We're in the last stages of the publishing process for the Northern Bard Publications editions of all three of the books (so far) in The Tiger Series - and will be offering a special "if you buy all three you save [an undecided amount]". I'd like to see it be along the lines of "third one free", but the finance director would like to see more money come in toward expenses and our cover artist is working on the next projects....talking to me excitely about cover ideas when we haven't decided which book is up next.....
I'm still reeling from the fact that our first "Northern Bard Publication" was just last year - this month in fact - and we've already managed to re-edit, re-cover, and re-release two more books already.
I wonder if my compadres at Northern Bard will get upset if I start calling them both slave drivers....
In the meantime, while waiting for my daughter to see a lawyer about a divorce, I had an "aha" moment in the special room for Maine genealogical research in the city. There was a statement written out by a lawyer from Somerville, Maine that another researcher had spoken of that mentioned my great-grandfather's name. (I've been trying to find my great-grandfather's parents for 35 years, but a lot of records were destroyed by fires before there was a central place for them to be kept....) I had read it once, but didn't fully recall the entire piece, so I looked it up again, as the first time, I was answering a question from the other researcher as to whether I might have information about this woman, as she and her husband had spent six weeks with the James and Susan I was seeking information on....
The second reading proved I had overlooked a few important things that coincided with what I was seeing in census reports.
As Kurt Vonnegut says "Listen"
The only time I see James and Susan together in census reports is in 1870 in Albion, Maine. Per that record (as well as in the family bible recording such things), they were wed in April of that year, and he is listed as 19/her as 17. (Census reports used to be done when someone showed up at your house and started asking questions. A lot of times, in my experience, incorrect ages were given, but when my own father had to carry our birthdays in his wallet and do the math when asked ages.......)
Earlier this week, deciding to try to find more about the mysterious Mary Dow Evans who spent time with James and Susan in Albion for the six weeks prior to the birth of their second child (one of those things that I keep thinking would be more of a "family" type thing to do rather than a :"kind neighbor to Susan's parents" type thing), I started looking at the census reports for Palermo. Elisha and Mary are right next to Susan's parents in 1870. Mary, whose husband is listed by the other researcher as having died in October 1880, is listed as alone in the June census of Palermo - right next door to the now widowed Susan Dow and her three children. Susan's parents, James and Fannie, live on the other side of her.
An earlier foray into the census reports on a hunch, as several family members insist that James Parker Dow was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts and was adopted had been done. There is a city in Maine, incorporated in 1851 as Chelsea, as well - and there is a small family in the 1860 census that has a father, William, mother, Mary, a married daughter, Eliza, her husba -nd, and two children under the age of 5. Going back to the 1850 census, there are William, Mary, Eliza - and an older son named Llewellyn (my father's middle name, which we never figured out where it came from, since his mother named all her children after related people). In 1860, William was listed as 70 and Mary as 54. In the 1870 census, Mary is listed as 65. In 1880, she is listed as 75.
I suspect that I have my great-great-grandmother in my sights at the moment, so I decided to re-read the paper that the other researcher recommended....
And I heard the theme from The Twilight Zone as I read through the entire paper the second time.....
Written April 10, 1878, (and from the sound of the piece, to explain that Elisha and Mary hadn't abandoned their farm in Palermo, but had spent some time elsewhere), A. B. Bowler notes that, after marrying in 1864, Mary and Elisha moved to Palermo in 1867 - and into a farm right next door to James and Fannie Belden, per the 1870 census, which, in my mind, gives James, who would have been about 16 at the time of the move, three years to fall in love with his neighbor, Susan, and properly court her. They note that they moved some of their things to Albion for "temporary purposes" in the spring of 1873, returning to Palermo on June 10 (my grandfather's brother was born on June 14) after "five weeks and six days" in the home of Susan and James Dow (whom it is noted in this piece was "now deceased", as family records show James passed away in February of 1876). They moved back into their house in Palermo and had been there for almost two years at the time of the disposition by the lawyer, which was listed as having been marked by an "x" from both Mary and Elisha, neither of whom, it seems, could read or write.
Going back into Ancestry.com when I arrive home, I look back at Llewellyn Dow, whom a couple of relatives are trying to claim couldn't possibly be related because he was in northern Maine and the rest of the family I'm investigating live close to Augusta in the southern part of the state. Once again, the theme from The Twilight Zone again begins to play when I find Llewellyn's death certificate, listing his father as William Dow, no mother listed at all (perhaps one of the "family feuds" that make it impossible for me to share such information without hiding everyone's emails, as there are certain family members who don't speak to other certain family members?) - and his "place of birth is" (drum roll please): Somerville, Maine.
My little inner Sherlock Holmes is jumping for joy, as all of these little "connections" are making me feel that, after all this time, I've found the right leads to try to locate my great-grandfather's line.
Now I just have to have a couple of days to travel to places like Enfield, Maine, whose records on this era appear not to have been shared with Ancestry.com and also don't appear in the Portland Room (where the Maine records for the area), so I have to go to the source - the town office, local library, or perhaps even the cemetery - to get the confirmations on William, Eliza and the two children who seem to have died there.
Hopefully, Enfield didn't have a fire that destroyed their records.
I'm still reeling from the fact that our first "Northern Bard Publication" was just last year - this month in fact - and we've already managed to re-edit, re-cover, and re-release two more books already.
I wonder if my compadres at Northern Bard will get upset if I start calling them both slave drivers....
In the meantime, while waiting for my daughter to see a lawyer about a divorce, I had an "aha" moment in the special room for Maine genealogical research in the city. There was a statement written out by a lawyer from Somerville, Maine that another researcher had spoken of that mentioned my great-grandfather's name. (I've been trying to find my great-grandfather's parents for 35 years, but a lot of records were destroyed by fires before there was a central place for them to be kept....) I had read it once, but didn't fully recall the entire piece, so I looked it up again, as the first time, I was answering a question from the other researcher as to whether I might have information about this woman, as she and her husband had spent six weeks with the James and Susan I was seeking information on....
The second reading proved I had overlooked a few important things that coincided with what I was seeing in census reports.
As Kurt Vonnegut says "Listen"
The only time I see James and Susan together in census reports is in 1870 in Albion, Maine. Per that record (as well as in the family bible recording such things), they were wed in April of that year, and he is listed as 19/her as 17. (Census reports used to be done when someone showed up at your house and started asking questions. A lot of times, in my experience, incorrect ages were given, but when my own father had to carry our birthdays in his wallet and do the math when asked ages.......)
Earlier this week, deciding to try to find more about the mysterious Mary Dow Evans who spent time with James and Susan in Albion for the six weeks prior to the birth of their second child (one of those things that I keep thinking would be more of a "family" type thing to do rather than a :"kind neighbor to Susan's parents" type thing), I started looking at the census reports for Palermo. Elisha and Mary are right next to Susan's parents in 1870. Mary, whose husband is listed by the other researcher as having died in October 1880, is listed as alone in the June census of Palermo - right next door to the now widowed Susan Dow and her three children. Susan's parents, James and Fannie, live on the other side of her.
An earlier foray into the census reports on a hunch, as several family members insist that James Parker Dow was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts and was adopted had been done. There is a city in Maine, incorporated in 1851 as Chelsea, as well - and there is a small family in the 1860 census that has a father, William, mother, Mary, a married daughter, Eliza, her husba -nd, and two children under the age of 5. Going back to the 1850 census, there are William, Mary, Eliza - and an older son named Llewellyn (my father's middle name, which we never figured out where it came from, since his mother named all her children after related people). In 1860, William was listed as 70 and Mary as 54. In the 1870 census, Mary is listed as 65. In 1880, she is listed as 75.
I suspect that I have my great-great-grandmother in my sights at the moment, so I decided to re-read the paper that the other researcher recommended....
And I heard the theme from The Twilight Zone as I read through the entire paper the second time.....
Written April 10, 1878, (and from the sound of the piece, to explain that Elisha and Mary hadn't abandoned their farm in Palermo, but had spent some time elsewhere), A. B. Bowler notes that, after marrying in 1864, Mary and Elisha moved to Palermo in 1867 - and into a farm right next door to James and Fannie Belden, per the 1870 census, which, in my mind, gives James, who would have been about 16 at the time of the move, three years to fall in love with his neighbor, Susan, and properly court her. They note that they moved some of their things to Albion for "temporary purposes" in the spring of 1873, returning to Palermo on June 10 (my grandfather's brother was born on June 14) after "five weeks and six days" in the home of Susan and James Dow (whom it is noted in this piece was "now deceased", as family records show James passed away in February of 1876). They moved back into their house in Palermo and had been there for almost two years at the time of the disposition by the lawyer, which was listed as having been marked by an "x" from both Mary and Elisha, neither of whom, it seems, could read or write.
Going back into Ancestry.com when I arrive home, I look back at Llewellyn Dow, whom a couple of relatives are trying to claim couldn't possibly be related because he was in northern Maine and the rest of the family I'm investigating live close to Augusta in the southern part of the state. Once again, the theme from The Twilight Zone again begins to play when I find Llewellyn's death certificate, listing his father as William Dow, no mother listed at all (perhaps one of the "family feuds" that make it impossible for me to share such information without hiding everyone's emails, as there are certain family members who don't speak to other certain family members?) - and his "place of birth is" (drum roll please): Somerville, Maine.
My little inner Sherlock Holmes is jumping for joy, as all of these little "connections" are making me feel that, after all this time, I've found the right leads to try to locate my great-grandfather's line.
Now I just have to have a couple of days to travel to places like Enfield, Maine, whose records on this era appear not to have been shared with Ancestry.com and also don't appear in the Portland Room (where the Maine records for the area), so I have to go to the source - the town office, local library, or perhaps even the cemetery - to get the confirmations on William, Eliza and the two children who seem to have died there.
Hopefully, Enfield didn't have a fire that destroyed their records.
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