The Dearborns in England

While I was in New England last month, I was able to visit with the reference librarian at NEHGS who is a descendant from the Dearborn family which is one of my New England lines. Since this was one of the lines that I had chosen to work on while I was there, I asked him about the line we shared. I was able to give him some information on some of the more recent descent from Betsey Dearborn, daughter of Deacon Nathan Dearborn and he was able to provide me with some information on the immigrant Godfrey Dearborn’s father who had been previously unknown to me.

Today I began entering the information that I received from him in my database and noting as tasks the original records that I needed to make sure that I got that pertained to these. I printed off the information on each roll of microfilm which needs to be borrowed via a Local Family History Center. I also explored some of the information about the locations in which they lived.

First of all, let me state that many published genealogies say that Godfrey Dearborn was probably born in Exeter, Devon, England. Since he was baptized in Willoughby, Lincolnshire, that location seems unlikely. Godfrey’s father William was born in Lincolnshire. I don’t have a definite location for his birth at this point. David Dearborn says that William was married at St. Peter’s Church in Markby. One of the things that really caught my attention was a note by Dearborn that said that this was now the only thatched church in the county. I decided to do some investigation and located some photos online. In the article it states that the “parish was in the Alford sub-district of the Spilsby Registration District.” I found this interesting because while researching Willoughby, I had discovered that Anne Hutchinson was born in Alford. A well-documented history of the priory of Markby can be found at the British History Online site. There is also a brief history of the parish at the Alford Group of Churches web site which is as close to an “official” site for the church you can find.

I located all of the locations on an 1885 map of Northern Lincolnshire, an excerpt of which can be seen below with red stars showing locations of importance to the Dearebarne family. (The usual spelling of the surname in England is either Dearebarne or Dearbarne. The spelling Dearborn was adopted after coming to America.)

Willoughby is the location where Godfrey and all his brothers were baptized. Perhaps the most famous person to come from this village was Capt. John Smith. It’s interesting that Smith and Godfrey Dearborn ended up in such different locations in the Americas, having come from the same town; however, more than 30 years separated their trips. Willoughby lies just 3 miles south of Alford. Several of Godfrey’s children were baptized in Hannah, a town near Markby and Alford. (St. Andrew church in Hannah was built in 1753. He would have worshipped in an earlier building.)

Anne Hutchinson, of course, had been banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony before the first evidence of Godfrey’s presence in the United States where we find that he signed the “Exeter Combination,” which was signed on the 4th of July 1639. (You’ll note on the scan of the document that it was the 5th month. Back then the calendar started with March.) (For more information on the town of Exeter, see Edward Chase’s history of Exeter.) We do know that Godfrey was a follower of Rev. John Wheelwright, brother-in-law of Anne Hutchinson, who founded the town of Exeter. Wheelwright was also for Alford. (Here is a nice summary of the antinomian controversy which was kindled by Anne’s teachings.) I find it interesting that Anne went to Rhode Island but that her brother-in-law ended up in New Hampshire. I plan to further research why they headed in opposite directions and how Wheelwright’s beliefs influenced the settlers in Southern New Hampshire. Wheelwright and many of his followers ended up settling Wells, Maine. Godfrey apparently received a land grant there but never settled there. What made him change his mind?

Godfrey moved to Hampton, New Hampshire about 10 years later. It is my understanding that his home which was located at 73 Exeter Road (Route 27) is still standing and may be the oldest frame house in the state. I’d love to have a recent photo of this home. There are old ones here. I probably saw the house on my trip to Hampton as I was on Route 27, but I did not know about this home at that time. (Of course, this gives me another excuse for another New England trip!)

Block Island

My Rathbone family was one of the early settlers of this island off the coast of Rhode Island. It's been on my "to visit" list for some time. I was thrilled to find a great article about places to go, things to do, etc. at Boston.com.

New Ways to Serve Bacon

Earlier today I noticed a rather unusual way to serve bacon on Amazon's Al Dente Blog. However, I somehow overlooked the earlier way to serve it on the same blog's feed as I was reading posts until Glenn pointed it out. I honestly don't know if I want to try either of these although I generally enjoy the main ingredients when served by themselves.

Picnics

I really don't remember a lot of picnics except for those when we used to stop at the roadside parks on the way to a vacation destination. (Our vacations almost always involved camping rather than hotels/motels.) Mom would pack things in the picnic basket and the ice chest. I remember things like vienna sausage and potted meat served with crackers. I'm sure we must have had other things sometimes, but that's what sticks out in my mind. I can't say that either of those things are (or ever have been) favorite foods. Of course, the old timey family reunions were essentially huge picnics. I barely remember anything about the old ones when the Thorntons gathered at the "old home place" but I do have a couple of photos. As you can see, there was a big spread, but you'd expect that in a family with 12 children who had children and grandchildren in attendance. (There may have even been a great-grandchild or two there by the time these color photos were taken.) Even though picnics weren't a big part of my life, I don't have a negative view of them. The outdoor setting made them special. One of our favorite roadside parks was in Arkansas right beside a stream. It was somewhere between Hot Springs and Mena. We would stop there on our way to a family camp in Oklahoma which was a cheap family vacation.


This post was written for the Geneabloggers Picnic.

Military History Book Challenge

"Jmnlman" over at Strategist's Personal Library has issued a challenge for folks to read 3 books on military history between now and Veteran's Day (or should that be Armistice Day, which it was called when I was a little girl). Reading some military history books is one of those things that I keep putting on the back burner but that I know I really need to do to fully understand my ancestors' involvement in the various wars or to understand the times in which they lived. I will link the reviews of the three books to this post as I complete them. I think there are other genea-bloggers out there who may also be interested in signing up for this challenge!

BOOKS READ:

Hickey, Donald R. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict. 1st paperback ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.

Tuesday Thingers - July 29, 2008

Today's question is about LibraryThing cataloging sources.

Today's question: Cataloging sources. What cataloging sources do you use most? Any particular reason? Any idiosyncratic choices, or foreign sources, or sources you like better than others? Are you able to find most things through LT's almost 700 sources?

I use Amazon for most of the mass-market fiction because academic libraries just don't have it. For other things, I tend to use Library of Congress, Ohiolink, ILCSO (Illinois libraries), and ACCESS Pennsylvania most. I have a lot of New England things and will often check New England Library Consortium for them first. I have a lot of East Tennessee items and will check Knox County (Tennessee) Public Library for those. I once had something published in Ireland and was able to find a library over there. I have had to enter a few by hand, but sometimes I'm just too lazy to keep adding libraries to check them. I know that a few things like genealogy conference syllabi and family histories that are "non-published" are just not going to be there so I tend to add those manually. I technically have over 200 manual entries, but most of them fall into the categories above. I also find myself entering far less by hand now than I did a year ago.

What's on Your Nightstand?

I saw this on In the Pages. The original challenge is at 5 Minutes for Books.

Here's my list:

Holy Bible. New King James Version.

Greek New Testament. (Kurt Aland/United Bible Society). 1975 ed.

Beth Moore. The Beloved Disciple.

Fiona Mountain. Bloodline.

Tim Russert. Big Russ and Me.

Something old . . . something new . . . something yummy!

I think I gained a reputation for food blogging last month on my Boston trip. I hate to disappoint you all by omitting a photograph but I failed to take one earlier in the day as I was consuming this decadent treat!

One of the highlights of summer for Southerners has got to be blackberry cobbler. There's just nothing better than a dish of it with some ice cream on top when blackberries are in season. I didn't have the "old" traditional version of this treat, but I did have something new.

Last week the grocery store was running a special on Blue Bell ice cream. Now Blue Bell's homemade vanilla is one of my favorites because it tastes just like home-churned ice cream. When they run the ice cream on sale, I usually get a tub of the homemade vanilla and one of the Pecan Pralines 'n Cream. This time I decided I already had a tub of the homemade vanilla in my freezer and opted to get two flavors simply because I spotted "Southern Blackberry Cobbler" in the case. According to Blue Bell's web site, it is a rotating flavor so I'm glad I decided to get it this month because it may not be around next one. It had the flavor of the berries cooked down and the pie crust as well as the wonderful "homemade vanilla" taste of the ice cream. There are only a couple more days this month so I advise everyone to run out and buy a tub before they take it out of the dairy case (or it sells out)! If you live outside of the states Blue Bell is sold (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas), you need to demand that they start selling in your state. It's that good!

Non-Fiction Five Challenge: Book 5

Andros, Howard S. Buildings and Landmarks of Old Boston: A Guide to the Colonial, Provincial, Federal, and Greek Revival Periods, 1630-1850. Hanover: University Press of New England, 2001.

This is my final book in the non-fiction five challenge. You will find a complete list of my books read on my April 26 post announcing my participation.

4.5 stars. This is a nice introduction to some of the historic buildings and sites around Boston. A person walking around Boston will see many more architecturally interesting buildings from these periods and beyond about which he wishes to know more facts, but this guide does a pretty good job of covering the major ones and even offers maps showing their locations. There are several items in the bibliography that I would like to read as well!

Squirrel Hunting Can Be a Dangerous Thing

I was checking out the FBI files and other things over at Footnote.com tonight and decided to search for my Lantz surname which is a less common surname after looking for another one that was more common. (Neither family appeared to be of interest to the FBI, but I did decided to do a global search for the less common name.) What I discovered made me call my mom and tell her that she never told me that Harry went squirrel hunting. (Harry was Mom's first cousin or my first cousin once removed.) Mom's immediate response was that he got shot squirrel hunting, so I knew that she knew the account that I'd just discovered in the 25 October 1930 edition of the Woodville Republican. When I saw that article, I knew that there couldn't be that many Harry Lantzes living in Scooba, Mississippi at the time so I knew it was "our Harry." It seems that Harry was out hunting squirrels and one of them got stuck in a tree so he went up after it. Another hunter who didn't know Harry was up in the tree saw some movement up in the tree so he shot. Nothing came down so he gave up and moved along. Later someone else came along and heard Harry's moans. He was able to rescue him.

According to Mom, that bullet is what eventually caused Harry's death. You see, they never removed the bullet, and it eventually made its way to his heart thirty-four years after the incident.

Irish Literature: The Silence in the Garden by William Trevor

When the topic for this edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture which is hosted at Small-Leaved Shamrock was announced, I knew it (summer reading) was something I could do if I could get my other reading commitments completed in time to read one for this one! (Since I've not uncovered any Irish roots of my own, I'm frequently unable to participate in this particular carnival.) I browsed the Irish fiction section at our library and located one very short one in case I was really time-strapped and one that was a little longer but still manageable with the short time frame that I knew I'd be facing for reading it. I ended up reading that one that interested me more.

Trevor, William. The Silence in the Garden. New York: Penguin, 1990.

On the cover of the paperback, there is a notice that this novel was the recipient of the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year award. I'm not really sure how I want to approach this novel for the "review" as I'm not sure that I want to do a "real" review. I think I want to tell you what drew me to the book in the first place. The back cover promised a family secret, a death, and a diary. Now we all know that those are the things that genealogists really crave. As I began to read the book, I discovered that the family resided on an island in County Cork where the access to the mainland was, at first, by ferry only. The big news was that they would be building a bridge, but it would make the walk longer for the illegitimate son of one of the servants of the household to attend the convent school. That bridge is opened in the course of the book even though the family really doesn't like its location or its name. (I'll make you read the novel to find out why they didn't like the name.) The central female character is Sarah, a distant relation who becomes governess. It is her diary that is read upon her death, revealing the family secrets.

It is a 20th century setting. It spans from the turn of the century to 1971 when Sarah dies. One of the things that can be seen in the book is the Protestant vs. Catholic conflict that existed. The author also mentions the problems the family faced when the potato blight hit the country.

Genealogy is an often-mentioned theme in the book. One of the characters is a solicitor named Finnamore Balt who marries into the family. In a passage dealing with him, the author writes:

The law it was that allowed him his knowledge of the neighbourhood he lived in, and its people: family histories and family origins filled the mahogany filing-cabinets, filled drawers and desks and forgotten deed boxes. (p. 40)

The author then goes on to describe some of the things that could be found that tell the family's story and gives some examples of liaisons between the book's central family and other families of the area. As Finnamore had been practicing law for forty years, he had no problem reading and understanding the "legalese" in the documents in his possession. I'd like to think that there will come a day when I'll consult Black's Law Dictionary less often than I do now. However, I know that I don't consult it as much as I once did so I guess I'm making progress. I know when I've come across an unusual clause now and focus my attention on comprehending how that clause makes it different from other documents.

On page 41 is a phrase that I think describes most of our genealogical blogs and the genealogical carnivals pretty well: Random fruit from an orchid of genealogical trees. I just really liked that line and wanted to share it!

Later in the book there is another mention of the genealogical research at the law office:

There were other people also, the remnants of old families whose genealogy was recorded in the mahogany filing-cabinets of Harbinson and Balt, the children of families that had more lately reached a social height not previously attained. (p. 139)

I just find it interesting that the author continues to emphasize this point. I'm sure that some of the research was conducted upon the death of various persons in the family, but I wonder how much was contributed by the families themselves. I do know that there was one thing revealed in the diary that would have changed some of what was there if it had not been well-researched.

It's an interesting well-written novel. It's also one that I'm sure that I will need to go back and reread now that I know the outcome so that I can fully appreciate its depth.

Reading Roundup - July 24

First Baptist Church in Lithia, Georgia is blogging its history.

We've all heard about the Northern Lights. It seems NASA has some new information on them.

Terry has been blogging about all kinds of things that he is calling edible but that turn my stomach. If you want some good food blogging, I'll let you revisit my May 31 and early June posts. (By the way, I didn't eat the tomalley of that lobster, Tim. I know some people really like it, but I was warned against eating it the first time I ate lobster in 2006 so I decided that I would pass again. I actually did think about trying it, but it really looks like some of that other yucky stuff Terry has been blogging about.) If you don't want those, Nicole at Baking Bites always has a feast for the eyes. If you've priced Nilla Wafers lately, you might want to try her homemade version. She also blogged about the hamburger bun pan that I ordered for my mom. Let me just say that a person who gets a bun from these pans (made by someone who knows how to make a good dough) is a lucky person. By the way, if you read the comments on the post, you'll find a link to a good recipe. If you are more into fruit, New Hampshire photo tour has a tasty offering. I also found some new foods for Terry to try.

If you didn't catch Leland's post about the CNN special about how a query reunited a family, make sure you check it out so you can watch it Saturday night! I just hope that I will remember to watch it after my busy day on Saturday.

Thanks to the Genealogue, I now know why my Hester ancestors weren't in certain censuses. He's a superhero! I know reasons 8 fits completely. The contributing cause in 9 fits the "son" from which I'm descended who is also missing when his father was in reason #8. And to think I thought it was because they lived in "Lost Corner."

FootnoteMaven has outdone herself with her answer to Terry's question about creative non-fiction. We're all lining up to read the rest of the story!

I have been amazed at how dedicated Lisa at Gen365 is to accomplishing a genealogical task. Today I went to K-Mart and stocked up on 70-count spiral notebooks and 3-prong/2 pocket folders while they are on sale for 9 cents apiece. I also picked up several glue sticks (that are acid free) in two-packs at the price of 5/$1. Can I count that as my genealogical task for the day? I'm far too tired right now because I've been cataloging books at the church library all week. I'm not being quite as meticulous as I am when I do it at my real job since this is a retrospective conversion project in essence. We're just now automating the collection. I was at 469 last Saturday. I'm now at 1267. I estimate I have another 250-300 books to go. I should finish early next week. (I have to print barcodes and labels tomorrow so that the volunteers will be able to work on processing on Saturday. Then I'm going to do a few books and call it an early weekend!) Let's just say that I'm tired! I will resume genealogical research after I get this project completed!

Review: Savannah Breeze

Andrews, Mary Kay. Savannah Breeze. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.

Bebe Loudermilk loses all her possessions with the exception of a motel she didn't even know she owned when her new boyfriend Reddy skips town with everything. Since the police won't do anything about it, Bebe and friends set out to take justice into their own hands. I found this plot and the characters to be unbelievable, although somewhat enjoyable. I felt that the author could have accomplished her goals in fewer pages and that the book was unnecessarily long.

This is the last of my Southern Reading Challenge books! It is set in Savannah and Fort Lauderdale. The author is a Southerner as well.

A complete list of books I read for the challenge can be found near the bottom of this May 6 post.

Wordless Wednesday: Boston Public Garden

Tuesday Thingers - July 22, 2008

Today's topic: Recommendations. Do you use LT's recommendations feature? Have you found any good books by using it? Do you use the anti-recommendations, or the "special sauce" recommendations? How do you find out about books you want to read?

Yes, I look at the recommendations. Once in awhile I find something to add to my wish list. I have found the anti-recommendations to be less useful simply because I have eclectic tastes. I use a variety of methods to find out about books I want to read. Since I'm a librarian, I often look at publishers catalogs that I receive or reviews that I locate in publications. I also find things in the LibraryThing early reviewers program and its associated group (which usually contains links to the reviews as they are published). I have several book blogs in my feeds, and I am usually adding a few from those as well. I have more things in my wish list than I can possibly get around to reading in the near future, and it just keeps growing!

Book GIveaway

Marie over at Boston Bibliophile is giving away a copy of The Lace Reader by Bruconia Barry. This book has been on my wish list since it was offered as an early reviewers title on LibraryThing.

Good News for Tennesseans

Heritage Quest online is coming to TEL (Tennessee Electronic Library) around September 1. You can contact your local library for more information about accessing it as the date approaches.

Wordless Wednesday

Rev. Stephen Bachiller: Ministry and Adultery at a Ripe Old Age

By most accounts, Rev. Stephen Bachiller (spelled various ways including Bachiller, Batchellor, Batchelder, Bachiler, etc.) was born somewhere in England around 1560. (He is my 10th great grandfather.) He is said to have graduated from Oxford in 1586. He was an Anglican minister who became involved in the Puritan movement. After a brief period in Holland, he came to America after the age of seventy in 1632. He became the minister at Saugus (later Lynn), Massachusetts that same year. He was dismissed as minister in 1636, his ministry there having been embroiled in controversy. In 1638 he and others settled Winnicunnet (which became Hampton in 1639) in New Hampshire. He was the first minister. Controversy again followed him. He was accused of adultery with his neighbor's wife. He was excommunicated at first, but then the excommunication was removed; however, he was no longer allowed to serve as pastor. This didn't stop him from occasionally preaching, even after moving to Portsmouth at the age of 88. He married again in 1650. His wife had a child by a man named George Rogers. Her sentence was to receive 39 stripes and to be branded with the letter "A." (Many people believe she is the inspiration for Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.) He returned to England, accompanied by a grandson, in 1654 (about age 94). I've seen dates of death ranging from 1656 to 1661 for him. The apparent date of death is 31 October 1656. We do know that Mary attempted to divorce him on grounds of abandonment in 1656 but was unsuccessful. Stephen is also said to have married a woman after returning to England which would have been yet another adulterous act.

It amazes me that he was as vigorous as he must have been at so late an age. It further amazes me that he was able to travel across the ocean in his 90s. It is interesting that a woman of child-bearing age would marry a 90-year-old man. He's one of those interesting characters that seems more like a legend that a historical person. While I haven't attempted to go back and document his life as I really have further work on generations between what I do have proven and him, he's one of those that I'm looking forward to researching just to try to see what is true and what is false about all the published reports of his life.

For more information on this fascinating ancestor, check out Lane Public Library's pages on him.

Update (7/20): I have had an email from the author of the book on Goody Wing that Miriam mentioned in her comments. Beverly has done more research on Bachiler than I have and says that some of the information that I've acquired I will find to be erroneous when I begin researching it with primary source documents. Let me just quickly say that much of the basis for my account above came from a book entitled The Eastern Frontier. I did acknowledge that I'd found a lot of variant information in just reading the accounts of Bachiler. Beverly says that Mary Beedle who is the wife who received that brand of "A" was the fourth wife of Bachiler instead of the third and that he did not remarry when he returned to England. I know that I'm going to have lots of "conflicting information" to resolve when I do begin my primary research on this fascinating ancestor.

Some have asked through which child of his I'm descended. It is through his daughter Ann who married John Sanborn.

Reading Roundup - July 14

Tipper has some yummy looking blackberries over at the Blind Pig & The Acorn. She's going to be enjoying that jelly for months to come. I love her blog's name!

Here's the 3rd edition of Smile for the Camera. The theme was "home." Thanks fM for all your hard work in putting this together.

Tony Snow wrote a piece for Christianity Today which appeared in print about a year ago. It's called "Cancer's Unexpected Blessings" and is worth a read.

Everyone's been talking about Abraham Lincoln this week. It seems his ancestry is in question. Apparently challenges to his ancestry are nothing new, but since it's in the news, it's worth noting.

Thinking About Home

There's a Southern Gospel song that was made popular by the Talleys back in the 1980s that was called "Thinkin' About Home." The song, of course, was not talk about a home here on earth but about our heavenly home. In another song called "Going Home" we sing, "Going home, I'm going home, There is nothing to hold me here. I've caught a glimpse of that heavenly land, Praise God, I am going home." When the topic for this "Smile for the Camera" came up, there were two things that I couldn't get out of my head. One of those was that "This world is not my home, I'm just a passin' through." You see, my faith is an important part of who I am, and the word "home" reminds me of heaven. The other is the saying, "Home is where the cat is." My collage tries to show both of these. All of the persons in the photo are deceased members of my family. Some of them I have met here on earth. Others died long before I came along. I know that we'll have a great big family reunion in our eternal home one day because we all believe the words of Jesus in John 14: 1-4 (New King James Version):

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know."

I'll leave you with the words of an old song that speak of our eternal home.

The Unclouded Day

by Rev. J. K. Atwood

O they tell me of a home far beyond the skies,
O they tell me of a home far away;
O they tell me of a home where no stormclouds rise,
O they tell me of an unclouded day.

O they tell me of a home where my friends have gone,
O they tell me of a land far away;
Where the tree of life in eternal bloom
Sheds its fragrance thru the unclouded day.

O they tell me of the King in His beauty there,
And they tell me that mine eyes shall behold,
Where He sits on the throne that is whiter than snow,
In the city that is made of gold.

O they tell me that He smiles on His children there,
And His smile drives their sorrows all away;
And they tell me that no tears ever come again,
In that lovely land of unclouded day.

Wordless Wednesday: Irving Lantz House, Amory, MS

Today's Musings

Last night as I was listening to the fireworks outside, I was amazed by one thing. My cat was not hiding. Normally my cat goes and hides under the bed when the big bangs begin. This year Brumley just stayed in the chair in which he was sitting as if they weren't going on. It really caught me by surprise!

There was a lot of lightning in the area although the rain was pretty light last night. It delayed the big fireworks show in Knoxville, and it probably delayed the local one here in Morristown also. It's way on the other side of town at the other end of the lake so I didn't go. I could see a few fireworks out in the general vicinity of the lake from my window. I don't think they were far enough east to have been the city's show, but these were pretty impressive.

Our local NBC affiliate always pre-empts the New York City show with the Knoxville one. I wish they'd at least show the New York City ones later. I really hate that we miss the impressive show that they have in New York harbor. I was able to watch them for several years when I lived in Cincinnati, and I really miss them here in East Tennessee. I ended up watching most of the Boston show on CBS because I usually enjoy the Boston pops music that accompanies them. I don't know where they got the host for last night's show, but I hope they dump him before next year. I did enjoy Rascal Flatts and the Pops though. Before that show came on, I'd watched a bit of the Capitol 4th on PBS. I didn't think that show--at least the parts I was able to watch--were as good as usual. They had xylophones doing the piccolo parts on one Sousa piece. It was just losing something in the arrangement!

I've been watching Wimbledon. I always enjoy watching tennis. I used to play a lot when I was younger. I probably couldn't return a serve nowadays if I tried. I'm too out of practice. Today's match was good between the sisters, but I wish Serena had won a set to drag it out a little longer! I look forward to seeing the sisters play again in the doubles. I hope that tomorrow's men's match lasts long enough that I can see the end after I get home from church.

Southern Reading Challenge: Garden Spells

I finished this one a couple of days ago, but I'm just now getting around to blogging it.

Allen, Sarah Addison. Garden Spells. New York: Bantam, 2007.

This is a delightful book. Sydney Waverley had always wanted nothing more than to get out of her town of Bascom, North Carolina. After being involved in an abusive relationship, she finds herself heading back there to provide safety and security for her daughter Bay. She moves in with her sister Claire who has never been involved in a romantic relationship. There is an apple tree in their yard with magical powers, a colorful relative named Evanelle who has quite the instinct for gift-giving, and several other memorable characters. It was a fascinating read that held my attention as I waited on the inevitable to happen. I do caution fellow Christians that the book contains premarital sex and characters who live alternative lifestyles.

What an Animal Challenge!

Kristi at Passion for the Page is hosting the What an Animal Reading Challenge. The books can be fiction or non-fiction. You only have to read 6 books before June 30, 2009 that fit the criteria. Since I'm reading one at the moment that fits, I'll have only 5 more to go. Basically any animal will do. The animal role can be as simple as a picture of an animal on the cover or in the title of the book, an animal with a major role in the book, or a main character that turns into an animal (although I doubt any of mine will fit into that last category). You just have to sign up with Mr. Linky at Kristi's site.

My first book is the latest Miss Zukas mystery by Jo Dereske entitled Index to Murder. It has a cat on the cover. Those of you who have read previous Miss Zukas mysteries know that Helma's cat is Boy Cat Zukas. I'm going to opt to not list the other five I intend to read right now because I have no idea which ones from my stash, the library, or books that I purchase between now and the time I finish that 6th book I'll be motivated to pick up first!

UPDATE OF BOOKS READ ALONG WITH DATES COMPLETED:

Dereske, Jo. Index to Murder. (completed 4 July 2008) [You can find my review at LibraryThing]

Penney, Stef. The Tenderness of Wolves. (completed 31 Aug 2008)

51st Carnival of Genealogy

I slipped up and didn't get a story into the 51st Carnival of Genealogy which Thomas has posted. I just never came up with the story I wanted for it. There were stories I did not want to include because of living relatives. Others I had shared before in the blog. I just was drawing a blank on what to share. Hopefully I can come up with one to go with the "age" theme in the 52nd edition.

Web Roundup - July 4

It's the news for which we've all been waiting! (I want to downgrade!)


Washington's boyhood home has been discovered by archaeologists.

Harold at Midwestern Microhistory shares a tip about searching geographic information in BYU's digital collections. I've added this site to my del.icio.us bookmarks!

Lesa shared a wonderful story about her family vacations when she was a child in her post about forgotten books. I'm just trying to picture 30 books plus all the other things the family must have had to bring along in that van! I wonder if today's children will have similar stories of their "staycations."

Thanks to Becky for bringing back memories of what I used to do on the 4th of July.

The Cincinnati Enquirer has an interesting story about a Revolutionary War patriot and his burial location--possibly in the ball park!

Tuesday Thingers: Top 100

This week's Tuesday Thingers involves the top 100 books on LibraryThing. Here are the instructions: Bold what you own, italicize what you've read. Star what you liked. Star multiple times what you loved!

Just a side note. I used to own many more of the classic literary works, but I parted with them in a move a few years ago. I owned some of the ones that are not marked in any way on here now because I didn't read them!

1. Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone by J.K. Rowling (32,484)
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by J.K. Rowling (29,939)
3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) by J.K. Rowling (28,728)
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) by J.K. Rowling (27,926)
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) by J.K. Rowling (27,643)
6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) by J.K. Rowling (27,641)
7. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (23,266)
8. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (21,325)
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling (20,485)
10. 1984 by George Orwell (19,735)
11. Pride and Prejudice (Bantam Classics) by Jane Austen (19,583)
12. The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger (19,082)
13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (17,586) *
14. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (16,210)
15. The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (15,483)
16. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (14,566)
17. Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) by Charlotte Bronte (14,449) *
18. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (13,946)**
19. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (13,272)
20. Animal Farm by George Orwell (13,091)
21. Angels & demons by Dan Brown (13,089)
22. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (13,005)
23. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (12,777)*
24. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Oprah's Book Club) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (12,634)
25. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1) by J.R.R. Tolkien (12,276)
26. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (12,147)
27. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (11,976)
28. The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, Part 2) by J.R.R. Tolkien (11,512)
29. The Odyssey by Homer (11,483)
30. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (11,392)
31. Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut (11,360)
32. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (11,257)
33. The return of the king : being the third part of The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (11,082)
34. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (10,979)
35. American Gods: A Novel by Neil Gaiman (10,823)
36. The chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (10,603) *
37. The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams (10,537)
38. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (10,435)
39. The lovely bones : a novel by Alice Sebold (10,125)
40. Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1) by Orson Scott Card (10,092)
41. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) by Philip Pullman (9,827)
42. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman (9,745)
43. Dune by Frank Herbert (9,671)
44. Emma by Jane Austen (9,610) *
45. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (9,598)
46. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bantam Classics) by Mark Twain (9,593) *
47. Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club) by Leo Tolstoy (9,433)
48. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (9,413)
49. Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides (9,343)
50. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (9,336)
51. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (9,274)
52. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (9,246)
53. The Iliad by Homer (9,153)
54. The Stranger by Albert Camus (9,084)
55. Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen (9,080)
56. Great Expectations (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens (9,027)
57. The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel by Margaret Atwood (8,960)
58. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (8,904)
59. Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt (8,813)
60. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery - (8,764)
61. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (8,421) *
62. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (8,417)*
63. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (8,368)
64. The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition) by John Steinbeck (8,255)
65. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (8,214)***
66. The Name of the Rose: including Postscript to the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (8,191)
67. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (8,169) *** [This is not showing up in my LibraryThing, but I know I own it. It's one of those that is packed in a box.]
68. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (8,129)
69. The complete works by William Shakespeare (8,096)
70. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (7,843)
71. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (7,834)
72. The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel (Perennial Classics) by Barbara Kingsolver (7,829)
73. Hamlet (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare (7,808)
74. Of Mice and Men (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by John Steinbeck (7,807)
75. A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens (7,793)
76. The Alchemist (Plus) by Paulo Coelho (7,710)
77. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (7,648)
78. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics) by Oscar Wilde (7,598)
79. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by William Strunk (7,569)
80. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (7,557)
81. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) by Philip Pullman (7,534)
82. Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan (7,530)
83. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (7,512)
84. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (7,436)
85. Dracula by Bram Stoker (7,238)
86. Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions) by Joseph Conrad (7,153)
87. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (7,055)
88. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (7,052)*
89. The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman (7,043)
90. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics) by James Joyce (6,933)
91. The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel (Perennial Classics) by Milan Kundera (6,901)
92. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (6,899)
93. Neuromancer by William Gibson (6,890)
94. The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics) by Geoffrey Chaucer (6,868)
95. Persuasion (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen (6,862)
96. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (6,841)
97. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (6,794)
98. Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (6,715)
99. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (6,708)
100. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (6,697)