All posts by Jeff Record

About Jeff Record

Jeff Record received a B.A. degree in Philosophy from Santa Clara University, and works as a teaching assistant with special needs children at a local school. He recently co-authored with Christopher C. Child, “William and Lydia (Swift) Young of Windham, Connecticut: A John Howland and Richard Warren Line,” for the Mayflower Descendant. Jeff enjoys helping his ancestors complete their unfinished business, and successfully petitioned the Secretary of the Army to overturn a 150 year old dishonorable Civil War discharge. A former Elder with the Mother Lode Colony of Mayflower Descendants in the State of California, Jeff and his wife currently live with their Golden Retriever near California’s Gold Country where he continues to explore, discover, and research family history.

Peart’s Elixirs

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , , ,

The rasp of her son’s cough hadn’t stopped for a fortnight, and it seemed (as Mrs. Hatton would later write) that there was “no medicine on earth that could reach his disease.”[1] It was terrible to watch him wasting in his struggles. There certainly was no ease or comfort for the boy. There appeared to be no cure.

The doctors the Hattons had called upon at Baltimore lauded the Playfair method for flushing his lungs.[2] Good Lord, his mother had thought, he is but two years old! Continue reading Peart’s Elixirs →

Landlines

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , ,

The landline rang unexpectedly last Friday. Its sudden clamor gave us all a bit of a jolt. A day or so before, I’d made the journey north to Oregon for a visit with my father and my once-upon-a-time “force to be reckoned with” step-mother. As the phone rang that day I remember thinking, Darn that noisy dialer, why are you disturbing us? I’d been just about ready to settle into the hush of yet another (the umpteenth) episode of Laramie on the TV.[1] Continue reading Landlines →

‘Pruning the tree’

American History, Collections, Family Stories, , , ,
The Misses Ogle and Long

With all of their ‘lives’ so scattered about, I really had nowhere to run and certainly nowhere to hide. There were papers and pictures everywhere, and in the midst of the fray of utter ancestry I caught my grandmother “Miss Ogle” (no pun intended…) staring back at me. Carefree and young in her photograph, she ‘watched’ as I rifled through my great ‘genealogical reduction.’ Her gaze appeared to crisscross over all those lives, and over the hodgepodge of paperwork connecting me to a host of pilgrims and witches … and other assorted knuckleheads. From her grainy Kodak vantage point, Miss Ogle seemed to smirk in humorous disbelief at my genealogical disarray as if to say “Well, isn’t that just the living end…”[1] The only thing I could think in reply to the memory of her long-ago voice in that near-forgotten photo was“Sorry grandma. I need to. It’s time.” Continue reading ‘Pruning the tree’ →

Mirrored names

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , ,
The Burson twins

There was a great commotion in the room that day, a veritable kerfuffle you might call it. I both saw and heard the doctor yell “Get me her chart,” as a well-practiced melee ensued. Our baby girl had just been born, and she was neatly being held by an overprotective nurse. I looked over from our baby to my wife, then to the doctor, and around in disbelief; my wife was exhausted and under an unwonted sort of anesthesia. “Was there something wrong with our baby? Was my wife going to be okay?” Continue reading Mirrored names →

Three Sages

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , ,

In thirty odd years of researching family history, I, like you, have seen a lot of unusual things. From the recesses of my own DNA to the penumbral prose in a dear friend’s oral history, there’s a whole lot going on out there among Ye Olde Branches. Recently though, I stumbled upon something I’d never seen before. Notwithstanding “the numbers” per se, I’m told it’s an event that only happens once every nine thousand times. It has, however, been a discovery that, although comparatively unique, has attained little in the way of genealogical ‘glory.’ Continue reading Three Sages →

Timekeepers

American History, Family Stories, Technology, , , , , ,

Once rumored to have been Aunt Jennie, her image has gazed back at me for years. Certainly she was Jennie Sage – or so Nana had said before several strokes took hold of Nana’s memories and clutched them tight within her. Jennie gazed out from her oubliette of a broken pocket watch, watching us as if we were playing that age-old genealogical game of Can you guess who I am? Indeed, she’s ‘stayed’ Aunt Jennie for years now, though at the time how my grandmother knew this with any certainty was lost on me. Yes, lost, not unlike Nana’s evaporated memories, and with the question of how my grandmother had come to have the old pocket watch in the first place never resolved. Continue reading Timekeepers →

‘Evan Evans with a candlestick…’

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , , ,

In the telling of family history, it’s become quite hard for me to stay away from the same old story. Too often, as I comb through ye olde branches, it feels as if I’m only supposed to talk about those somehow-notable persons (or events) and rarely (if ever) tell the tale of “an ordinary life.” Because of this, it’s gotten difficult for me to tell any tale, or indeed to know just whose life into which to delve. I’m left wondering if someone (or anything) of ‘ordinary ways’ will be of enough interest to anyone else on-down-the-line. Continue reading ‘Evan Evans with a candlestick…’ →

Finding Clifford

Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , ,
Clifford and Alta Dixon

We are often ‘best known’ by the mementos we leave behind. After we’ve passed, an old picture book, pocket knife, glass dish, or a diary may be all that’s left to provide any clue as to who we were in life, or what may have mattered to us. As years go by, and that old picture book gets torn apart, or Cousin Johnnie misplaces the pocket knife and Niece Mary gives the glass dish away at a bake sale, well, there often isn’t much ‘left’ of anyone or even anything left to tell. While we are all so much more than just the sum total of our possessions, it can be a harder story to tell once those pieces may have lost their meaning or become scattered. It’s even more difficult when there weren’t very many to start with. Continue reading Finding Clifford →

‘All these many years’

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , ,

“I have saved this book all these many years. Think and read before you destroy it. Thought and prayer my darling,” Love, M… – 1835

There’s an antique hymnal tucked away in the wilds outside Boise, Idaho. The pages are jaundiced and “crackled,” and they seem to move away from the hinges and endbands as if by design. Inside this venerable old book, there’s an inscription…

Varicolored inks recede from the well-penned markings along the ancient pastedown. It’s here against the board where her message is. She writes in a tone of loving admonition; her “voice” inviting her darling to “thought and prayer” before it fades into a signature of murky identity. Continue reading ‘All these many years’ →

A work in progress

American History, Genealogical Writing, Mayflower, ,
Courtesy of Tom Hampton at FindAGrave.com

There is an old maxim that to uncover our genealogical truths we must work as hard to prove ourselves wrong as to prove ourselves right. It’s been this way for me as I’ve attempted to figure out just what to do about Harriet. As the subject of Harriet goes, I tend to stew a bit, as the possibility her ancestry will provide me with a new Mayflower line to spruce up the old family tree is all-too-enticing. She has, after all, been a bit of a recalcitrant thorn in my genealogical side. Seeing as I’ve floundered long and often against the brick walls and false claims regarding our Plymouth Rock progenitors (and even proposed a new society over such lamentations), it feels appropriate that the elusive Harriet should become my pet project for the start of the new (401st) year.[1] Like many of us here, though, who cling to the rewards of an “out-of-reach branch” or two, I just hope I’m not kidding myself. Continue reading A work in progress →