Thomas Sharp's Intellectual Books

Thomas Sharp, my great-great-great-grandfather (b 16 Feb 1808; d 9 Sept 1896, both in Salem, OH) was described as “a curmudgeonly agnostic abolitionist Quaker”[1] 

Thomas Sharp

Sarah Antrim

Married to Sarah Antrim in 1830, they had four daughters and one son.  My great-grandmother, Reba Baxter, was the daughter of their middle child, Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Sharp and her husband, John Lendrum Baxter.

Thomas and Sarah became Hicksite Quakers, following the more restrictive doctrine (plain clothing and few personal niceties), which held that divinity is achieved through obedience to the “inner light”.  In fact, the doctrine rejected the virgin birth of Christ and held that Jesus was the son of God only in that he had achieved this harmony with his inner light.

Continued hiatus

The workload of my new job combined with a move to a new city in September and into a new home in November caught up with me!

I have several blog posts in the works and will be back up to speed by the end of January.  A much longer hiatus than I originally anticipated!

As a placeholder, I'll show you a gift from my mother this season:

Published in 1933 by the Newport Chamber of Commerce, this is an extensive look at many of the historic buildings in Newport, RI along with some historical facts about the founding of Newport and the original settlers there (some of whom are my ancestors).

The pamphlet was printed by the Gladding Print shop, no doubt holding some connection to my great-grandmother's friend and first cousin once removed, Bessie Gladding.  I am still in contact with, and close to, Bessie's descendants.

Wishing you a peaceful New Year.

Hiatus

August and September break as I start a new job - will be back in October with a post about my methods of organizing documents, photos, electronic files and everything else that we all seem to accumulate in our family history search!

Will the Real Matthew Woodruff Please Stand Up? (part 2 of 2)

Part 1 left us with the interesting coincidence of my consultations with the Society of Genealogists in London about the origins of Matthew Woodruff, my immigrant Woodruff ancestor, being immediately followed by outreach from a distant cousin, Leonard Lee Woodruff, who had further information to provide about Matthew.

I found it fascinating that Leonard emailed for the first time, after finding our DNA match, to ask if I had any information on the very topic I’d addressed the prior day!  After I shared my information with him, he sent me copies of what he had, which added to my own knowledge.  The documents he sent me in October 2011 included the results of three separate research projects that he had commissioned.  He later copied me on the results of a fourth project in January 2012.

What more was I going to learn about our immigrant ancestor, Matthew Woodruff of Farmington, Connecticut?

Map of Colonial Farmington, CT with Matthew Woodruff's house called out (See previous Blog entry for attribution)

Will the Real Matthew Woodruff Please Stand Up? (part 1 of 2)

There has been much speculation about the origin of Matthew Woodruff of Farmington, Connecticut, my Woodruff immigrant ancestor.  Although no solid proof has been found, there is strength in the circumstantial evidence that points to his origins in Cambridge, England.

Legend has it (by way of several published genealogies which have translated to many, many online family trees) that Matthew and his wife Hannah were in Boston circa 1639 and then in Farmington by 1640 or 1641.  There is no evidence to back this up.  In fact, there is no mention of Matthew Woodruff in the exhaustive Great Migration project, which provides comprehensive sketches on all New England immigrants from 1620 through 1635 and a comprehensive index of all New England immigrants from 1636 through 1640. [i]

In her 1963 Woodruff Genealogy, Susan Woodruff Abbott states “Although it has been said that [Matthew] came from Hartford to Farmington in 1640-41, written evidence seems to be entirely lacking.” [ii]

From Susan Woodruff Abbott's book.

Unconventional Great Grandparents (part 2 of 2)

This is a continuation of my discussion about the perception that those who came before us led more rigid and strictly “conventional” lives.  My great-grandparents, as detailed in the previous posting, were all born during America’s Gilded Era, when Victorian principles were adopted and family life was conventional and predicable.  At least that is our perception of the time – in reality, life presented challenges and complications to the people of that era, just as is does with us today.  All four sets of my great grandparents experienced some unconventional aspect of their lives.  In my previous post I addressed my paternal great grandparents, one set divorced and the other set estranged.

In this post, I address my two sets of maternal great-grandparents.  For one couple, and like one set of my paternal great-grandparents, there was a long-term separation.  And for one great-grandfather, the story is one of tragedy compounded with further estrangement and manipulation, really a very sad reflection on the key players of a 100-year-old misfortune that still has an impact on his descendants today.

Unconventional Great Grandparents (part 1 of 2)

My four sets of great-grandparents were of an interesting era: all eight of these individuals were born during America’s Gilded / Industrial Ages, with their collective birth years ranging from 1878 through 1886, an eight year span.  Their families represented a fascinating range of backgrounds, including industry, finance, law and medicine.  One great-grandfather grew up as the son of a minister.  They were all influenced by their times and circumstance, which mirrored the Victorian era in England and the Belle Époche in France.  These were special times and today we tend to think of the people of this era as rigid, tied to strict mores and more likely to live strictly conventional lives.  Divorce and separation were seemingly unheard of.

Interestingly, this perception does not apply to any of my great-grandparents.  The lives of each of these four couples factored in some unusual non-conventional family component.  The causes of their circumstances vary, but they all had a non-traditional aspect to their lives.

Today’s post will address my two sets of paternal great-grandparents.  Part two will discuss how my maternal great-grandparents failed to conform to the perceptions of the norms for their era. 

My great-grandparents, Sidney Bunting and Aileen Smith
with their wedding party in Montreal in 1910