Penobscot Roots & Connections

Transcription

1 Penobscot County Genealogical Society Penobscot Roots & Connections Editor: Jody Chasse 68 Hersey Avenue Bangor, ME Volume 10 Issue 2 January 2012 Upcoming Meetings Wednesday, February 15, 2012 Speaker: Roxanne Moore Saucier 6:00 p.m., Bangor Public Library Wednesday, March 21, 2012 Bangor Area Jewish History and Genealogy with Bill Miller 6:00 p.m., Bangor Public Library INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Upcoming Meetings 1 Presidents Message 1, 2 GenMates 3 GenSources 4 Queries, This and that 5 Letter 6 Articles accepted for publication must be of genealogical nature. Submissions should be forwarded to the Newsletter Editor. Hello Members, Message from our Presidents Our speaker for the January 18 th meeting of the Society was Dale Mower. If you missed hearing him you missed a fabulous talk. Dale apologized for not being as prepared as he usually is because of more than usual busyness. With that he launched into a talk that lasted over an hour and had members asking questions and oohing and aahing over the many and varied internet sites he showed us. Dale started his talk with a demonstration of his new flip bed scanner. It is a tiny little thing but it is unbelievable the things it can do. He brought a very old portrait of his great grandmother in a frame with a glass cover. We all know how hard it is to copy such a portrait but the scanner, tiny as it is, did just that. It scanned the portrait in sections and then stitched all the sections together to make an amazing copy of the portrait. That really brought the wows from the group. That saved copy could be sent to relatives via the internet or saved in a notebook separately from the priceless original. What a handy tool to take to libraries and archives (if they allow it) for making copies. The flip bed has some amazing capabilities. To see for yourself go to to get the specs and see this little gadget for around $149. Continued on page 2

2 Volume 10, Issue 2, January, 2012 Page 2 Message from our Presidents continued from page 1 We have many more interesting talks lined up for you for the year. In February, Roxanne Moore Saucier will talk about her new website in greater depth than she was able to give at the beginning of the October meeting and will show us how to access information. In March, Bill Miller has agreed (with enthusiasm) to talk about Jewish history and genealogy in the Bangor area. Several other very special speakers are lined up for meetings for the rest of the year. We will let you know as we hear from them about their talks. We have decided to make our newsletter a quarterly publication. We had talked about the possibility before but stuck with bi-monthly issue. You will notice a slight change in the newsletter format this time. Elizabeth Stevens is giving up the Gen- Tripper column and also stepping down as Secretary of the Society due to other obligations. GenTripper will now be called GenMates. We are taking pictures of a couple of members each quarter for the column and asking them to tell a little about themselves and their family research. We hope this will help us to network better with other members and share ideas, materials, or information with others who are in search of similar quests. And, may I suggest that as you find another Society member who has your interests and ask for help or information that you send a written note or thanking them. One of our members mentioned helping several people and how nice it was to get a thank you note back from them explaining how it helped. Our other new column will be called GenSources (with periodic switches to Gen- Bytes) in which we will offer resources to help with your search. We are hoping members will offer suggestions for the column as they think of them or maybe even write a column for GenSources about something they have discovered. We hope to see you at the next meeting, February 15 th at 6 PM at the Bangor Public Library s Lecture Hall. Janet

3 Volume 10, Issue 2, January, 2012 Page 3 GenMates Name: J. David (Dave) Flewelling jdflew@earthlink.net How long have you been researching your family history? 30 years How far back have you gotten with your family? I have followed my paternal side back to my 9 th great grandfather in England. My maternal side I have followed back to my 8 th great grandfather in England. This has been made only because there are so many resources on line. Sure, it would be great fun to go back and examine some of the original documents, but for most of us this way is the best and most rewarding way of understanding our heritage. How many lines have you searched? I have 25 FTM trees. My main file has over 7900 individuals. Some of the smaller trees have been done as a favor for friends who desired to see where their family s heritage came from. Family surnames? My primary tree has over 1500 individual surnames. Where have they lived in North America? My heritage begins as most European descendants on the northeast coast. However, I have traced families all the way to the west coast and back to the east. My immediate family is a good case in point. My paternal grandfather was born in NB and emigrated to the US. My dad was born in Pennsylvania and his work took him to California where I was born. Now, I have come back to be within a couple of hours of my grandfather s hometown. Where did your ancestors originate from? I can prove that my ancestors were English. Family lore indicates that the Flewelling side might be Welsh. My paternal grandmother was of Irish descent. My maternal side is English. Approximately when did they emigrate to North America? My paternal ancestors came to New England in the 1630's. By the mid 1600's they were living in the English part of Long Island. My maternal ancestors were in Rhode Island in the 1670's. Do you know what port they entered? No What resources have you found most useful in your research? For most of my on-line information I have utilized Ancestory.com linked to Family Tree Maker. I also enjoy Find-a-Grave, and Fultonhistory. I have used The Maine State Archive site to help identify marriages since I also have found several libraries with online vital information. The Bangor Room and the Maine Special Collections at Folger Library have been helpful for finding Maine facts. Where do you live? I now live in Orono. Will you tell a little bit about yourself and your family? Do you have other hobbies or interests? Work experience? Travel Experiences? I have been fortunate to have had a long enjoyable life and look forward to many more years. My dad was a Syracuse forester. After WWII, he bought a large woodland tract in NH where we ran a rustic campground. My mom just died last year at the age of 102. I was born in California and have lived in upstate NY, NH, VT, and now Maine. I have been married twice and have two sons by my first wife. I have two granddaughters. I now live with my college sweetheart in Orono. Gail runs an apartment house in Orono and I do some of the minor upkeep. I was a construction engineer/coordinator and worked primarily in the northeast on large scale projects such as the St Lawrence Seaway, the Interstate Highway System, and several NYC water and subway projects. I have traveled extensively across the US several times and was in Italy and Germany with the US Army in the early 1960s. Gail and I enjoy skiing at Sugarloaf and canoeing and kayaking. We do some Geocaching when we have some spare time. I enjoy helping others break down their brick walls and also writing short articles about interesting people I have discovered in my research.

4 Volume 10, Issue 2, January, 2012 Page 4 Thoughts from Annette GENSOURCES This past meeting we had some new members come and join. I thought it would be helpful to put the websites up that Dale mentioned in his talk to the group and a few others especially for people who are starting out in genealogy. For the next newsletter, we will work on others for those who are more experienced. Let us know your favorites. Dale used FamilySearch.org to show some things he found. He also really likes FindAGrave.com. If you have New Brunswick connections, he also suggested visiting the website of the New Brunswick Provincial Archives which has begun to digitalize many records. Check it out at archives.gnb.ca/archives/default.aspx?culture=en-ca. Click on search, then birth, marriages and deaths, and, finally, vital statistics from government records. Another resource is Dick Eastman s Online Genealogy Newsletter at Some other popular and helpful sites might be: On this site, go to cemeteries and you may see who is buried at Mt. Pleasant Catholic Cemetery. If you visit the Bangor Public Library, you may access Ancestry.com or HeritageQuest Online and talk with the librarians about other resources you may access either on the computer or there in the Bangor Room. It is a great way to spend a winter day! Check out the Bangor Public Library website for many genealogical references at My roots are in Maine!

5 Volume 10, Issue 2, January, 2012 QUERIES To post a query, mepcgs@yahoo.com PLEASE NOTE: type the word QUERY at the beginning of the subject field. Thank you! QUINN Researching Ephraim QUIN(N), born ca in Maine. Married Betsy ROBINSON of Hampden, Maine in He died 27 February 1868 in Rockport, Maine. I would like to find his grave, his wife s grave and his parent/ siblings. Thank you. tomb-reader@comcast.net Upcoming Maine Genealogical Society Workshop Saturday, April 21, 2012 Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, nationally acclaimed speaker, will present a one day workshop at the Augusta Civic Center, North Wing. Topics include: Identifying and dating family photographs, Hairteria (examining hairstyles), The Last Muster (photographs and stories from the American Revolution), and Preserving family photographs (1939 to present). The registration fee for MGS members is $40 (includes buffet lunch). The fee for non-members is $50. Please send checks payable to the Maine Genealogical Society by April 7 to Celeste Hyer, 69 Loop Rd., Otisfield, ME State of Maine Holidays President's Day Monday, February 20 Patriots Day Monday, April 16 Memorial Day Monday, May 28 Independence Day Wednesday, July 4 Labor Day Monday, September 3 Columbus Day Monday, October 8 Veterans Day Monday, November 12 Thanksgiving Day Thursday, November 22 Thanksgiving Friday Friday, November 23 Christmas Day Tuesday, December 25 Page 5 COMING SOON! The 1940 U.S. Federal Census will be released on Monday, April 2, 2012! The seventy-two year wait will soon be over! Please check out our Society s website for up-to-date information and events: WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? Season Three of Who Do You Think You Are? premiers Feb 3/Fridays 8 p.m. From Irish Civil War to the American Revolution, and from the African nation of Cameroon to the Republic of Bulgaria, Season 3 will take us all over the world and inside the fascinating family histories of Martin Sheen, Marisa Tomei, Blair Underwood, Reba McEntire, Rob Lowe, Helen Hunt, Rita Wilson, Edie Falco, Rashida Jones, Jerome Bettis, Jason Sudeikis, and Paula Deen. PENOBSCOT COUNTY GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY DUES FOR Name: Address: Telephone: address: Surnames researching: $10 for individuals, $15 for couples Please remit to: Phil Getchell Bangor Public Library 145 Harlow Street Bangor, Maine 04401

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