Thursday, July 26, 2012

Native History Display


This is a photo of me beside the display I created for the Keepers of the Circle.  It addresses the question "Are Native Americans Relevant?"  The answer:  you betcha!  I was pleased to see many people taking time to look it over. 

One interesting fact that I couldn't fit in (I'll do the second side for next year is that T. David Petite, a member of the Fund du Lac Chippewa Tribe and the founder of the Native American Intellectual Property Enterprise Council, is the key inventor of wireless ad hoc networks, and the creator of smart cloud technology.  Y'all couldn't talk on cell phones and surf on the web the way you do without it!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Issue with SSDI Search

There seems to be a problem searching the Social Security Death Index online.  I searched for William Force who was born 1903 in New York State.  In 1930 he lived in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.  I tried searching for a death record using Ancestry, Familysearch, Genealogybank.com, NEGHS American Ancestors.org and World Vital Records.  Only Genealogybank found a record!  Alas, this is also a subscription site and try to capture you this way.  At least they let me register and view the record. 

Friday, July 20, 2012

My Research Paper on Van Gelder Available Online

In 2009, my peer-reviewed research paper on John Van Gelder was published in the New York State Museum Bulletin No. 511, Mohican Seminar 3:  The Journey-An Algonquian Peoples Seminar.  I was recently very surprised to discover that it was available free on line from the New York State Museum following this link:  http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/staffpubs/docs/20361.pdf.  I find this rather confusing since this state is always saying it has a lack of money.  Be that as it may, people can now easily find this research paper on my ancestor and find out where he really came from.  He was not taken in by a Dutch or German family.  He was not part white.  In the future I hope to write a book on the history of John Van Gelder's family and its genealogy.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Connection to The Story of England

This evening I watched two episodes of The Story of England by Michael Wood.  It was more the history of the common people than of the landed gentry, so it was very interesting.  I have spent more time researching family here in the New World, but I'm aware of the great amount of English ancestry that I have and know that is also a part of me. 

I have such a diverse family tree it's embarassing.  I joke that I can tell someone to wait a minute and I'll find someone connected to whatever group of people they're discussing.  It took until the end of the program, but I found a family that came from the general area under discussion.  Thomas John Tilton was born 1359 in Narborough, Leicestershire, England, between waves of the Black Death, bubonic plague.  I recall Wood saying that people moved from Kibworth to Leicester  (within the circle of expressways in the picture) because it was more prosperous. 

Narborough is northwest of Kibworth.  They are less than thirteen miles apart, but I have the feeling that way back then, during the time of the Little Ice Age and the Black Death, the distance between the two places mattered more.


According to The Morford World Connect Project, the family name came from the location where it lived, a hill on which the remains of a Roman fortication was found.  The Town of Tilton existed in 1066 at the time of William the Conqueror and Sir John Tilton lived during the reign of King Henry II (1145-1189). 

Here is Tilton on the Hill, from where the family name Tilton came from.

Here is Tilton in relation to Kibworth and Narborough.

Can you tell as a kid I liked maps?  I still do.
Now I can see that the Danelaw, the Little Ice Age and the Black Death were important factors in my mother's family history, as they probably were for many of my English ancestors.