Come In, Please

Front Door, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Come In, Please!

In February, I will be participating in the Family History Writing Challenge. It takes a lot of research and writing time, so it will be quiet here while I gather my research and begin to pre-write the posts.

At first, I did not see the connection between the two projects but as I stepped out of my office one morning and put my foot upon the top stair, I saw the light.

Since the light is a common theme, I thought I should mention the Quaker Meeting House in Cranston, RI in my hometown. I went to the Oaklawn Baptist Church for my Girl Scout meetings and to go to the famous May Breakfasts held there. 

My first elementary school was in Oaklawn as I attended the school there for the first few grades. I found out about the meeting house from a now abandoned Web page. I made a screen shot of the photos and information because I thought it might disappear. Little did I know that the Providence Journal would blog about it just as I was beginning to write. Is this a coincidence? Probably not. This kind of phenomena happens to genealogists all the time.

I am thrilled to see all of the wonderful information about the Quakers in Rhode Island even though they are not my family. Community counts too as part of our personal history. Suddenly, I have a longing for a May Breakfast and for a May Basket. The light outside should be better then too.

Sally and Caleb Turner

Photo by Hulda Jowett, 2011, used with permission

Caleb and Sally

Hulda Jowett's ancestor, Sally Aylsworth, who was sister to my Ada Ann Aylsworth, is buried in the same part of Maple St. Cemetery as her parents Warner and Susanna Aylsworth. As a rule, that is not an unusual finding but in this case, it may explain everything.

Quaker folks do not always have gravestones. It is part of the "plain" religion to not make a big fuss about death and remembrance. But, Sally, brought up as a Quaker, married Caleb Battey Turner, a Baptist.  Hulda says she looked through family papers and he was a Quaker.

Hulda has concluded that Caleb insisted on placing gravestones for his wife's parents in the plot. Thank you Caleb. But, it must have been hard on Warner to have his daughter marry an outsider.

What does intrigue me is that Caleb 's middle name was Battey! Could it be that the Battey family was the first Quaker family to leave the Smithfield Meeting and move to Adams? Battey is listed on the Smithfield Meeting Web page as a surname. If this is correct, then perhaps this was the influence that prompted the Aylsworth family to become Quakers. This will take additional research some other time.

"Among names familiar to this earlier generation of Friends may be mentioned those of Aldrich, Ballou, Battey, Bushee, Cranston, Ewen, Fisher, France, Marble, Morse, Mowry, Osborne, Paine, Read, Robinson, Steere, Thayer, Todd, Varney and many others. Names of a still later generation may be found upon the records of our work today."

Caleb and Sally had seven children.

Tombstone Tuesday: Warner and Susanna AYLSWORTH

My Quaker Ancestors
Quaker Meeting House Grounds
Adams, MA

Photo of gravestones by Hulda Jowett, 2011, used with permission

Warner and Susanna (Battey) AYLSWORTH 

Warner AYLESWORTH (1766 - 1843)

is your 4th great grandfather

Ada Ann AYLSWORTH (1812 - 1860)

daughter of Warner AYLESWORTH

Charles Turner EVANS (1835 - 1891)

son of Ada Ann AYLSWORTH

Adah Ann EVANS (1867 - 1935)

daughter of Charles Turner EVANS

Evans STEWART (1886 - 1955)

son of Adah Ann EVANS

Dorothy Frances STEWART (1916 - 2002)

daughter of Evans STEWART

Me

This is the list of what Ancestry tells me is the "direct line" from Warner to myself. I have gravestones of many of my fourth great grandparents. If you had told me that I would have found any of them in that generation (or earlier) I would have told you you were nuts. But, that was 2004, before people were finding them for me. What a difference online collaboration makes!

The carved information on Warner and his wife Susanna is classic for the period. Notice that her year of death has a space between the 18 and the 43.

I am so glad to see these gravestones!

Maple Street Cemetery

Photo by Wayne Howland, used with permission

Maple Street Cemetery

Upon finding out that the Quaker Meeting House Grounds has both unmarked graves and gravestones for Quaker families, I asked my Find-a-Grave expert for that area, Wayne Howland, if I could have a copy of this photograph that shows the Quaker Meeting House from a different angle and season from the one cousin Hulda Jowett shared with me. I didn't expect to see gravestones so close to the road.

As you can see the road directly in front of the doors and granite plaque. If you look in the distance, you can see many more gravestones near the meeting house. Both Hulda and Wayne tell me that the cemetery is called Maple St. Cemetery and encompasses the meeting house.

Ah, the address of the Meeting House is Maple St. and Friend St. Doesn't that make sense now?

Check out the sign for the cemetery which must be at the other end of the cemetery! It says that the Quaker family is buried here and that the gravestones are fragile. 

Monthly Meeting

Inside the Meeting

Hulda Jowett brought my attention to this Web page that shows the interior of the Adams Quaker Meeting House. Be sure not to miss that the heat and the light (fireplace) is on the Women's side of the Meetinghouse. 

The Berry book that I am reading emphasizes that I should know which meeting my family belonged to. It didn't take me long to find this out for those people who lived in Adams and for the brother of my ancestor that moved to Michigan. It could be that Robert Marks Ayleworth, who moved away did so because he wanted to raise his family in a more "plain" fashion. Hulda and I are going to move into cluster research to find out what happened to the children and grandchildren of our common ancestor Warner and Susanna (Battey) Aylsworth.

I found some of the meeting records at Ancestry by searching the Card Catalog for "Quaker". If you have Quakers, stop reading this blog and go look. Now.

This is what those records look like and you need an annotated abbreviation list to figure them out. It is at the beginning of each volume and it is in Berry's book. 

Then, by a stroke of luck I found the New England Meeting information and a PDF to help me learn more. Also, Caroline Hazard's ebook on The Narragansett (RI) meetings a Google Books.

Suddenly, I am drowning in information! This means I must stop blogging and go back to learning. I have blog posts about the gravestone pre-written for your viewing pleasure while I do just that!

Rhode Island Vital Records

Although NEHGS has the searchable collection of Rhode Island Vital Records. I still turn to Diane's One Rhode Island Family blog page about the collections of Vital Records by Arnold. It will be nice to see all the surnames for East Greenwich in one place. But, I am getting ahead of myself a bit.

In 2006, after finding the Aylsworth genealogy, I made a quick list of the persons that I had to look up in the Vital Records of Rhode Island and started printing out the results and putting them in my notebook. I am glad that I did that because it has helped me enter them correctly into my tree without having to be online all the time I am working. Here's the way they look today at NEHGS:

AYLWORTH
Aylworth Anthony, of John and Sarah Briggs, of Richard; m. by Thomas Spencer, Justice, Jan. 9, 1728-9.  Town Page Detail: Marriage (Vol. 3 : Pg. 9) East Greenwich, RI

Anthony, son of John Aylworth married Sarah, daughter of Richard Briggs. Thomas Spencer, Justice of the Peace married them on 9 Jan 1728-29 in East Greenwich, RI and the marriage is recorded in Vol. 3 Page 9 in that town. Judging from my previous printout, Thomas Spencer married a lot of couples named Aylworth.

Sarah Briggs also was from East Greenwich and her parents were Richard Briggs and Susannah SPENCER. This may mean that the family named Briggs was closely associated with the Justice of the Peace. Sarah has a birth record but her parents are not specifically named except in their marriage record.

Marriage records in Rhode Island are quite good. Births and deaths are not. Rhode Islanders had to pay to have births, marriages and deaths recorded. I suspect the ministers and the justices paid the fee to prove they were doing their job. in my experience, there are far more marriages recorded.

The Briggs family is a very interesting one. They were farmers. That might not see interesting excerpt for the fact that their farm still exists! I think it amazing that I have TWO (or more) farm families in my genealogy who farmed and whose land id still being worked. 

East Greenwich is the next town over to my home town of Cranston. I am amazed that this project keeps working back to Great Grandpa Charles Stewart. They sent him to school in East Greenwich and I have no idea why. I don't think he knew his wife's family lived there. Genealogy is such a big circle. 

Quaker Sources

Sources in print and electronic format

Learning About Quakers

For me, a book, either in print or electronic format is the easiest and fastest way to learn a topic that I am not at all familiar with. Naturally, Cyndi's List [Quaker Records] is my first stop of Web resources. Cyndi was kind enough to point me to specific resources when I "crowdsourced" the topic at Facebook. I got a lot of responses to my query especially important is the one from my Rhode Island friend (yes, that's a little Quaker funny), Diane Boumenot. [One Rhode Island Family]

She suggested that I read Maureen Taylor's article at NEHGS about Religious Records in Rhode Island, since the RIHS library mentioned is under repair and maybe for many months to come. Yet, again, I start another folder for further research. While I am waiting, I can follow them on Twitter. (links at bottom of the RIHS page)

Stephanie P. Fishman's source is now available in both PDF and in Kindle format. I read Kindle books on my iPad mini and I can report that it is an easy way to read this (and affordable too!) ($2.99) [Twitter @stephpfishman] 

I elected to purchase the small paperback, "Our Quaker Ancestors" shown above. It is quite old (1987-1996) and without links but that is why we have wonderful Cyndi. (book costs about $20).

Link to the online format of this book.

Recently, Sunny Morton "crowdsourced" to ask what books we genealogists are reading and I am pleased to be chosen for an article she is writing for an upcoming issue of Family Tree Magazine. Good way to kick off my year! Thanks, Sunny.

Now, to track down vital records where I can find them, locate Quaker "Monthly Meeting" records and to collaborate with my new cousin, Hulda Jowett. Lots of do. See you next Tuesday!

Tombstone Tuesday: Rock in Graveyard

Photo of Quaker Meeting House Grounds, by Hulda Jowett, 2011, used with permission

Photo of Quaker Meeting House Grounds, by Hulda Jowett, 2011, used with permission

Aylsworth genealogy, p. 132

Large Granite Boulder

It pays to read each part of a compiled genealogy carefully. I might have missed this mention of a possible marker. Like many towns, they couldn't resist putting a plaque on it. Remember, I thought this might be the only marker near the meeting house. That is not so. More work to do!

Anthony the Quaker

page cxxxvi of Alysworth genealogy

Huh? How do you spell that?

Aylsworth genealogy, p. iv

Well, no wonder, I was having trouble spelling the name to find vital records in Rhode Island. Fortunately, with each generation, the wife of each man has a first and maiden name. I can find a few marriage records.

Aylsworth genealogy, p. 80, asterisk for date of emigration is not proved. They were there in 1790 census.

When my daughter wanted to name her first son, Anthony, after her husband's side of the family, I told her that, we too, had a Anthony. That made everyone happy. 

Notice, that this Anthony is the one who went to Adams, MA and listed as buried in the "Friends" cemetery and that they were Quakers. I was sure that I would find no headstones, even for generations after this. I comforted myself that I knew where they were resting. 

But, my inner light keeps pushing me forward. 

Quaker Meeting House

Quaker Meeting House, a photo by Hulda Jowett, 2011, used with permission

Quaker Meeting House and home to Adams Historical Society.

The first Web page that I looked at (some time ago) gave me hope that I was going to be able to trace the family of my great grandmother, Ada Ann Evans. Notice it took them 15 years to build a meeting house. 

I am working with the Aylsworth genealogy. (which is out of copyright) It is slow going. I laughed when I saw this tiny graphic of a snail. I am reading it on my iPad mini one page at a time. The list of surnames is in the BEGINNING of the book.

The first generation doesn't begin until page 36 which is half way through the book. My Aylsworth line is Ada Ann6,  Warner5, Anthony4, Anthony3, John2, Arthur1.

Snail graphic from Aylesworth genealogy

Your Own Inner Light

Quaker Meeting House, a photo by Hulda Jowett, 2011, used with permission

Guided By Your Own Inner Light
Theme for 2014

As an undergraduate at Rhode Island College, I took a philosophy course titled, "Comparative Religions". The professor was a popular one and he was very good at teaching tolerance and understanding. This was in the late 1960s where ideas of peace and love clashed with rebellion. My fellow classmates were of varying ages, backgrounds and religions as many were returning servicemen of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars and took advantage of the GI bill and went to college. Many young students were the first ones in their families to go to college.

The professor emphasized the idea of the "creator" and the guiding theme of light throughout time. Even in underdeveloped countries these two ideas are present. I learned a lot in this course about philosophy, geography and history.

As a practicing Protestant in a predominately Catholic state, I was usually in the minority. I did have friends who were non Christians. In Rhode Island, tolerance is a key idea, even to this day and I'd bet founding father Roger Williams would be surprised that his ideals are still in place. Many early governors of Rhode Island were Quakers. The first synagogue is in Newport, RI. 

This plaque indicates that many "Friends" from Smithfield, RI moved to Adams, MA in 1782. (Illustrated History of the Smithfield Meeting of Friends) I am working on finding out more about this family.

As my blog has evolved, it has become more that just gravestone research. Guided by my "inner light", I will continue to blend my gravestone photography into family history. I hope you will continue on this adventure with me in 2014.

Happy New Year!

Quakers in the Family

Quakers, or Friends, seldom have gravestones. I am working on a difficult to prove line of my family who lived in Adams and North Adams, Massachusetts. Before I go on a summer or fall adventure, I want to make sure that I know as much as I can about my family that lived there.

The Adams Historical Society has put a lovely page of information about the Meeting House. The Aylsworth genealogy published in 1887 states that this family and some descendants are buried in the Friend's cemetery at South Adams, MA. [p.132]

In small letters on the Meeting House page, it says Maple St. Cemetery, Adams.  When I look at Find A Grave, I find a list of people buried there but not my ancestors. But, it may mean that there is a list of those buried without markers.

The genealogy simply says that "quite a few of the descendants of Warner and Susanna Aylesworth were buried in the Friend's Cemetery at South Adams, MA. A large natural granite rock affords a mark for the resting place of several of the family."