Pearce Family - 2

I completed my proof of Martha Pearce including naming her mother as Grace Hobbs. I will need to learn more about Grace Hobbs when I start proving the 5x great grandparents but this will be one of my pursuits when next we go to Salt Lake City.

A very interesting lecture at the OGS meeting last evening. Dr. Seely was speaking about Family Reconstruction. It is a subject that I use a great deal in Genealogy but her approach is to look at each individual and give them three characteristics if you are able to do that. Since I have learned a great deal about my great grandparents as a child I think I will be able to do that and even further back for a couple. I am certainly lucky to have had such chatty grandparents. They were both very happy people - my paternal grandfather and my maternal grandmother. I do not actually think they were overly fond of each other but I loved them both dearly. Although my grandmother always said I didn't love her until my grandfather died. That may be true but he did live with us and I saw him daily for a good part of my young life.

He loved to sit and talk about Hampshire and his early life by the time I knew him. Since he was 70 when I was born and nearly 79 when he died this was a short time for me but filled with day after day of discovery. We used to watch the clouds go by over the backyard after he finished gardening and it was he who encouraged my imagination to see all sorts of things in the big fluffy clouds. It was the wonderful time of childhood when responsibilities are a long way into the future. I am glad that he repeated his stories many many times because I was so young.

Last evening the lecturer encouraged us to close our eyes and bring in a memory although she was perhaps thinking of a not so pleasant memory I decided to go for that pleasant memory of being totally loved by a grandparent. I was thinking initially of the love that shone from my husband's mother's eyes when she was with our daughters. She enjoyed them completely when she was staying with us. I let that permeate my being and then I let my mind drift back to my own childhood where I could feel that love from my grandfather's eyes as he sat and talked to me or we went for a long walk. Last night I was remembering how he used to quote the names of his ancestors and he always started with my name (I think he wanted me to remember very badly). All of his papers were destroyed when he died except for one small packed that I have which included pictures and a few other items but nothing about his family tree. I wish he had constructed one but it was in his mind and he was passing it to me. As it turned out I was able to remember back to Joseph who came from Andover and a jumble of names before that with Thomas, William, John and Nicholas. I forgot Richard over time but remembering Nicholas was important. He died at Old House and my father had also said that through the years so when I found Nicholas and that he died at Old House I knew that I had found the right trail. It was a slow one though.

My next group to work on will be the Rew/Moggridge/Sidderfin/Kent families. I have not accomplished as much as I thought that I would because we are re-organizing. It will be good to have it all done and there is cleaning thrown in with that :)