost.

 

[digitS']

If there are stories -- that is great! If it's just names and dates ... it's hard to care.

(It helps to have Mormons in the family ): On my father's side, the first European in North America was a Dutchman who came with the English. He was supposedly a "shipbuilder" on Chesapeake Bay in colonial times. I like to imagine that he built Skipjacks (link) but that may just be a fantasy.

On Mom's father's side, the first were father and son from the south of England. Their wives came later. They were in eastern Canada but one of the children was born in the middle of Maine, about 150 years ago. What ships are in the middle of Maine?

Ships of the British shipbuilding industry were often built of wood from foreign lands. A Maine logging camp home would suggest that these British Canadians may have been loggers. I imagine that it wasn't all that difficult for young men to sign up for employment cutting trees and lumber for building ships. That may have been true with the Chesapeake Bay Dutchman, too.

Either way, once the fruits of their labors were completed, it was Anchors Aweigh!

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

so much of what was logged here from MI ended up in ships. all those hardwoods and tall poles for the masts... floated down the rivers in the spring and then off to the shipyards. it's hard to imagine that they used to run small steamers up the rivers to this area and at one time were considering putting a canal across the state through here (it wasn't really a bad idea and would have been good had the railroads not come along).

 

[ducks4you]

I don't know many details but my DF's ancestor came over to Raleigh, NC in 1685. Must have been a Huguenot. Lots of Europeans were escaping religious persecution and many just wanted to get away from the crazy and overcrowded European countries of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. My GM was a member of the DAR, so SOMEBODY has her proof of ancestry, just not me. DH is in the "Nicholas Gibbs Society" which publishes every 10 years. He came over in 1744. DM's family came over from Croatia in the 1880's and her father came over in 1912. DH's other GF came over from England in the 1890's.
That's the extent of my knowledge. Guess it's time to buy 23 and Me!

 

[Nyboy]

My great grandfather on mothers side had a pub in NYC that went broke during the depression. I never bothered paying attention the rare times my grandfather talked about him. All I know is the bar was in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. Now I so wish I listened and asked questions

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll tell a story my grandfather told me. I always get confused at how many greats to put in front of "father" so I won't do that.

My ancestor had a farm in Tennessee, on top of a hill just a few miles from Cumberland Gap. The Union forces controlled Cumberland Gap most of the war but the Confederates controlled the area south of the Gap. East Tennessee had a lot of Union sympathizers. Cumberland Gap was a popular destination for people trying to reach the Union and escape the Confederacy, usually to join the Union forces. There were Confederate patrols to try to catch them.

One day a Union soldier who had survived a fight further south but got separated from his unit showed up at the farm. He was given a good meal and a bed to sleep in before he went on his way. My ancestor, the farmer's son, climbed a tree to watch out for Confederate patrols. None showed up that day.

Another story about that same farmer, one of my Great Greats. He and his brother went to western North Carolina to join a Union unit. We have the muster in and muster out records to support that, not a verbal story. The assumption is that instead of just going a few miles to the Gap they wanted to join an all-Tennessee unit that was forming in North Carolina. They were part of the original muster and everyone on that list was a Tennessean. If they had gone to the Gap they would have likely stayed together but would have probably been replacements in a unit that had lost a bunch of soldiers.