Virgil E. Veal

Virgil E. Veal 
(1935-2011)

One day, this man named Virgil Veal and his wife Annie contacted me and told me they knew where my great-grandparents, David Aiken and Annie Beveridge were buried! 

I was so excited because I had not found them buried at River Bend Cemetery in RI. 

Virgil and Annie traveled to the cemetery that week and took photos of all the gravestones for me. I would NEVER have thought to look in Georgia. However, my grandmother's sister, their daughter, was named Georgina. I didn't know that they retired to Georgia where they had lived in the early years of coming to America and loved it there.

They lived there because of the lovely red GRANITE that is mined there for buildings and gravestones.

Virgil and I spent several months working together, piecing the children of David and Annie together, worrying over a family member that did not fit in and solving that mystery.

I wondered why he stopped answering my emails but I can be quite relentless so I decided I might be annoying. Finally, another researcher who was working with me, searched for his name and came up with an obituary. I was sad.

I never considered that he passed away. In the obit, the name of the cemetery was mentioned so I put in a Find-a-Grave  request for his grave marker. It was filled this week and the photographer gave me permission to use it in my blog.

Virgil's wife Annie is still living so I didn't post that side of the marker but you can see it and the full obit at Find-a-Grave. Thanks so much SWM volunteer at Find-a-Grave.

William Dow

William Dow, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

William Dow 
photo by Brian Zoldak, used with permission

William DOW, husband of my paternal great aunt married her husband William DOW about 1908. Jessie was born in Westerly, RI but returned to Scotland to go "into domestic service".

Her parents and siblings returned as well and I think they may have had property owned there (or inherited) and decided to go back. I know where they lived but I don't know why they went back to Scotland.

Eventually (after being enumerated in the 1901 Scotland census), everyone returned to America. When Jessie returned to the US she went to her brother Alexander who lived in New York. She married William there.

Jessie and William lived in New York, Philadelphia and Georgia while raising three children. In 1940, she and William returned to Westerly to live on Bowling Lane near my family. By then, my grandmother Annie, Jessie sister, had died and grandfather Tom died soon after. Jessie's boys were grown up but their daughter Bertha (aka "cousin Freckles") was only 17. William worked in the dye business and was a Naturalized citizen. As you can see they belonged to Masonic organizations.

William and Jessie both completed 8th grade and Bertha was in high school in 1940. Jessie died, at 51, the October following the 1940 census but her husband lived until 1961. I have no memory of him being at any family gathering.

Over the years, family members have shared information with me about my Aiken family. The photos are great. 

Close Yet So Far

Aiken-Dow-Strong Plot Annotated, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Aiken-Dow-Strong Plot Annotated

Photo  by Brian Zoldak, used with permission

The orange square shows the location of my paternal grandparents. I knew my grandmother's sisters should be buried nearby. I found Georgina Watts Aiken's gravestone by walking down the "road" where the car is located in this photo.

I didn't venture into this next section, where Jessie Taylor Aiken and her family are buried. So, Brian, being the excellent photographer he is took this photo to show me where I should look next time I go to River Bend Cemetery in Westerly, RI

Remember, location is everything! Look at all nearby gravestones!

Tombstone Tuesday: Jessie Taylor Aiken

Photo by Brian Zoldak, used with permission

Jessie Taylor Aiken

Jessie was my paternal grandmother, Annie (Aiken) Broadfoot's sister and my great aunt. I had no idea where she was buried until I found out from family that she was also buried in River Bend Cemetery.

My friend, Brian Zoldak, had no trouble locating the plot. It was very close to where my paternal grandparents are buried.

Jessie was named for Jessie Taylor [1808-1879], wife of Alexander Aiken and for her father,  David Aiken's sister, Jessie Taylor Aiken [b. 1864]. Naming conventions like this can really help one be sure that you are researching the right women in a family.

I think my grandmother and this sister were quite close since for a time, they both lived on the same street (Bowling Lane in Bradford).  Jessie's daughter, Bertha, who my dad called "Cousin Freckles", died in 2011.  The late Virgil Veal, whose wife Ann is a Aiken descendant, gave me a lot of help sorting out my Aiken family. With Virgil and Ann, I wouldn't know where my great grandparents are buried. I would never have found them as they are buried in Georgia. They retired there and loved it.

Pigs May Whistle

Blogiversary 6 Years, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Blogiversary 6 Years

"Pigs may whistle, but thay hae an ill mouth for't"
(Said when somebody is trying to perform a task for which they are incompetent.) Scottish Proverbs by Colin Walker (p. 78)

On June 6, 2006, I decided the best way to share the gravestones I was photographing was to start a blog. I already had another Blog called Beyond the Horizon. But, even not being new to blogging, I didn't envision that six years later, I would still be doing it or that I was capable of writing 1, 466 posts. Was I a competent enough writer to make this topic interesting and informative? 

I think the hardest tasks this year involve trying to find out more about my Scots. It started in January when my BROADFOOT family had a relative who lived in Scotland who could take gravestone photos for us. 

Then, I suddenly found my living AIKEN family working on obits and photos. After a long time, I found my Aiken grandmother's birth record. Hubs has Scots too and I have made progress on his based on what I learned about mine. It's been a good year.

This weekend, I decided to try to use Google Maps to find the locations of houses in Aberdeen. Here's the first one I found at 27 Gladstone Place in Woodside, Aberdeen. David AIKEN and his children returned here from Rhode Island. His daughter, my grandmother, took a job as a housemaid in a huge manor house while they lived here.

All of the houses look like his, all are GRANITE, up and down the street! Well, no wonder all of my family were granite dressers! The one with the yellow door is where my ancestors lived.

Feeling confident, I went looking for 50 Hadden St. only to be disappointed that the house no longer stood. But, as I whirled around, I discovered that the shop where the house would have been near has a reference to GRANITE! They sell skateboards and surfboards. (Surf, skate and snow!) It is a nice little plaza. I'd like to sit down on one of the chairs and just look around.

It is said that there are no coincidences in genealogy but I definitely think that this is a sign that I should keep working on this!

Thank you for reading Granite in MY Blood.

Aiken Surname

Aiken Surname, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Highland Scots 

 

I've been working hard all weekend on my paternal grandmother's side of my Scottish family. This is how the name is spelled here in America. My dad told me that people with AITKEN were not my kin. However, I have found census records where the enumerator did put in the T.

This crop of the stone in Georgia was taken by the late Virgil Veal especially for me. Now, I find out that other descendants have their own photos of the headstones and the monuments. I thought they were buried in Rhode Island. I wouldn't have guessed Georgia.

I put these photos in my tree at Ancestry.com as "cousin bait". We have a team of four women plus some helpers working on getting the right people in this family. I am "project manager", I guess.

They came to America from a small section of Aberdeen, Scotland called Woodside in Old Machar. I think they were not a poor as my lowland Scots on my Broadfoot side but I will never know for sure.

I didn't know my grandparents at all and neither did my cousins. However, my dad and his siblings did give me the correct information to get started. Even the name spelling is right.

Aiken, Beveridge, Cruickshank, Taylor, Philip, Middleton, and as a second marriage Esson (that's a story in itself). 

There are two sensitive issues in this family: children born before marriage, and divorce. Different time; different problems or are they?

I love the occupations and the locations they lived. Google Maps is helping me look at where they lived. Isn't technology wonderful?

Did you notice that Google maps is putting an image date in tiny letters at the bottom left?

Scottish Genealogy Overview

The About.com's Scottish Genealogy Resource page led me to a Gazetteer of Scotland which helped me find out the names for places in Scotland in various time periods.

About half-way in the article it lists this resource for finding parish names. Gazetteer for Scotland called Scottish Places. This is the source for this reference.

Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885. 

I discovered that I can't always decipher the place names on the vital records or the census. My 2nd great grandfather, William Beveridge, master shoemaker was born in Fife, Scotland but what it says for the parish, I couldn't make sense of. It turns out to be Parish #16, ABDIE which translates to "abbey lands".

The 1881 census (LDS) that I paid to see via Scotland's People lists his birthplace as GIBDE in both the index at Ancestry.com and at the "index image" of this census at Scotland's People. According to books that I have here in my library, the 1881 census images are only available when you actually to to Scotland at the General Register Office.


Please notice that BEVERIDGE is spelled without the E in this "index image" despite the index at Ancestry.com where I found this family listed. The 1881 census was taken the night of 3/4 April 1881. At first, I thought, that is why there are two grandsons listed for this household. Maybe Annie's sister Margaret worked the night shift. She was the wife of James RITCHIE and he died in 1881, so there was no one to tend to William B. RITCHIE at night.

But, this is not the only problem to solve. Ann is unmarried and (yikes) her first born son is living with her at 52 Hadden St. in Woodside, Old Machar, Aberdeen, Scotland. She did not marry until November.

I hope you noticed that both grandson's were named for their grandfather.

Retired Aiken Family

David and Annie (Beveridge) Aiken with son David, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Retired!

I am always pleased to see a new photo in my inbox. I like this photo because it is just a snapshot and not the formal photo shoots like the others of this family.

My great grandparents, David Aiken and his wife Annie Beveridge with their son David. I wonder if this is their last photo? They died in 1928 and 1929 in Georgia.

I just looked at a family tree at Ancestry to see if David ever lived with his parents as an adult. I have been corresponding with that branch (owner of that tree) and now I see that David and his wife divorced in 1955. So, now I have another divorce in the family.

Aiken Great Grandparents

David, Annie Aiken and 2 children (David and Annie II), a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Great Grandmother Annie Beveridge and her husband David Aiken

Recently, this photo (and another) flew into my email inbox from my 2nd cousins who are the granddaughters of Georgina Aiken. Georgina was the sister to my grandmother Annie who married Thomas Broadfoot.

It is great to have some new cousins to help us with this complicated family. My research buddy, Rosalie, whose children are descended from my Aiken line through Georgina is relentless in finding records for our growing Aiken family tree.

This photograph is of David Aiken and his wife Annie Beveridge. They are buried in Georgia. They loved it there and retired and are buried there. [David and Annie Aiken]

The young man in the photo is their son, David and the little girl is little Annie. This little girl was adopted by her grandparents. I love how she is holding the arm of her grandfather.

Things were hard for this family but they worked it out to give their children a better life.

The Aiken Monument

The Aiken Monument, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Losing Contact with a Contact

Sadly, the man who took this great photo of the monument of my Aiken family (that retired to Georgia) passed away in 2011 and I just found out yesterday.

I was surprised when my emails went unanswered. I tried to contact him through his Ancestry.com tree. He was not an Aiken but his wife was a cousin to me. 

He found my tree and we exchanged the usual email addresses and the basic relationship information about my Aiken line and his wife's. I found out from him that my great grandparents, David Aiken and his wife Annie Beveridge Aiken retired to Georgia and when they died, they were buried there in Lithonia City cemetery in Lithonia, DeKalb, Georgia. Although he was still working, he and Annie took a day trip to photograph the headstones for me. Isn't that great?

They had photographs of my Aikens that I had never seen. I didn't know much about this line so I was hungry for information. I am still working on it.

His tree is still up at Ancestry.com. Now, I must stop what I am doing and make sure that I have all the photos and the information that he posted there. I probably did capture it all but I need to check. (I did find a couple photos of his wife's line that I didn't link to mine so I've got them now.)

It certainly makes you stop and think about your public and private trees online, doesn't it? Rest well, Vigil. I've got it from here. 

Waterton House Housemaid Update!

Annie AIKEN, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Housemaid, Waterton House 

Tombstone Tuesday Update!

This is the headstone of my paternal grandmother, Annie Aiken, wife of Thomas Broadfoot. I have, with the help of Jo, the "Scottish Genealogist" found her birth record. I didn't know that the place called Woodside is really in Old Machar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Thank you, Jo!

She came, with her parents to America in the late 1880s and returned to Scotland with them. She was not listed in the 1901 Scotland census, so I have been assuming that she was out working as a domestic.

Well, yesterday, I found her at age 17, working as a housemaid in Waterton House, Stonywood, North Aberdeen, Scotland in the 1901 Scotland census. I raced to Scotland's People's Web site to find the census image as Ancestry.com just has the index.

Bingo!. Now, I know I watch too much Downton Abbey. I was rewarded with a house history and several photos of the mansion as it looks today.

All of Grandmother Aiken's Children

All of Grandmother Aiken's Children
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Isn't it wonderful when you get a new family photo in your email? It sure brightens up a cold, dreary, rainy New England day.

I am thankful for family members finding my tree at Ancestry and contacting me. You can never know enough about your immigrant ancestors.

This photo is of my paternal Scottish ancestors Aiken. They came early to America, before Ellis Island. This is a such a nice photo that was restored for me by Virgil and Anne.

Those pictured here are all siblings. Quite an age range isn't it?

I'll bet my friend, Maureen Taylor would like this photo. I am thankful for having this photo to add to my collection.