How did I get here?

Of the documents and photos I inherited this is one of my most respected.



Alfred Dewhurst was my paternal Grandfather's Grandfather. He came to the states from Clitheroe, England in 1881. He made his home in Fall River. At the time he died, at he age of 43 in 1900 of tuberculosis, he lived around the corner from the Lizzie Borden house. Makes me wonder what my family knew of the crimes, if they attended any of the trial.

That document makes me want to go to Clitheroe, and try and find some of my ancestors graves in the local cemeteries.

This happened on Thursday



Easily the newest car I've ever purchased as it had 63 miles on it at the time. It's a thrill to be connected to the road, and have a warranty. Have no one to thank for this but my Aunt, really. Her planning made it possible. A friend of hers said she'd be happy for me, and that she'd be giving me directions. There were very few times we were in a car together and only one in which were were alone. I drove her to the luncheon after my Mom's services and she said I was a very good driver, it was about a mile.

So many links, so many mysteries in the hunt for facts

Finally opened up the genealogy binder that I found (in the last place I looked) in my Aunt's apartment and started plugging data into an online family tree database. The site linked me to some other previously unknown to me distant relatives so the tree has a few more branches.

My paternal great-grandparents came from Clitheroe, England, which I knew. But I have his naturalization documents from 1888, which is very cool. The family all settled in Fall River, Mass. and many of them moved to Brooklyn/Queens in the 20's, which is when my father's parents met. They were married in 1928 in Brooklyn at a church that still stands. The Irish on that side I have going back to the early 19th century and those ancestors came from Derry or Dublin. There are also ancestors who lived in New Hampshire and New Brunswick.

My maternal grandmother's story is sometimes painful and difficult. She was a twin, her brother did not live a year. Her Mother died in 1910, she was put in an orphanage then her father died six years later of TB and was buried on Hart Island. Her Mother also had a brother, but he was shot in the head in 1913 and I'm trying to find the documentation of that event. Did he shoot first? My Grandmother's Grandmother had a number of children, none of whom seemed to live past 1910. This is frustrating when you cannot find anything, but the thrill of recovering history happens when you can match a name.

My Mother's Grandmother came to the U.S., alone, from Poland in 1893 and settled in New Britain, Ct.. She married her husband, also from Poland in 1897 and lived in New Jersey for a time before they moved to Brooklyn. I do not know too much of my Mother's Father, neither did she, so I have not really traced that side of the family.

I also have a lot of pictures, none of them written on so I have no idea who all these ancestors are, and there is no one left to identify them that I know of. I do not like lost history, so I will plug away from time to time and get people identified and noted properly. As a librarian/cataloger/archivist it is something I have to do.