Ice storm 2013

Sorry for the long silence.  I discovered a new site for those of us interested in burials in northern New York, the Northern New York Tombstone Transcription Project.  It contains a very extensive list of burials in Franklin, Clinton and Essex counties.  It meshed perfectly with my research on Revolutionary war burials in northern New York.  By combining several sources and lists for each county, I was able to create my own lists. Searching on Findagrave allowed me to create virtual cemeteries for each county.  The NNYTT project allowed me to find 16 burials that weren't on Findagrave and I'm still researching.

We were caught in the ice storm of 12/21 and were without power for 2 days.  It came back on and then was out again for a few hours when one of the wire near our house came down.  National Grid was there in 20 minutes as they were already in the area.  We were able to operate on the generator we used in the ice storm of 1998, which we bought because of the micro bursts in 1996.  The ice here was 3/4 to 1 inch in thickness, half of what it was in 98 but the storm lasted longer.  The forecast is for a warm weekend.  Ice is falling off the trees and maybe I can get the car out of the ice.

Lewis County Adventure

Sunday, 20 October, I took off for Lewis to search for Rev War burials, had to find two cemeteries first. I knew their general location but had never been there.  The directions on findagrave were very general with no pictures for the cemeteries.

First was Ferry road.  From the name I assumed it was near the Black river but old newspaper articles told me it was on a abandoned town road, near the edge of the town of Lowville, between No 3 road and NYS 12.  I was able to find it on the back side of a cornfield.  The used to be Feare, probably after an old family, but had morphed into Ferry The road still existed but was overgrown with grass and burdock.

Ferry/Feare Road Cemetery

It was a beautiful day and location , with farmland all around me, Tug Hill and it's windmills  looming to the West and the Adirondacks to the East.  Over head were Lake Effect clouds in long wide rows separated by equal clear spaces.  The cemetery was a nice patch of trees that had been mowed and the fallen branches stacked by the edge.  Only one stone was still standing but it was the vet, Ichabod Perry, that I had come for.  It's a large cemetery and must have had hundreds of stones. Perhaps some are under the leaves.

Plank Cemetery

Next I went to Plank cemetery, near Copenhagen.  I knew where it was but had to get permission from the farmer to get to it.  The cemetery was a small area surrounded by fence in the center of a pasture containing 20 or so cows.  They were at the far end so I had no trouble with them.  I had to climb a gate, open an other and then get my feet wet hopping over a damp area to get to the cemetery.  The stones are few, faint and hard to read.  The two vets, John Plank and Joseph Van Ingen, were still standing and readable.  They looked like replacement stones but were still old. 



The view from Ferry Rd.

 

Kelsey Bridge Cemetery

Yesterday, 10/2/2013, I attended the Celebration Of Remembrance of those resting in the Kelsey Bridge Cemetery and Recognition of Richard L Perrigo.     This ceremony was organized by the Hon James M Eagan, President Rochester Chapter ESSAAR, the Sons of the American Revolution.




                                                    
Mr Perrigo has spent an enormous amount of time, money and sweat cleaning up this cemetery, which is located across from his home. There are three Revolutionary war veterans and four War of 1812 veterans buried there.  His work, and the burials of the veterans, were the inspiration for this ceremony.

SAR members were present from the Rochester, Oriskany and Saratoga, NY chapters and the Clearwater, FL chapter.  Officers were also there from the LeRay de Chaumont chapter of the ESSDAR and the Gen Jacob Brown Chapter of the US Daughters of 1812.  A small delegation was also there to honor Mr Perrigo and the Civil war veterans buried in Kelsey Bridge.  Many of the people attending wore period costumes.

Several people were present who were interested in the attempt to start a Thousand Island Chapter of the SAR to be based in Alexandria Bay, NY.  A very pleasant day and a very warm one for October in upstate NY.

Still Plugging Along

August already, a really wet year.  The garden was a challenge.  Nothing wanted to grow and the creeping myrtle turned into frank-en-weed, covering everything.  Potatoes look good and the salvia put on a good show.

My wife bought me a new toy,  a new zero turn mower, a really great machine.  It does an excellent job and is quick.  I don't have to make the 3 point turns or loop back like I did with the old mower.  It did burn out a blade bearing but that was replaced under warranty.  Took 2 weeks though.

Found the 1835 Roll of Pensioners produced by  Congress, online and free thanks to Google.  The information obtained is posted on my site in the Revolution & 1812 section.  Also found there are my lists for Revolutionary war veterans buried in Lewis and St. Lawrence counties.

Lewis county, NY Revolutionary War Burials

Just posted my Lewis county list to my homepage.  The list is a compilation of all the hints and leads I could find on line augmented by some burials I found in Lewis county cemeteries. 

My website is coded in HTML and I was afraid I would have to write the code for a 6X131 table but the rootsweb Freepages-Help list directed me to Tableizer!.  The site is free.  Just copy the cells from your spread sheet and drop it in the box.  A few seconds later it produces the code.  Very nice and a great time saver.

Weather and Rev Vets

The damp weather has stopped and now the hot humid weather begins.  A unpleasant years.  The wild berries have put on a poor show but the nuts trees are loaded to the breaking point.

Have spent some time working up virtual cemeteries on FAG for Revolutionary vets buried in Jefferson, Lewis and St Lawrence county.  Now to find a way to post it to rootsweb.  There must be a easy way to code it.  Meanwhile check out the cemeteries on FAG.

A quick update.  I have added the new obits from Tamaqua to the Friberg page of my homepage.  Also have updated the tree on rootsweb but have as yet not combined the Taves and Coyne2010 trees.  The Taves/Tews in Allentown seemed to switch at will between the two names but I have decided to go ahead with Rieka Taves marred to Charles Tews.  Tews was used in their obits and when Rieka came over in 1893 with all the children, they used Tews.

Post Boot Life

The boot came off last Saturday.  The foot seems OK but stiff and hard to walk on.  Hopefully this will change over time.  I see the Doc on Monday.

The PA certificates of death started showing up, 4 months after they were ordered.   That's about when they said to expect them.  Very informative especially with dates of birth and sometimes names of parents.  They seem to be filled out by the funeral home.  The name of the informant is usually the spouse or a child.  Amazing how many don't know the names of their grand parents or in laws. Overall, well worth the $3 and the wait.

Finally sent requests for obit look up to the Tamaqua Public library in Tamaqua, PA.  They found 8 out of 12.  HURRAY!  Turns out The Tamaqua Evening Courier was the paper of choice for obits among my PA ancestors.  That explains why the other libraries couldn't find much. 

I haven't completely absorbed them into my tree but it does add a son who went by himself to Oshkosh, WI.  I had found him in the WW I draft registrations but couldn't tie him in.  Best of all it ties the Taves/Tews family to the rest via Hannah Rhode's obit mentioning a sister in Allentown.  This had been mentioned before in the obit for August Friberg but I couldn't find other support for it until now.

Bought a Celestron 100mm scope for bird watching.  Great for star gazing also.  Haven't quite mastered it yet.

Trip and Fall

Some more PA obits from Jim Thorpe, PA.  The German's who came over either didn't believe in obits or couldn't afford them.   I received a few from Dimmick Library.  The Allentown library found three obits for me and I found several recent ones on funeral home sites.  The Pottsville Library is sending me 10 or so Rhode obits but I'm not sure if they are related.

About 2 weeks ago, while working on my Ford 1955 NAA tractor, I managed to trip while going into the garage for a tool and popped the Achilles tendon off my left heel.  I'll be in a corrective  boot for a few months while we wait for the tendon to reattach.  The doctor didn't want surgery as it is difficult because of the lack of skin in that area and results with the boot are just as good.

Pennsylvania Progress

I was able to find more  dates of death for relatives in Carbon county PA and the researcher at Dimmick library in Jim Thorpe is looking them up for me. 

The search has been broadened to the Pottsville Free Public Library, Pottsville, PA.   They not only provide a search service but have many obits already found and indexed in the  Republican Deaths file.  I am awaiting several obits from this file, mostly Rhode in Tamaqua.

Another family that interests me and may or may not be related is Taves in Allentown.  The Allentown Public has a search service that has found 3 obituaries for me. 

There are a lot of helpful libraries in PA but not all of the obituaries have been found.  Either they didn't have obits or they were in newspapers other than those searched.  Perhaps the dates I obtained from the PA vital records site are inaccurate.  Most of the people have death certs on order, when they arrive , in 3 or 4 months, things may be clearer.

Rough December

My wife and I were both out of action all of December and some of January with colds.  I also discovered that I have gout in my right foot.  The snow is almost gone but it's not over yet. We'll get more, I'm sure.  The warm weather has ended and we expect it to go  below 0 at night for a while.

Returned to research on Rhode/ Rohde/Rohda/Roady , Farhman and Friberg in Carbon county, PA.  I discovered the PA Death Index and was able to pin down a lot of dates of death.  It's well worth your time to download the explanation of the Soundex system before you start searching.  It turns out that instead of searching for Rhode, I should have searched for R 300.

Armed with seven death dates I hired a researcher at the Dimmick Library in Jim Thorpe, PA but she has only been able to locate one obit.  Oh, well.  Genealogy is full of ups and downs.

Had a lot of success with the federal census on ancestry.  I added Olson, Gibson, Fabian, Jenkins (new branch), Balthaser, Freyman, Tippett and Keefer to the family tree.  Up to 3919 people in the tree.