A fresh new year is here

A fresh new year is here for us to enjoy (except for Russia's crazy war against Ukraine - a David and Goliath story for sure). Do I make New Year's Resolutions; I do not tend to actually and will not likely start at 77 years of age. It is always nice to have a fresh copybook though upon which to write the history that will flow as we pass each day. An organized but free world is all that we really hope for in the Western Hemisphere - we have watched and helped to defeat the aggressors as two dreadful World Wars fought in the 20th century and do not want to see that happen again. Ukraine though has a right to exist as a nation - Glory to Ukraine.

On to the next Newsletter which will be for the Kipp family. I am still working on the sons of Hendrick Hendricksen Kip of New Amsterdam and this will be the third well known son of that family. My husband had not been able to determine which of the three sons was his ancestor but there are similarities that point him towards one in particular. The DNA will one day cement that relationship but not quite yet.  It will take another quite fascinated with the pursuit of this Kipp family to take it back likely. He had done all the things that he could do to locate the information needed at Northeast Town in Duchess County but more digging is definitely needed into the records of this area. Isaac was there in 1790 living with or next door to Jonathan Mead the likely father of Hannah his wife at the time of the census taking. In 1800 they were in Rensselaerville near Albany on their way to relatively free land for settlers in Upper Canada. Documents here at the Ontario Archives (and Library and Archives Canada) reveal that story but the time from the birth of Isaac (a date was found in the Kipp family Bible) to the first American census in 1790 and then the second in 1800 are all that was found thus far. Hidden away perhaps in someone's attic or cache of historical material is likely the answer and one must just wait for that to surface - probably not in my lifetime. We literally spent hours at the Archives in Albany New York looking at material and attended conferences held by the NYGBS where there were lots of leads but not the definitive proof that linked Isaac to one of those dangling Kip/Kipp lines from the earlier 1700s and there are many of them in the Kip family book published by Frederick Ellsworth Kip. My project is simply to publish what was found and leave it to others to pursue the task that became one of Edward's life works and he had many. He was a busy person all of his life until illness slowed him down. 

My fingers crave to write the H11 Newsletter but I continue in my determination not to do so until the Russians lay down their arms and go home leaving all of Ukraine to the Ukrainians.  The Ukrainians have won the right long ago; the lands of Ukraine are soaked in the blood of their infants, their children, their wives and mothers, their fathers and husbands whose lives have been stolen by the Russians. Russia has no right to any of their land. Ukraine is older than Russia itself and many of us descend from that frail group of Homo sapiens who wintered at Ukraina during the last glacial maximum and from there spread out once again to cover the earth. Back off Russia, go back to being a leader and not a rogue nation - we respected your leadership.

Cleaning day once again and the vacuum awaits me in the basement - wisdom in one's old age is always welcomed. No more lugging a vacuum up two flights every Monday morning! Breakfast awaits.