Saturday, December 27, 2014

12 Days of Christmas - Guild of One-Name Studies

 
The Guild of One-Name Studies has a '12 Days of Christmas' series right now.

Follow along to see the many Yule related surnames Guild members are researching.  (Links to the first in the series are on the bottom of the webpage.)

Alas, I'm pretty sure the only Christmassy surname I have in our trees is - CHRISTMAS!
But that is a very good one, I'll admit.

My great great aunt, Ellen Saggers, married Jesse Christmas  21st of June, 1862 at Tewin Parish Church in Hertfordshire, England.

And yes, both CHRISTMAS and now SAGGERS (mine) are surname studies registered with the Guild.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Na's Christmas card list - 1945

One of my often neglected personal projects is to transcribe more family documents. Among the most useful things I inherited, genealogically speaking, were a few address books. Sometimes I wish I'd seen Na's while she was around to answer questions, although her writing is pretty clear.

The latest one I'm doing is a little notebook from my maternal grandparents used in the 1940s mostly to list letters received and sent. How quaint these lists must seem to some! Will genealogists a hundred years forward analyze computer lists of  our 'Merry Christmas' tweets and Facebook 'Happy New Year' updates, I wonder?

At this time, my grandparents, Amy (née Irwin) and Walter Scott, were living in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada where grandpa was working for Dominion Glass. In 1945, my mother, their only child, then in the Canadian Army, was still in Washington, DC, USA. Her name isn't on this list, but there is another list for letters sent and received in December - they had sent her 3 letters in December and an "Xmas box".

It appears that this list is for mailed cards, so other cards were likely hand delivered.

The following names are from my Na's handwritten list of 46 names, almost all surnames, for cards and letters sent "for Xmas 1945". I'm transcribing all names from the book, cross referencing them with other lists and building a FAN list for my grandparents, but this is the only Christmas list.  (A FAN list is for Friends, Associates, Neighbours - a research technique made popular by Elizabeth Shown Mills.1)

I do know who almost all these people must have been, although there are a few left to verify.  Many of these cards and letters went to family and friends in Newdale, Manitoba, Canada where my grandmother was born and my grandparents had previously lived. If you are interested in Newdale, please see my Newdale Genealogy website.

The three with just their given names, Ann, Hattie and Sam, were my grandpa Scott's sisters and brother; Irwin, St. B. was F. W. Irwin in St. Boniface, Manitoba whose address is given on another page in the book. (The ones that interested me most were the Martin and Pollock names. More about those another time.)

If you think there's a connection here, please be in touch.

Lavery L
Congdon L
Young C
Stewart C
Laurence L
Irwin L
Carmichael C
Rose C
McCallum C
Macmorine L
Pollock C
Pattison C
Ann
Hattie L
Sam L
Jardine
Redpath C
McNichol C
Grayston C
Mein C
Adams C
Graham L
Hawryluk L
Stewart L
Duthie L
English L
Kingdon C
McTavish (Grace) C
Kaatz C
Martin L
Riches L
Nixon
Sing C
Irwin St. B C
Carmichael M. G. L
Drummond L
Walkey C
McTavish Eva C
Dale C
Brock C
Hodges C
Clarke C
McT, Myrt C
Wiggins C
LeRoy C
Laurence D. C
Myler C

1 See Elizabeth Shown Mills website, Historic Pathways, for more about the FAN principle.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

All I Want for Christmas - Blog Caroling

Footnote Maven's Blog Caroling logo




In honour of the season, once again Footnote Maven is sponsoring Blog Caroling for the geneabloggers. I'm a bit late singing along, but here goes.







All I want for Christmas is - SAGGERS

All I want for Christmas is lots of Saggers,
lots of Saggers,
many Saggers!

They can be from anywhere, I don't care,
outer space,
Anyplace!

No matter spelt Sigger, Sogger,
Saggars, or Laggers, or the research muddy.
Just send me LOTS of SAGGERS for my study!

Hear someone else sing the original song, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" which is only a bit older than I am. (We're now classics.)

Warning - TOO CUTE! Click here to smile.

As some will realize this song brazenly promotes my 'new' Saggers One-Name Study or Surname Study.

Happy Christmas, Grandma Sarah!
(No, sorry, there's none of your Dandelion wine left for the toast. But I have some Islay whiskey for your pudding, Can't leave out other grandma's side of the family.)