It all started with a Prince

Dad always wore gray trousers and a gray matching shirt for work. Mom would buy them at Sears Roebuck & Co. He was in construction and worked for Earl D Bennett while I was growing up. I learned in later years that he also worked for Tom Matica Construction in Sanford, Michigan before that. Mom always pressed his work clothes. He always started out his day looking neat and starched. To build a house! He always had a tiny notepad and a carpenter pencil in his shirt pocket. I remember looking inside that notebook once and it had pages of numbers. Now, I realize that those numbers helped to build a house. In the 1940's and early 1950's there were no pre-made trusses. After the basement or crawl space was finished, a builder would rough out the walls and build the trusses one board at a time. It had a very skeletal look at this point. Electrical work, wall building, roofing and insulation and finally the inside walls completed that part of the job. Cupboards and build-ins were ...

The love of theater and being on stage has been part of my family for generations.  Although I would love to show a connection to notables such at Richard Brinsley Sheridan or John T Prince...alas...it is not to be. Yet. But our family has had our share of local actors and actresses.  Let's begin with William Fay Bywater.  Uncle Fay did perform at least once that I know of. He was one of 14 thespians who put on a play ca1935 at the Middleton High School in Middleton, Michigan, the next town over from Perrinton. Fay was born April 1, 1917, in Sears, Michigan. He was the son of William and Sadie (Johnson) Bywater. He would have been about age 17 in this picture. (marked with an X) Middleton High School ca1935 Possibly performance of A Christmas Carol W Fay Bywater - X Uncle Fay's granddaughter, Jessica (Graves) Ripley. Jessica was a budding actress and enjoyed performing in theater all through school. She continued on throughout college and even performed at the Kennedy Cen...

My 5x great-grandfather, Amos Yaw, held firmly to his belief that he should be free to spend his life as he saw fit, without others dictating how he ought to live. He was proud to defend those convictions. Amos was born in Marblehead, Mass and baptized there 17 Nov 1733. He had moved with his parents David and Jean Yaw, and his siblings to Scituate, Rhode Island by 1735. By 1758 he had married Mary Franklin. Before 1777 they and their children had moved to what is known today as Guilford, Windham County, Vermont.  He and his family lived a good life in what was also called the New Hampshire Grants and later as the Vermont Republic. Amos and his elder sons (Moses and Amos, Jr) were involved with the Yorker-Vermonter Controversary and were on the side of those who favored New York’s claim over the Vermont area. They were against new taxes and new State directives.   His resistance to Vermont's authority over the region was part of the broader conflict between Vermont a...

Uriah Bliss was the son of Jacob and Bethiah (Brown) Bliss, Jr. He was number seven in birth order of 11 children and one of seven that lived to adulthood. He was born 4 May 1803 in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. When he was a young boy his parents and his siblings traveled from Massachusetts to Huron County, Ohio. The trip would have been by wagon and taken 4-6 weeks over rugged terrain only to arrive in an area full of dense forests that would have to be cleared, and a log home built. The Bliss family settled in the Firelands of Ohio. The Firelands make up over 500,000 acres of land in northernmost Ohio and was land given by the government to those who had been burned out by the British during the Revolutionary War. March 10, 1836, Uriah married Sarah Inscho in Greenfield, Huron County, Ohio. After the birth of their children: Pardon, Miles, Asa, Uriah, Jr, Caroline, Lucinda, Charles and Sarah the family pulled up roots and headed to Jefferson County, Kansas around 1854. They left behind t...

I spend a lot of time researching my side of the family and although I have researched and proven my mother's line to John Howland of the Mayflower and my father's Dillingham line back to Thomas Dillingham, the 9th great grandfather of the future King of England, via Lady Diana Spencer....this time I am focusing on my husband's maternal line of Stewart. Dan's Stewart line goes all the way back to Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots and beyond. Yes, that one. The one who was beheaded. The Stewarts of Lorne were descended from a son of John Stewart the last Lord of Lorne. From this family sprang the Stewarts of Appin who with Althole branches were considered in the Highlands as forming the clan, Stewart. The badge of the Stewarts was the Oak. The reason the first of the race was called Stewart or Stuart was because the aforementioned John was Lord High Stuart of Scotland to King Robert the Bruce.  Mary, Queen of Scots Robert Stewart the ancestor of the line here was born in Appi...

When Michael Sheridan arrived in America from Ireland in 1826, he settled in Rochester, Monroe County, New York where he plied his trade of blacksmithing. The nearest Catholic parish was St. Patrick's Church in Rochester, and it had been built in 1823, but by 1831 it was replaced by a second church on the same site, twice the size of the first. Michael probably would have been involved in helping to build the second church. In 1830 Michael was still in Rochester, Ward 5, Monroe County, New York. He was indexed as Richael Sharron in the census record which made it difficult to find him. (Always use different spellings when researching and look at the actual records).  By 1840 Michael is found in Wheatland, Monroe County, New York, about 19 miles southwest of Rochester. There was not a Catholic Church built in Wheatland until 1870.  In 1841, a meeting was held with the Catholic families of Wm. Tone, James W Early, Michael McDonald, Michael Sheridan , Patrick Rafferty, John O'Con...

A 'cousin' is a child of a parent's sibling. Some of us have only a few and some of us have many.  I was lucky enough to grow up knowing my first cousin's and even second cousins. My mom was the youngest of five living siblings out of nine. Michael, Rexford, Agnes, Alice and Lorraine. Between all of them, I was one of 15 total first cousins. Growing up, we met every year for Grandma's birthday and again during the summer for the Sheridan Reunion. And that didn't include weddings, funerals, other family events or taking a drive 'down home'.                                                                                                                  1958 My mom and her siblings were part of a total of...