Recent Changes

While Marjorie has been visiting her family on the west coast, I've been playing in ancestry.com. Donald MacKay Rippey (Sr.) wrote "Susquehanna Saga", an account of Captain John Rippey and his wife, Mary Orson, and their thirteen children (2 sets of twins), as well as a visit he and his family made to Lower Chanceford Township, York County, PA and to No. 9 Church in Ontario County, NY. While I've put it on Google Docs, I haven't "published" it because I was hoping to contact his descendants for their permission first.

So this week I tried tracing that family forward and back, using the info Donald put in the Saga. I also tried filling out some of the other lines--Ann and Margaret, the older twins, married Thomas McCauley and James Stewart. The McCauley's moved with the Rippeys, but the Stewarts stayed in York. The Stewarts in York may exceed the Smiths in Ontario in numbers, so I don't have a sense of completion. But then, expecting completion in a work of genealogy is fatuous.

McIntires and Other Progress(?)

The McIntires are a frustrating group as well. As a matter of fact, many of my ancestors seem deliberately to frustrate a poor, aging, descendant who's easily confused. I think I've published the McIntire papers that Jean extracted. [Turns out I lied--so I just posted them under "family records"] William, the patriarch in PA, gives strict orders about cutting out his son-in-law, James McCay. (I was thinking it must have been McKay, but there are McCay's around.) He has extensive property.

Samuel moves to Ontario county with his brood and starts buying.. Apparently around 1819 he runs into trouble, because there is a sheriffs sale and he sells land to some sons. In 1855 his descendants, (son Hugh and other children and grandchildren) tell the court that Samuel had land in PA and he died intestate. Conveniently the suit lists the descendants. Disconcertingly, it doesn't list Elizabeth McIntire who is supposed to be the wife of William Smith and mother of Elizabeth Smith, wife of Joseph Rippey.

Discussing problems with Jean, she suggested that her linking of McIntire and Smith came from a headstone. That caused me to go back today to the Ontario County historians site (which I should have done before this) and the rootsweb site.

Based on information there, I've added some stuff, corrected some stuff, and probably screwed up some stuff on the ancestry.com Harshaw Family site. Hopefully progress is being made.

Those Darn Smiths

One of the blocks in the Rippey lineage is the Smiths. Elizabeth Smith was the wife of Joseph Rippey and thus my great, great grandmother. But she was born in 1805 and died in 1838 so we can't use any census data to get at her. William Smith was her father and Leonard Smith may have been her brother. William was an early settler in Ontario county, showing up in the early 1790's. How to trace him?

I can't report much progress, but I did go back to the Milliken history of Ontario County found that "William Smith, Jr." was there in 1793 in Seneca township. So now I can guess (and it's not much more) that William Smith's father was also William Smith, who I've added to the ancestry.com tree.

The census report for 1800 shows 4 Smiths, one group of William, Leonard and Josiah (that is, on adjacent lines) and a separate entry for another William Smith. Interpreting the entries is hard, because they don't seem to relate to the printed form.

Anyhow, I've added the excerpts for the early settling of Seneca and the forming of the No. 9 church (so called, because it was located in township no. 9, of the first range of the Phelps/Gorham tract) to the website and I've added Jean's extract of the William Smith will and the purchase of land from James Latta in 1791.

Updates of Harshaw Family Tree

I've been adding to the Harshaw Family Tree on ancestry.com, picking up collateral lines, like Ralph Gold's ancestors (old New Englanders, perhaps even with a poor relation of the Brown Brothers of Providence, RI (or maybe just run of the mill Browns), Goulds, Lovejoys, and what all.

A couple of tidbits--Ada went back to her mother to have her first child--Helen was born in Cuylersville. On my mothers side I've about filled in all the first cousins, to the extent I can.

Of course, when I say "filled in", I don't necessarily mean anything more than hitting the census records and maybe the SSDI death index.

Welcome Adrian, and Other Updates

Note that Adrian Murdock has signed the guestbook--the first non-editor to do so. Wish we had a prize to reward him. Instead, go to his website (under Favorite Sites).

Tweaking the maps a bit--discovered that you can vary the "placemark" symbol.

Doing some work on the migration from the Cahans to Stillwater, NY which included a "Harshaw", who dropped the "w" along with accepting some other variant spellings. It will be a while before it's ready for any presentation. Lots of assumptions involved in the early years. However, one William Harsha was, for a while, associated with a Presbyterian seminary in Omaha, perhaps a bit early for grandfather William to have known him.

Map Changes

Marjorie Harshaw Robie and I updated the "Harshaw Irish Map"
over the last two days.

Changes July 23

I found two places in Ulster possibley related to the Sparta Rosboroughs and added them to the Irish map.

Went back to the Robert Anderson family tree on ancestry.com, downloaded the Gedcom to my PC, imported the file into Legacy, created a descendant tree from Legacy, uploaded it to Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and then published it, after linking to "Branches". We'll see if the process works.

Changes and Projects

Making some progress--yesterday we got a "guestbook" running (under the related pages--at the right of the table) and I started a Google Map for Ulster--finding Ringbane Road. It's under "maps". Marjorie is trying her best to get me to Ireland, but until she succeeds anyone who has a better understanding of the area can and should take a crack at putting placemarks on the map.

I also published Jean's extracts of the material on Sarah Harshaw (Michael's mother) and his brother David's will.

Marjorie has asked that I try researching the South Carolina Harshaws, which is looking complicated.

Mac and Photos

I've added a picture of Harold McCloskey Harshaw to the Picasa photo album (I'm afraid I still don't fully understand Picasa--he ended up in a separate "album". I like the picture, a little bit more of his personality seems to come through than is often the case with photographs 80+ years old.

I also added Jean Harshaw's extracts of Michael Harshaw's land transactions to the "Family Records" page. I think now each of the "related records" pages has some content.

Today's Progress

When I first got involved in web sites, a convention was to note the recent changes in the site. A blog, being organized by time, doesn't need that. But because this blog is the front end for the related pages, it may make sense to something similar here:
As a record of the changes made in the site, and related sites:

• I got information from Ed Cole of Indiana relating to the early Harshaws which I've added to the Ancestry Tree for the Harshaw family. (I hope shortly to link from the related pages to that site.)
• Modified and updated the "branches" page to allow a column for the townland in Ireland where the branch came from--Marjorie says that's key in Irish genealogy.

Planning tomorrow to open the blog to the public (unless Marjorie objects).