52 Ancestors - Week 8 - Heirlooms

 52 Ancestors - WEEK 8 - Heirlooms

By Cynthia Keefer Patton

My family does not have a lot of heirlooms. Not physical ones. Very little saved to pass down through the generations. Probably because my grandparents all lived in Pennsylvania, and we lived in Georgia and only got to visit at most once a year throughout my childhood. Other cousins lived close and had much more intimate relationships with them. So likely, they received more items that were "passed down". And that is OK. I am so relentless in my genealogical pursuits to learn more about them, to connect to them, to honor them. So, I will be creating digital heirlooms that others related to us can share.

The precious few I have, a small English tea set (I hope came over with a maternal line on their way to the New World), a wicker sewing cabinet that was my great-grandmothers from Wales, and some handwritten recipe cards from my sweet Mother. But in my heart are a million heirloom memories, that the smell of something baking or the sound of birds in early spring will bring back in an instance. Heirlooms.

52 Ancestors - Week 7 - Immigration

WEEK 7 – Immigration

By Cynthia Keefer Patton

Ever wonder if your ancestors immigrated through Ellis Island? Did any of them come over on the Mayflower? These are probably the original questions that get people started in the hobby of genealogy. You remember the old conversations with aunts and grandparents.

“We are from Germany. My people were Scotch-Irish.”

But where were my ancestors from and when did they immigrate?

IRELAND – I have several families that immigrated from Ireland, mostly Northern Ireland, as early as 1740. They were John Cathcart (Kithcart) from Balleymoney in Antrim; Sarah White from Ulster; William Andrews from Portglenome; and Robert McNitt from Laggan in Ulster.

ENGLAND – From here came William H. P. Mitchell native of Devonshire; Jane Anne Pellow from Cornwall; George Dicks from Wiltshire; Alexander Thomas from Cornwall, Wales; and Emma Priddy from Blaenavon, Monmouthshire, Wales.

GERMANY – From this region I have Francis Echard born in Otterberg, Bayern; Johan George Hoffheintz of Rittershausen; and my maiden name ancestor Johan Henry Keefer from Baden.

I have yet to really explore and verify all these places of origin, and will start later this fall in Ireland setting out to visit my ancestral homelands. After that, on to England, Wales, and Germany. I am sure this will help me understand more about how they lived, where they lived, and how much their lives changed after they made the journey to America.