Long Island and return

We just arrived back from Long Island having successfully seen all of our daughter's belongings loaded onto a North American Van Lines truck headed for her new teaching post. She doesn't have a lot so will not be too enormous a job to unpack it all when she heads for her new position. We had packed about 80% of her belongings before we left in mid-May. However, it still took a full day of packing to complete the preparation. It was very warm there and working (even with the airconditioning running full blast) was very difficult. We went to Jones Beach in the evening and had a lovely walk along the ocean beach.

The traffic going down to Long Island was really heavy last Sunday and we waited two hours to cross on the George Washington Bridge to Manhattan Island with a much shorter wait to take Throgs Neck Bridge onto Long Island. The four days passed quickly with last minute packing and a trip into New York City to see the Museum of Art - always a really pleasant visit although we were noticing that it was similar to ROM although on a larger scale. Last ride back on the Long Island Railway for a while I expect. I do not think we would have ever spent so much time in New York City or on Long Island if she hadn't been there. It gave my husband the opportunity to really look at all the places where his ancestors lived - he has over 70 early Dutch/French/Belgium ancestors who lived at New Amsterdam (now New York) and about the same number or perhaps slightly greater who lived on Long Island. We have now visited a number of the areas where his ancestors lived in the 1600s (up to the 1800s) including Block Island, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Dutchess County, New York. We will need to have a longer look at New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Once I feel like being in a car for longer than 20 minutes!

No research at all. I completed reading the book :The Tribes of Britain: Who are we? and where do we come from? by David Miles. A really interesting read although very heavy. Length is 500 pages but that wasn't the weight. Rather the detail that he provides necessitates one spending quite a bit of time either remembering the history of the time period or looking up all of his references.

Our films have arrived at the Family History Library - I ordered Hutton Cranswick (Yorkshire), Driffield (Yorkshire) and Bradfield (Berkshire). My husband ordered two Mecklenberg films (Brohm and Staven). We anticipate spending at least two weeks going 4 or 5 times in the week to work our way through the films. I am looking for the Sproxton and Wiles family at Hutton Cranswick and the Harland, Cooper, Sproxton, and Wilkinson families at Great Driffield. At Bradfield I am hoping to learn more about Nathanael Lambden who was baptized there in 1724 - the son of John Lambden and Joan Caruthue. I have not been able to find the marriage of Nathanael Lambden and Sarah around 1851.

My husband is looking at his Schulz, Passow and Naumann families. We already know that the Schulz and Passow families are in the Brohm register but would like to have a longer look at this parish. We recently discovered Staven as a possible place of baptism for his great grandmother Rachel Naumann.

Hinxman Wills

I continued working on wills for the Blake family or related lines. Elliner Blake was the daughter of Richard Blake (brother to my William Blake bc 1587)and she married Joseph Hinxman. Elliner Hinxman left her will dated 1657 and probated 1659. This will can be downloaded from the National Archives website for only 3.50 British pounds (about $6.38 Canadian). It certainly makes for interesting reading as she mentions her brother Peter, her sisters Jane Bayly and Margaret Savage, her brother Nicholas and her cousin Peter Blake. Both of her parents had the surname Blake with her father's father being William and her mother's father being Robert.

I am just now typing the will having spent a few hours transcribing it by hand. Usually I transcribe on the computer but I decided that my arm muscles could use a little work and printing tiny letters certainly gives the muscles a workout. I think I shall do that from now on.

I am also reading "The Tribes of Britain. Who are we? and where do we come from? by David Miles. It is a heavy read but absolutely fascinating and I highly recommend it. I always find these books fascinating because all of my ancestors (as far back as I have been able to trace) were born in England or their parents/grandparents were (I have only three Canadian born ancestors - my mother, her father and his mother). Hence all these stories people elect to write about the British make for very interesting reading for me because I am a part of that story.

Tomorrow I shall continue working on wills but also on my husband's presentation to the OGS in June. I am starting to think about my talk in September and I need to contact the other speaker just to let her know what I am thinking of doing and ensuring it fits in with her three talks on a similar vein.