The Quest

When my Aunt Melinda passed away in 2024, one of the things that was left for me to uncover and redistribute was a trunk full of dolls and doll clothes. I couldn’t bear to part with most of them. I had to look the other direction while placing the ones that were missing limbs in the trash bin. They were precious to her, not to mention the fact that I have an uncanny ability to personify inanimate objects. I had the benefit of not knowing these dolls my whole life the way she did; she would never have thrown any of them away, as is evidenced by the fact that they remained in her estate after her death. Even today, I question whether I did the right thing. What I did do, however, was select my favorite of Melinda’s favorites, bring her home, wash her dress, and give her a place of honor behind the glass of the barrister bookcase, just below the shadow box that contains mementos of Melinda’s life. I have no idea what name Melinda may have given her, which is unfortunate because I name eve...

This spring was my every-other-year genealogy trip with my mother.  When we were in Virginia a couple of years ago, we kept seeing that our Masons and related families had moved to South Carolina and we wanted to know why. For mother's side, we had discovered some time ago that one of her lines (Buser) was among the Swiss German immigrants who were encouraged to immigrate to settle Saxe Gotha in South Carolina. So... we set out to learn more about these things, as well as the many other family lines who came through this area back in the 1700s and on. Mom and I on our first research day at the South Carolina State Library As has become my practice, I blogged each day of the trip, so I will cross-link those posts here rather than repeating myself: Day 1 - Travel Day through the Shenandoah Valley Day 2 - Fun with Books Day 3 - The State Archives and Mysteries Days 4 and 5 - Land and Museum Visits We spent our travel time collecting information, not necessarily processing it. So at t...

Bloom where you are planted. That saying is ubiquitous with my Aunt Melinda in my mind. It was on the wall in her guest bathroom, which I frequented with such regularity. It was so ingrained in my psyche that I thought it was Melinda’s personal challenge to me directly. She probably never thought about it again after she hung it there, but it seemed to me to be what she was doing her whole life long… blooming. Melinda repainted this plaque to be pink when she decided to change the color of her bathroom. She also meticulously repainted every orange-ish yellow flower on the wallpaper in the bathroom pink to match her new decor. I wrote a lengthy remembrance of Melinda for her obituary, which I honestly thought my family wouldn’t go for. I had prepared myself to post that here on my blog, thinking the long version wouldn’t see the light of day in any other way. But since they did go for it, I can link to that and use this space to say all the things I forgot to say there. In preparation ...

Since I wrote the post about genealogy writing, it's really bugged me that I didn't write about our Virginia trip. Mother and I had planned for years to make it to Virginia, where many of our family members first landed in America long before the American Revolution. We knew it would be one of our toughest trips to find actual information, but we had high hopes.  Starting out at my home in Troy, we drove south through the Hudson Valley, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland on our way to Virginia. We took a little side-jaunt to look at The National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, America's first Saint of the Catholic Church. The only reason we knew this was here (besides the billboards on the highway) was from a historical information marker at the Mason Dixon Welcome Center at the Maryland state line. Our first stop of the trip was Culpeper, Virginia, land of our forefathers. We arrived to our Airbnb in the early evening and had some great dinner at a local Italian R...

As I've been working on the Payne family tree, I got to a point where I knew there were some newspaper clippings on Newspapers.com that might provide some source information. I don't maintain a subscription, but I decided to buy one month to get the information I needed. First I purchased just the basic subscription, but the newspapers I wanted were not included. So I decided to upgrade, but there was no information about how to upgrade without paying the full amount for premium... so I thought I was going to be stuck paying the basic PLUS the premium. I sent an email to their customer support and within 48 hours, I'd been refunded! So, that's reason #1 to love Newspapers.com. Very responsive and didn't give me grief. Reason #2 though is... just NEWSPAPERS. I just love how old newspapers used to tell you every detail about a person's life. Like what the bridesmaids wore in the wedding. Or who was visiting from out of town for the weekend. Or who threw a party ...

My Great Aunt Myrna Elva [Mason] Winters was single as long as I knew her. Of course, I knew that she was once married, because her last name wasn't Mason anymore. But I was only 7 years old when she died... so "widow" and "single" meant the same thing to me. What was mysterious about Myrna, though, was that after her death we found out she had been married before. In her jewelry box, my aunt Melinda found letters and a wedding announcement. She was married to Raymond Harvey Derrick sometime in the 1920's (the announcement didn't have a date). Back in 2009, I took Melinda's Myrna notebook home. It contains pictures, letters and newspaper clippings. It seems that R. H. Derrick maintained his communication with Myrna's parents for years after they must have divorced. I haven't found any record of a divorce (those records are not available online). I would just like to know about that marriage. What happened? Why didn't anyone talk abo...