Reuniters Reminisce, Regret Reservoir

Residents of the four towns drowned by the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts still get together to mourn their lost homes.

[F]or remaining natives of the four "lost towns," all now in their 70s or older, nostalgia blends with sorrow and occasional flashes of bitterness. They continue to gather at least once a month to reminisce, clinging tenaciously to the bonds their families forged in towns long since erased from the map.

Each native has a story: passing cemeteries as ancestors' bodies were moved, watching helplessly as grandparents cried in frustration, realizing the drinking water of strangers had been deemed more important than their families' roots.

"That was the only place we'd ever known," Bob Wilder, an Enfield native, said of the hardscrabble farming town his family left in 1938 when he was a boy. "I try not to get mad when I think about it anymore, but that was home. I can't really ever go home." [Link]

Not Enough Characters at Your Reunion?

TamaGenerations.com (Warning: obnoxious music) lets kids combine their two favorite activities: learning about family history and supporting the Japanese toy-making industry.

It's time to start thinking about planning your summer family reunion and what better way to do it than by researching your family tree so you know who to invite! Celebrating the new Familitchi V5, the newest version of the highly popular Tamagotchi Connection toy, www.TamaGenerations.com provides kids the chance to create family trees of everyone's favorite Tamagotchi characters as well as collect hidden family heirlooms. With help from partners Family Tree Magazine and FamilyReunion.com, kids can create a personalized family tree online and learn fun tips on planning their very own family reunion party. But the fun doesn't end there! Finding 20 family heirlooms will give one lucky kid the chance to win an Ultimate Tamagotchi Family Reunion for 25 family members with a special appearance from the special and fun Tamagotchi characters. [Link]

If "special and fun Tamagotchi characters" show up at my family reunion, they better know how to perform a keg stand. Oh, and some of my older relatives might demand an apology for Pearl Harbor.

Wreck Leads to Reunion

Myrt grabbed this one before I could find it.

Jason Pateman, aged 38, from Milton Road North, Kingsley, was using the toilet when a car crashed into his newly-built extension causing him much distress.

His wife, Darleen, called the police and when they came round the next day, Mr Pateman recognised one of the officers immediately.

He said: "I saw her face and I knew straight away it was my cousin Charlotte.

"The last time I saw her was at a family event in 1993." [Link]

Ms. Tran Finds Her Man

Tran Thi Kham went to Taiwan in search of her father.

Her only clues were a gold ring and a photograph of him as a young man.

He had given the mementoes to a Vietnamese woman he had fallen in love with in Hong Kong in 1967. She had returned to her home country to care for her mother and he later returned to Taiwan.

She took a job in Taipei helping a man named Tsai Han-chao care for his ailing wife. After the wife's death she left his employ, but accidentally left her father's mementos behind. She asked the local police to help recover them.

They contacted Mr Tsai and asked him to search for her things. Police described him as "stunned" to come across the keepsakes he had given his lover so long before.

He flew immediately to Kinmen, where his daughter was newly employed, for an emotional reunion. [Link]

You Can Always Find What You're Looking For at Lowe's

Steve Flaig found his birth mother working at the same Lowe's where he works.

Four years ago, when Steve turned 18, he asked DA Blodgett for Children, the agency that arranged his adoption, for his background information.

A couple of months later it came, with his birth mother's name.

He searched the Internet for her address and came up empty.

In October, around his 22nd birthday, he took out the paperwork from DA Blodgett and realized he had been spelling his birth mother's surname wrong as "Talladay."

He typed "Tallady" into a search engine, coming up with an address on West River Drive. That was less than a mile from the Lowe's store, 4297 Plainfield Ave. NE, and just around the corner from where his parents raised him.

He mentioned it to his boss.

She said: "You mean Chris Tallady, who works here?" [Link, via Ancestories]

Why the Hellsterns Hated Christmas

A delightful holiday story from The New York Times of Dec. 27, 1914:

XMAS FATAL TO HELLSTERNS

Widow Fourth of Her Family to Die Suddenly on That Day.

Mrs. Caroline Hellstern, 63 years old, of 28-a First Street, Wechawken, widow of a restaurant proprietor of Union Hill, was stricken with paralysis while attending a family reunion at the home of her son, Dr. Ephraim C. Hellstern, at Palisades Plaza, Hudson Heights, on Christmas Day, and died early yesterday morning in the Hudson Heights Hospital. She was the fourth member of the Hellstern family to die suddenly at Christmas time. Her son, Gustave, died suddenly from heart trouble a year ago, in his drug store at Ridgefield, N. J.; another son, Frederick, died suddenly three years ago, and Mrs. Hellstern, wife of Dr. Hellstern, died four years ago. [Link]

Genealogy Shouldn't Hurt

If you're ever approached by Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Jim Gunter to swap genealogy data, just walk away. Quickly.

According to a police report on the Sept. 2 altercation, Justice Jim Gunter asked his sister, Janet Gibson, for some genealogy papers he had left with her for a family reunion that day. When Gibson told Gunter that she was not through with the papers, he began screaming at her and backhanded her across the mouth, knocking her into a dresser, the report said. [Link]

The Importance of Background Research

Michael Dick was looking for his daughter, Lisa, so he sought the help of a British newspaper. A story about his search appeared in the paper, along with a photograph of Dick.

Lisa, a mother of three, discovered her father, 58, was trying to find her when friends mentioned the story.

And when she looked at the photograph, she realised she and her mother were just a few metres behind them and got in touch.

Lisa said: 'I was completely shocked. Me and my mum had been standing in that exact place where the picture was taken about a minute earlier, and you can see us in the picture walking away. It is incredible.' [Link]

[Thanks to Rob Manderson for spotting this item and passing it on.]

Update: And thanks to John Van Essen for sending in a link to a Suffolk Free Press follow-up article with the annotated photograph.

Her Nice Neighbor Was a Niece

Madam Zhang Qunyou, 68, was given up for adoption three days after her birth in Malaysia. She tried for twenty years to find her birth family, without success. She moved to Singapore last year to live with her daughter, and in June met a neighbor who lived one floor below—Madam Hon Sek Yin.

She began relating her life story to Madam Hon, 48.

As Madam Hon listened, she felt a keen sense of deja vu.

The vegetable wholesaler said: 'I had heard that story before - but it was from my maternal grandmother.'

Madam Zhang also reminded Madam Hon strongly of her grandmother and her mother.

Said Madam Hon, who has a pair of 26-year-old twin daughters: 'I could not help wondering if Madam Zhang was my mother's long-lost sister.' [Link]

Madam Zhang was indeed the woman's aunt. A few days later, she was introduced to her 90-year-old birth mother.

Unwitting Witness to History

Descendants of Wilmer McLean gathered on Monday for their first tour of his house in Appomattox, Virginia—the same house where Grant accepted Lee's surrender at the close of the Civil War.

The oft-repeated irony is that McLean, who lived in Manassas, had moved to Appomattox after the first Battle of Bull Run to escape the war.

“He used to say that the war started in his front yard and ended in his parlor,” said Patrick Schroeder, a historian with the Appomattox Courthouse National Historic Park.

According to Charlotte Lageman, McLean’s great-granddaughter, “a family story is that a cannonball came through the chimney and fell into a pot of soup he was cooking in Manassas. That’s when he said, ‘This war is getting too close.’” [Link]

[Photo credit: McLean House by Mike McBride]

They Wanted to Pray, Not to Stay

A reunion being held at Monticello this weekend includes descendants of Thomas Jefferson and of his plantation's laborers, artisans, guests and overseers. Some members of the Monticello Association—a group of white Jefferson descendants that owns the graveyard where the president is buried—are still fuming over the Sally Hemings controversy.

A plan to hold a sunrise service today at the Monticello graveyard was turned down by the Monticello Association in May, said [Virginia "Prinny"] Anderson, who made the request and is a member of the association.

Denying access to even hold a service inside the cemetery is "silly," said David Works, who helped organize the reunion. "They still seem to think blacks want to be buried in the cemetery. But they don't. It's all kind of silly. But it doesn't ruin our weekend." [Link]

Family Reunion Might Save Lives

Organizers of a Littick family reunion in Ohio hope that the get-together will help solve a family medical mystery.

Jane Reed married her husband, Steve, 35 years ago. He's a descendant of the Littick family line and since their marriage, she's tracked the untimely deaths of family members that date several generations back.

Although she said doctors haven't been able to name the problem, the family describes it as a heart rhythm problem.

Dr. Raul Weiss of The Ohio State University and Dr. Barry London of the University of Pittsburgh and their research teams have offered to attend the reunion for research purposes. During the reunion, if they wish, family members can participate in the research by giving a blood sample and having an electrocardiogram test completed. [Link]

The Perfect Place for a Picnic

At Shiloh Cemetery in Rusk County, Texas, they've been holding a picnic every summer for 132 years. More than 300 relatives of cemetery residents attended this year's event.

[I]n 1876, a tradition was born when Mrs. Susan Vaughn Pierce, wife of Wylie Pierce, and "Granny" Jeffrey met with friends to clean the cemetery. They always packed a lunch since the cemetery cleaning was an all day affair. The idea spread, and others brought lunches, and the "Shiloh Picnic", as it became known, grew larger and larger. The picnic has since then been held every 4th of July and is celebrated by all of those families connected to the Shiloh area by family ties.

Two concession stands were built where refreshments were sold to provide money for the work of caring for the cemetery. [Link]

I think every cemetery should have a concession stand or two.

Celebrating a Celibate Ancestor

The Shakers were celibate while living as Shakers, but that did not preclude their having children before joining the community or after leaving. A reunion of the descendants of Elder Freeman Benjamin White was held at the Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire over the weekend.

The dozens of relatives who attended the reunion this weekend are descendants of only two of Freeman White's children - Forrest White and Everett White. Freeman White brought the boys, along with their two sisters, Jennie Lind and Lillie Grace, to the Shaker Village in 1879 after their mother left the family.

It was not an unusual circumstance at the Shaker Village, historian and Shaker trustee Sue Maynard said.

"There were a number of children who were brought to the village to be cared for because of a divorce," Maynard said. "This was a safe, pious, good place. There were not as many men; this is one of the reasons that Freeman stands out from other people who came to the village as a refuge." [Link]

The only place to find honest-to-goodness real live Shakers is at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, not far from where I live.

They Didn't Forget to Remember

A saying was passed down in Bettye Kearse's family: "Remember your name is Madison." A reunion of slave descendants this weekend at James Madison's Virginia plantation might bring her a step closer to proving the truth of the saying.

Kearse said her family traces its roots back to a slave named Corean, who was reportedly owned by Madison and gave birth to a son named Jim. When Jim was sold to a plantation owner in Tennessee, she told him not to forget he was a Madison in case they should ever reconnect. Since then, the saying's meaning has evolved.

"Initially it was a tool, then it became valuable after the slaves were free because my family really did well. They owned property, participated in government, learned to read and then they passed this legacy on," Kearse said. [Link]

Will There Be Watermelon Smashing?

Organizers of the Gallagher Global Gathering have invited two famous Gallaghers to the reunion: brothers Liam and Noel of the band Oasis.

A special invitation has been sent out to the Gallagher's management company and organisers are hopeful the brothers will respond.

Adrian [Gallagher] said: "We haven't heard from them yet but it's early days. I think there will be a surge in the next couple of weeks where we'll get more Gallaghers signed up. We've left their places open just in case." [Link]

Cattleman Meets His Cousins of Color

Marion West is a cattle rancher in Missouri. Vy Higginsen runs a school for gospel singers in Harlem. DNA tests showed that the two were cousins, leading to a recent reunion in New York.

It was Mr. West’s first visit to New York City, and he stood out partly because of his rancher outfit: black cowboy hat, shiny boots, string tie and a jacket advertising a feed company. But he also stood out because he was a white man greeted by a roomful of black New Yorkers embracing him as a long-lost member of their family.

“Welcome to Harlem,” Ms. Higginsen told Mr. West and his wife, Mack, as the crowd cheered. “Meet your DNA cousins,” Ms. Higginsen yelled to her relatives. [Link]

Wife Swap

Australian genealogist Kate Wingrove has organized a reunion of the descendants of George Cribb: "convict, bigamist and general scoundrel."

Within six months of arriving in the colony as a convict in 1808 Cribb was advertising "fine fresh pork" to his neighbours in The Rocks. He was also living with another convict, Fanny Barnett, whom he married in 1811 - conveniently forgetting that he was already married to a woman in England called Mary.

Cribb was caught out when Mary wrote to say she was arriving in Sydney in June 1815. The butcher - by now prosperous - paid Fanny 300 pounds to leave for England on the same ship that deposited Mary. [Link]

One Family's Myth Communication

Representatives of the English and American branches of the Perrotin family reunited in California last week after a century apart. Each had heard a different explanation for the loss of contact.

From the stories her great-aunt told her, Linda Tully of San Jose always assumed that her English cousins died in the bombing "blitz" during World War II. Jenny Murray of Gloucestershire, England, had been told that her cousins in the new world perished during an earthquake in Mexico.

So how did those stories get started?

Well, there were earthquakes in Mexico: But Tully says she's unaware they killed any of the family. And the closest Jenny Murray's family came to the "blitz" was that her father extinguished incendiary bombs dropped near his home some 100 miles west of London. [Link]

Their Bid for a Little Bit of Britain

Members of the American Balcom and Balcombe families gathered in Buffalo, N. Y., in August of 1901 for a reunion, but also for a second purpose: to lay claim to the town of Balcombe, Sussex, England, valued at about $2,000,000. Representatives were appointed from each of three branches of the family that settled in the United States.

The idea to claim the old family seat in England occurred to Frank Balcom some twenty-five years ago, and ever since then he has, with the aid of his relatives, been trying to make the chain connecting the family with the town of Balcombe complete. There are still a few links missing, but it is expected that they will be supplied at the reunion.

The results of the deliberations of the representatives are to be published in book form and will constitute the basis of the claim to be filed with the British government. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 9, 1901]

I find it interesting that this notice of the reunion and this account of the gathering make no mention of a plot to seize land in England.