Orson and the Quakers

It seems Mary Orson's family were Quakers. It's possible then that her meetinghouse still survives in York County.  See this Yorktown Square post., though this post on the divisions of York county (among Quakers, Germans, and Scots-Irish.) suggets maybe the Orsons lived away from the bulk of the Quakers.

Did Captain John and Mary Go to the Fair?

No, not the Ontario county fair, whenever it was founded, but to the York fair, chartered by the Penns in 1767.  See this blog post from 2006.  Apparently York County likes to claim the title of oldest continual fair, but that's a bit iffy. But the 1767 charter is real.

Trip, Day 8

Have about 2400 miles on the trip and both travelers are beat. But we end with a bang, traveling from Jamestown northeast (planning a surprise for one of Marjorie's sons but I'll let her tell him) and on to the grand finale of our genealogy--Seneca Presbyterian, or the Number 9 Church near Stanley, NY. Scads of John Rippeys (my father was John Rippey Harshaw) and other connections buried in the cemeteries, including the mother of us all, Mary Orson. Had a pleasant meeting with Bob Robson, a distant cousin descended from Isabella Rippey, and saw the church.

All in all, very good, though fatigue took the edge off for me.

Now we're in Geneva, NY for an early bedtime.

History and Genealogy

I've invested a lot of time researching and recording my genealogy. With my background as a failed historian, it prompts some reflections on history, as reflected in the genealogical record.

The most striking lesson is from the Rippey genealogy, Captain John and Mary had 13 children, all of whom reached adulthood and had children of their own. This could be chance. Many family trees probably have an especially prolific family somewhere.

It could reflect the prosperous conditions in the York PA region for farmers. There's research here and here on the comparative health of disparate populations in time and space which shows colonial PA was a healthy area--the "Best Poor Man's Country" as one letter put it and a historian used for his book title.

But it contrasts with the record of their descendants. The average family size declines. That's to be expected, as it becomes harder for parents to establish their children on farms, and as prosperity decreases the need for multiple children to have one or more living in the parent's old age.

And children start dying, dying early and often. Some families seem jinxed, with 2, 3 or 4 children dying before their teen years.

Mills in York County

Here's a blog from York and a post providing background on the mills operative at the time of the Orsons and Rippeys. Remember Jonas Lighty was a millwright.

Orsons

I've now published the writeup on what we know and can deduce about the Orsons who were Mary Orson's ancestors.

Orsons

Started doing a little writing on the Orsons last night. Trying to come up with a document to weave together the map data and the extracts of wills and other data Jean did.

Google Maps and USGS Topographic Maps

Having fun trying to work between Google Maps and USGS Topographic maps. It had been a while since I visited the USGS site and I was pleased to find that you can now do a free download of the detailed topographic maps and see them in PDF format (with an added plugin.) Start here.

Google maps has also been improved, with a "terrain" tab, as well as the old road map and satellite tabs.

I set up a York area map, trying to nail down the sites of interest to descendants of Mary Orson and John Rippey. (See below.) The basic map is Google, with the placemarks. But I identified the lower Chanceford church location from the Topo map, as well as the "Orson run" id. Ideally I"d have links from the placemarks to the documents Jean extracted for the various tracts of land. Maybe next year.



View Larger Map

Jonas Lighty's Will

This is an image in Picasa of Jonas Lighty's will. The transcript is in the Susquehanna Saga.

[Updated--corrected name to "lighty"