2017 Life Logs, Days 169: Still Working on Family History
Date: Sunday, June 18, 2017
Weather: Overcast with a Little Rain, Temp in the High 73 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Researching family history is absolute addiction for me. Once I get started, I just can’t stop. I got up this morning and spent the entire day trying to pin down a few specifics. One thing that intrigues me is that this past week I found out that the place we are staying in West Virginia for our reunion next weekend is on the land originally owned by Jacob Mann, Jr., in the late 1700’s. Jacob Mann, Jr., was married to Barbary Miller, a daughter of my 5th great grandfather, Jacob Miller, Sr., who came to this country from Germany. Jacob Mann, Sr. and Jacob Miller, Sr. both lived in Rockingham County, Virginia, in the mid-1700’s. Jacob Mann, Sr., and one of his sons, Jacob Mann, Jr. and wife Barbary Miller, made their way across the mountains into present day Monroe County sometime between 1770 and 1775. John Miller, Sr., son of Jacob from Germany, married a French woman named Barbary Mauze, and they too crossed the mountains into West Virginia around 1775. Jacob Mann, Jr., settled on the land that is now Creekside where we will be staying next weekend and John Miller settled on an adjacent property. I won’t go on, but you can see from this tiny piece of history that I have put together from various sources in the past couple of days just how confusing this process can be. There were way too many people in this story named Jacob, John, and Barbary. And this is what takes so much time. I have to take notes, reread, recheck, and finally come up with what makes sense. But that’s what I enjoy . . . the story that evolves out of the names and dates. And how cool is it that we are going to be staying where the first members of our family that came into Monroe County once lived? I love that connection. But at 5 pm, I made myself stop this nonsense so I could go to Heather and Jed’s for dinner. Jed’s mother, Marti, is here this weekend, and they invited me over so we could visit. Marti is going to stay an extra day to help me out by having Camp Grammie with Ollie tomorrow morning. This will give me a little more time to get ready for the family gathering. In the afternoon, I will go over and pick-up Ollie and Marti and we will go on a shopping expedition to buy farewell gifts for teachers and parent volunteers for Sam’s 4th grade graduation on Wednesday evening. The gifts are not from Sam, but from the whole 4th grade class. Since Heather is the PTO president, she is in charge of this. As we discussed this over dinner, it just seemed like something Marti and I could do to help Heather out and Ollie will enjoy going along with us. Then the Goldstones have a kid-centered swimming party tomorrow evening with friends, so Marti and I might escape and go out for a nice quiet dinner.
