JEALOUS

I assume a bad day in Maui beats a good day in most other places. This assumption is so strong that I very much envy you, shrift. Clearly the best thing you can do, therefore is have the bestest of best times so as to make it worthy of the envy.

Hil, if you are not tired of genealogy questions, one of the big puzzles I am trying to sort is Daniel's paternal lineage. His grandfather is listed as a Fred Christ Jensen. The record on Ancestry.com says he was born in Germany in 1858. Daniel says he was actually born in Denmark and the name should be Friedrich (or some variant thereof) Christian Jensen. His father is listed as Christ Jensen, but it should be Christian Friedrich Jensen. According to Daniel there is a long line of alternating Christian Friedrich and Friedrich Christian father to son back about seven generations to the original Jens, who was Jens Tomsen or some such. My searches have gotten a couple of Christian Friedrichs in a row, so I am not at all sure any of them. Daniel cannot recall any specific place names, but says he would probably recognize it.

if you know what to look for

Well, there's the thing. Unless for some strange reason he acknowledged his get on property, there's no way to tell owned from fathered. If he'd married a black woman, we'd know. We'd all know. Did Samuel own any Samuels? That's how the Moulton name got to us.

You'd think the odds of two apparently unrelated John Stevens sailing to the Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1636 and 1639 would be small. My John Stevens is not the one who arrived on the ship Confidence in 1638. Mine is the one that there is much less information about.

He and two more of my ancestors, his son-in-law and grandson, were among the residents of Salisbury who signed a petition attesting to the godliness of Mary Bradbury, who was nevertheless convicted of witchcraft [link] She was sentenced to death, but jailers apparently looked the other way as her family broke her out of jail. What I learned recently was that Ray Bradbury was one of her descendents.

Wow, that's a great detail for time-travel shenanigans.

Well, there's the thing. Unless for some strange reason he acknowledged his get on property, there's no way to tell owned from fathered. If he'd married a black woman, we'd know. We'd all know. Did Samuel own any Samuels? That's how the Moulton name got to us.

It looks like there were a few people named Sam or Samuel owned by someone named Samuel Barrett, but I'm not sure if all the Samuel Barretts are the same person. Sometimes it's Samuel Wisdom Barrett.

WindSparrow, I don't think I'd be able to find much just based on those names. The names are too common, so you'd need more information to figure out which was the right one.

Hil, if I could trouble you for one more detail, did Malcolm Cornforth have any siblings?

I just spent half an hour looking at pictures of Thirsk. What a great place. I want to go there.

I should ask my grandmother for a copy of her digital genealogy files. She would probably be thrilled by that.

I'm picturing pre-revolutionary Russia with a bunch of tanning salons now.

I can just see a bunch of outdoor glass Snow White-style coffins to act as magnifying glasses to the sun's rays.

Hil, if I could trouble you for one more detail, did Malcolm Cornforth have any siblings?

Hilda, born 1924. John, 1926.