Week One of my Genealogy Do-Over is just about over. I’m finding it difficult to focus on one person at a time and not to put in the details that I think I know. I want to just jump ahead and go to the families that I know need work and not build the foundation that I know I need.

It’s going to be a long process, but I’m off to a good start I think.

I’ve been considering my family history a lot lately. With the holidays I’ve decided that it’s time to give my ancestors some much needed love. I’ve bought a new laser printer and I’m ready to do this the right way. The problem is that I have no idea where to start. I read this article Genealogy Do Over and I’ve decided to give it a go.

I have been fortunate that I have someone on my father’s side that is now willing to share what they know about their parents and grandparents. In my haste to discover as much as I can I relied too much on other’s trees. I expected that since their research was so well documented and they had a ton of pictures of my family, their trees were as close to accurate as I could get. Now I’m not so sure as I take a closer look at the individual people on the tree.

So I am going to put everything aside and go with what I know to be true. I have many lines of my family tree dating back to the 1600s in the US. I can’t wait to see how much is correct and how many of the people I’ve grown to love I will have to say goodbye too.

I’ve said this before but I hope that I can blog my journey along the way and maybe make a feature out of some of my surnames. I’m excited to get my hand wet and dedicate more time to this everlasting hobby/obsession.

Ah, it feels so good to stretch my genealogy legs this week. As some things settle down in my life I’ll finally be able to get back to writing about my family tree. I have so much I wanted to write about the Fuller and Blanchard families. It’s been nearly 3 months since I last posted, but it feels so much longer.

So on this Father’s Day, I’m going to do all my ancestor dad’s proud and pick up that binder and begin retelling their stories. Let them never be forgotten!

Here lyes ye [the] body of
Ensign Thomas Lynd[e]
Aged 78 years died ye [the]
15 of October 1693.

Also the body of
Elizabeth his wife.
Aged 81 years died ye [the]
2 of September 1693.

Thomas and Elizabeth are buried in Bell Rock Cemetery in Malden, Mass.

I’ve decided that for the coming weeks to do a series of Wordless Wednesday posts involving ads or articles I’ve found in copies of Life Magazine from 1958. I was gifted about 10 of them a few years ago and until now they’ve been sitting around collecting dust. I hope you enjoy them.

Ordination of Rev Thomas Carter. Painting by Albert Thompson

I hate to do this, but the time has come for me to decide where to spend my time. I have so much going on with the publication of my book and starting an intense workout routine. I have to unfortunately put some times on the back burner for now. 

My love for genealogy hasn’t disappeared and many days I struggle to stop myself from hoping on Ancestry or cracking open my binders. It came down to making a living and getting healthy again.

I hope to return to this site in the future and hope to keep up with all of my readers. I have several post queued for the next few weeks but then it’s goodbye for now. I’ll miss you all!

Taken from a scan of the Syracuse Herald Nov. 7th 1927. A picture taken of the flood that destroyed Vermont.

I’m asking for help on today’s Military Monday. I have two records pertaining to a Stephen Fuller. I’m having trouble transcribing them to make sure they are for my ancestor. If anyone could me get a handle on these that would be so much help. You can click on each image to see the full size.

The first one below might be “from” Stephen’s wife Lydia. That’s about the only words I can pick out of this whole page and understand. Under her name I can see the state Vermont mentioned and that’s why I saved this document. I’m not entirely sure its for.

The second image I think is about Stephen himself. The only reason I question this is because it says it’s from Mass. Stephen to the best of my knowledge lived in Vermont at the time. I suppose it’s not a stretch, but I wanted some help to make sure  before I add it to his file.

The reason these are so important to me is that I hope to prove a connection that Stephen was in the Revolutionary War. I hope to one day apply for the Daughters of the American Revolution and will need this info. So if you can help me transcribe this, I would be very grateful.