A Week to Remember

We're back from an absolutely fantastic week in England. What a trip! A few months back, some dear friends from Georgia emailed us to say they'd be living in Oxford for three months, and "would you like to visit?". Why, of course! One of the perks to living in Sicily is that we can easily fly from our home in Catania to many European destinations rather painlessly. Three hours in the air, and we landed in London at Gatwick...spent the night in a very, very odd B&B literally built in the 1500s (!), and drove the next morning to Oxford by way of Windsor.

Genealogically speaking, I wish we had had more time to explore some of the hometowns of ancestors on both sides of our family. I'm very convicted at this point that I have so much work to do to identify those hometowns. Out of the several relatives (from 4th great-grandparents onward to 12 or so generations back), I can only identify the hometowns of a small handful. Definitely more work to be done all around.

Throughout our trip, as I meandered through the beautifully-designed abbeys at Bath, Oxford, Windsor, and Stratford-upon-Avon, I couldn't help but wonder. How many of the names (etched into grave markers in the walls, floors, and cemetery grounds) represent ancestors of fellow genealogists searching for clues to their identities? If I could have only photographed each and every one! Quite and overwhelming feeling. How many represent families who remained in the homeland...and how many emigrated to other countries?

Here are just a few snapshots of our visit! In case you didn't know...I have a family blog entitled "Just Marvelous" in which I'll share a little more about our trip. Mostly non-genealogical tidbits! Living overseas, it's wonderful that I'm able to share our adventures with extended family and friends through this medium.

While away (and in the rare, quiet moment I was able to enjoy in our little cottage while the boys were napping), I was able to catch up on a few online tutorials on Ancestry.com's YouTube channel. Feeling very inspired! Also had two mysterious and promising emails from contacts pertaining to current research brick walls that I'm hoping pan out. Stay tuned...

-Sarah

Intriguing Oxford

My oldest turned 4!

Our cottage for the week...Hill Farm in Oxford

The Bard

Comments

Pay It Forward

A bit of joy for my Friday! Our mail delivery within our little military community here in Sicily is so.very.sloooooow. What makes it maddening is that it can be a combination of super-fast and super-slow...so no one seems to balk at the trend of inconsistency. Maybe I complain enough for everyone :). I'm in the middle of a few genealogical mysteries - one of them being the family origins of a Mr. Joseph W. Daly, a paternal great-grandfather of my husband. Like most of the challenging parts of our tree, I hit a wall with Joseph a few months back and promptly put him aside when something a little more lucrative came along. For sake of ease. Now, we meet again. For this one, I even consulted a few curious friends. I felt like maybe I wasn't searching deep enough or with the right "keywords" online or in my genealogy search engines. Some researchers have favored methodologies for searching, and I felt I needed to branch out. One friend immediately suggest

Maritime Monday

Instead of jumping right into the multi-generational tradition of service in the US Navy among my husband's relatives (would have been too obvious? No?)...I'll kick off the first of my "Maritime Monday" posts with a nod at one of my several German immigrant ancestors. Ship travel? Check! On 18 Septemer 1868, my 3rd great-grandfather Anselmus Ostholthoff arrived in New York aboard the German steam ship "Smidt" after a trans-Atlantic journey from Andervenne, Germany. His traveling companions - wife Maria Anna (Toepke) Ostholthoff, their eldest son Johan Gerhard (2 years), and daughter Anna Maria (9 months). The following snippet from their arrival documentation [1] indicates that Anselmus ("Selmus") was a farmer from Andervenne. His stated destination after New York: Virgina. This is curious to me, because I have record of Anselmus living in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1870 [2] . At this point, Mr. Ostholthoff is no longer working as a farmer

Chicken or Duck?

I'm feeling a little scattered these days. Could be the breezy Fall weather - a wonderful sight after three long years in Sicily's arid climate. Instead of olive and blood orange trees, I'm gazing out of my kitchen window appreciating our collection of hardwoods. Leaves are everywhere, and the piles are only going to get bigger. I am treasuring every last one. My research brain is also a bit scattered. A little genetic genealogy over here...a little "other people's genealogy" over there. Most of this is flat-out procrastination from dealing with the pile of photos I need to archive and the folder of newly-located probate records to transcribe. There's also that little thing of needing to manage my household. Oh, and clean. And feed children :). In the meantime, I stumbled upon a snippet from the Reading Times (A Web Footed Chicken (1890, August 4). The Reading Times , p. 1. Retrieved from www.newspapers.com)). Sarah M. LUDEN is a 4th gre

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