Looking for Lawrence

A visitor to my website at Frothingham.us recently asked if I am related to Lawrence P Frothingham from New Canaan, Connecticut, circa 1909. His family has something they would like to return to a family member. The other person mentioned was H. D. Montgomery. If you have any information about Lawrence, H. D. or their descendants, please let me know. The item is not valuable, but might mean something to a family member.

Family History Center Visit

A few weeks ago, I visited one of the Family History Centers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I am not a member of the church, but I was welcomed to the center and enjoyed the resources for family research that they offer. While I was there, I was able to order a microfilm of the Vital Records for my hometown in Massachusetts. The film came in this week, and I spent this morning at the center viewing it. Two hours passed in a flash, and I had to put the film away for another day. I was fascinated by the names. Most of the families I remember from my grade school days were represented in the mid 1800's. Births, marriages, deaths marked the passage of time, but the names were still familiar. I hated to part with the film, but the center was closing for the day, and won't reopen until fall. They are going to keep the film until then, instead of sending it back to Salt Lake City. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

For anyone interested in checking out the Family History Center nearest to you, here's the link:

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp

Meanwhile, I updated the information I have, and posted it on my website at Frothingham.us Mostly, I added sources for some of my assumptions, but there are a few new people.

Happy Patriots Day

With Patriots Day coming up this weekend for residents of Massachusetts and Maine, I thought about the wonderful time we had in Massachusetts last spring. A group of us spent the day at Minuteman National Historical Park in Lexington and Concord. Although I didn't find any Frothingham graves, we all enjoyed walking through the cemetery in Concord, and visiting the site of the first battle of the American Revolution.

During our trip, Dale and I also visited the Massachusetts Archives. We were able to find several birth and death records to help me verify some of my guesses. I highly recommend a visit if you are looking for records of your Massachusetts ancestors. Later in the trip, we spent a few hours at the NH Vital Records in Concord, NH. The building was brand new, and they were still organizing the boxes of records. We were able to photocopy the actual records of many of my Spalding/Spaulding ancestors. It didn't clear up the question of which spelling is correct however.

WW1 Draft Card Image

 

Ancestry.com has images of the WW1 Draft cards available on its site. They provide a lot of useful information, and as a bonus, a sample of your ancestors handwriting. This image is of my great-uncle's draft card.

Huntington and Wolcott

Whenever I do research on the Frothingham family, Wolcott and Huntington keep appearing, either as marriages or as first and middle names. I decided to research that line today, and found a former Governor of Massachusetts in the family. Roger Wolcott, Governor from 1897-1899, was a descendant of William and Anna Frothingham. He was born in 1847, the son of Joshua Huntington Wolcott and Cornelia Frothingham, (Samuel, Nathaniel, Nathaniel, Nathaniel, Nathaniel, Nathaniel, William).

Don't forget the Siblings

If you haven't seen the guest book at Frothingham.us, you might want to check it out. Over the last few months I have had quite a few readers post comments. I've spent a lot of time following the leads and it's awakened my need to do some research. Over the last six months I've been preoccupied with remodeling our kitchen and planning this years vacation. When I've had the time, I've done some indexing for FamilySearch.org, but otherwise, I've let the genealogy take a backseat.
Today, the guest book entry asked about Olga Mifflin Frothingham. The question reinforced to me how important it is to follow siblings when doing research. In this case, I only know about Olga from reading her sister Ann's obituary. Ann's obituary linked Olga to the family, and also gave Olga's married name and the year of her death.
Another instance of following the siblings lead me to find the baptismal records of my husbands great grandmother in Canada. I had been at a dead end trying to find Emma Ouellette's parents. I knew that she was born in Canada, but little else. I remembered hearing her daughter Irene mention her Aunt Mary Langlois. By researching Mary, I found her birthplace of L'Islet, Quebec, where I was able to find the church records of her whole family, including Emma.
You may also want to check out the photo galleries at Frothingham.us. Since my last post I've added more pictures, and a few historical documents to the heritage photo album.
That's all for now. I'll try to update again sooner this time.

New Research sites

I've been away from this blog for a while. I discovered Ancestry.ca and spent most of March researching the Patenaude, Gaudette and Guilmain lines. The images are not indexed, and they are in French, so it was quite a challenge. I was able to find an enormous amount of information which I am in the process of adding to my family tree. I expect to post the update in late June or early July. I'm planning a visit to the Massachusetts Archives in the near future, so I'm holding off my update until I get back.

In April, I began spending a great deal of time volunteering for FamilySearch.com. They are in the process of digitizing all of their microfilm, and need help indexing the images to make them searchable. It makes me feel good to be able to give back to the genealogy community a little. If you want to help, sign on to http://www.familysearchindexing.org/en/index.jsp and download the software. It's free and easy. You can do as little or as much as you want. So far I've indexed almost 1200 names from US census records.