Grateful for all the attention.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been spreading the word about our new book.

Amy Coffin and James Tanner both published their reviews from the pre-publication copy I sent them.  I'm so glad they liked it.  I really appreciate their opinions.   I was so pleased when both James and his wife had to read the book.  That's what I'm hoping.  I'm hoping that as people get their hands on it they'll find it engaging and full of ideas that they need. 

I can't wait for Randy Seaver to try it out with his grandchildren.  He is such an awesome Grandpa and a great genealogist.  I'm sure we'll have lots of notes to compare. 

Thanks to Dick Eastman.  I hope it will help all of your readers inspire their family members with their family history. 

And Carolyn Murphy, I hope the book helps all your readers heal their families and strengthen their posterity even more. 

Thanks for helping us teach more youth about the joys of family history and strengthen family relationships.

The Book Is Here.

After a little bit of quiet here while we were getting everything ready, we're finally ready to announce the release of our new book and the new website.  Yea!!

Take a look:

It is available at www.zapthegrandmagap.com for the discounted price of $19.95 until February 8th. The full press release is available at The Chart Chick Blog. 

We're so excited.  Please let us know what you think, and what other great ideas you have for connecting to your family through your family history.  We're going to change the world :)

What I learned on the ultra family history trip

So here are the things I learned while taking my family back to some of our British family history sites. 

1. Focus.  I have several other lines of ancestry from England.  I would have loved to have traced them all, but the kids would have been completely overwhelmed.  It was good to focus on one line so that they could really come to know those people.  We'll just have to go back again so that they can learn about those other lines ;)
2. Be flexible.  We never did get into one of the churches.  I could fixate on being disappointed in that.  But I can't let that overshadow how much we did see and learn.  It was a great trip.
3. Look for aha moments.  I had several aha moments because of the recent research I've been working on.  I understand the whole Draper thing much better.
4. Sample the local culture.  It was fun to try the food, see the sites and be thinking of what our ancestors ate and did.  
5. Make sure there is some down time.  Family History trips are go, go, go, learn, learn, learn.  I think most family members of all ages will get tired at some point.  Then they can't absorb as much.  Even if it just means going to bed early, find some time to wind down.
6. Let them pick a few activities.  The London Eye, Bletchley Park, etc. were great additions to the trip. Of course we were there to see London too. I think most youth can pick some local sites they want to see on any family trip.  Again, it is good to have some down time and let them process a little.  
7. Watch for serendipity.  Arriving in Taunton on the 275th anniversary of my 6th great-grandparents may have been more naivete than serendipity.  But it sure felt like serendipity.  Finding the law firm of Hatton and Wyatt was pretty fun too.  It made me feel like they were watching over us.  
8. Be flexible if things aren't the way you think they are going to be.  I've got to do some more research on the Congregationalist/Church of England issues.  It was not quite the way I had envisioned it but it is great to have more research work to do. 
9. Read in the car.  When you are traveling--especially by car, you have a captive audience.  Use that time to read to them, show pictures, etc.  Refresh their memories to make these ancestors become more real in the places you are visiting.
10. Take a chart.  We all referred to the chart many times.  It was useful to have the basic names, dates, and places out where you can see them.  And even better to have the known pictures available right there together.  If you don't know where to get a chart, don't worry, I can hook you up.  :)

I hope you can have a great family history trip soon with your family. It is soooo sweet to be able to take the family you have now with you. Good luck.  Let me know how it goes. 

Another day full of family history

So today we set out on another adventure, this time with my parents coming along as well.  These are my Dad's patriarchal family lines so he had to come along with us.  We headed out to Gravesend to see if we could find some of the family sites for the generations who lived near London, just before they immigrated to the U.S. 

If you clicked on the myriad of links I've given you in recent blog posts that point back to The Chart Chick Blog, you'll know that my father's father's father Joseph Hatten Carpenter immigrated from England in 1886.  His father had moved from Taunton to Plymouth where Joseph was born.  Joseph's grandfather was the one who moved the family from Trefusis farm into Taunton.  After Joseph was born, his father became ill so they moved to Gravesend to be closer to his Mother's family.  At times Joseph lived with his paternal grandparents and recently I found a wonderful journal Joseph wrote about the time he spent in England as a child.  It tells all about Joseph's life with his grandparents in Gravesend and how much he enjoyed his time there.  On the way to Gravesend, I read several pages from the journal aloud in the car so that everyone could get a good feel for where we were going. 

According to the UK Poll Books and Historical Registers, and the 1841 Census, Joseph's maternal grandfather Joseph Heath Hatton and his family lived at 62 High Street in Gravesend.  Joseph's journal tells us that they moved to 49 Windmill Road, and then to 195 Parrock Street, all within a couple of blocks of each other.  I hadn't scouted out these sites before, so we were heading out to find them without prior experience. 

High Street is a beautiful cobblestone road that looks down on the Thames.  They lived over the clothing store.  It is now a restaurant but it still has the apartment above it.  It was fun to watch my Dad get excited.  He knew his grandfather Joseph Hatten Carpenter well so I think it was exciting to see where his childhood had been though he never returned to England once he came to the States. 

Directly behind the store is St. George's Church on Princess Street.  Joseph's journal says that his grandfather Hatton was an well respected man in the community being a "deacon at the Congregationalist church on Princess Street."  It was here we ran into a little bit of trouble.  Princess Street is very short, there are no other churches on Princess Street in Gravesend.  But when we got there the congregant we talked to said that the church was of the Church of England and always had been.  He said they didn't have Deacons in the Church of England.  So I'm not sure what is going on there.  I'm going to have to do some more research.  Interestingly, it is also the place Pocahontas was buried when she got sick and died on the boat that was heading out of London.  Now we just have to find out if it is the church our Hattons went to.  I'm pretty sure it is--it is right behind their store and the only church on Princess Street.  But I'm not sure what to do with the Church of England/Congregationalist thing yet. 

We found the house on Parrock Street where Joseph lived with his grandfather Joseph.  It was a nice home.  Joseph writes about his fond memories of the strawberry patch there.  It is a nice house.  You can see why Joseph was proud that his grandfather was able to retire and live off his means.

Then at the Windmill Street address we found another surprise.  Joseph writes in his journal that one of his uncles worked as a lawyer.  At Windmill Street in the family home, we found the offices of Hatten and Wyatt law firm.  Founded in 1844 these had to be related but they were closed as this was Sunday.  It was exciting to find them still in the same place that I had found in the census records. 

We struck out on a couple of the other sites we were looking for.  And I have a cemetery there that I want to visit on my next trip. 

The best part of the whole trip was when Dad was using the pedigree chart we brought to figure out who was who.  "This is a really useful chart."  Yeah Dad.  That's what I do for a living.  LOL.

Ok so it's not that old.

So I said I was having some trouble wrapping my mind around how old things were in England, and how far back my ancestry stretched there. 

I had to do a little forehead smack today.  We visited the British Museum and got to see all the Egyptology there.  My bachelor's degree is in ancient Near Eastern history so I have spent alot of time in the Middle East and in Egypt.  Somehow ancient history doesn't seem so distant to me.  I studied Greek and Hebrew and Hieroglyphics and that didn't blow my mind.  So why does the early 1700s seem so far away?  Probably because I can draw a pedigree chart to the 1700s.  I can see the people who lived and died between those times.  But it is much harder to draw a reliable pedigree chart back to ancient Egypt.  At Family ChartMasters we've done some spectacular charts that go way back.  But somehow my mind jumps that gap a little bit.


Got to see the Rosetta Stone for the first time today.  Very, very cool for a girl with a Middle Eastern Studies degree.  Almost as cool as her own family history sites.  The kids laughed that I wanted my picture taken with the back of it.  Anyone can see a picture of the front of the Rosetta Stone.  But when you've seen the back, then you've really been there.  :)

And She Scores Part 2

I was able to see these sites and find these documents last February.  But it was slightly melancholy for me because I couldn't share it with my kids.  But today I was able to bring it all full circle.  Today I was able to share with my kids the great fun of finding the long talked about Trefusis Farm and showing them the amazing documents of their family history.

In the morning we walked around to see the two churches in Taunton where my ancestors were married.  St. Mary Magdelene Church is where my Great-great-great-grandfather Robert Gibbs Carpenter married my Great-great-great-grandmother Maria Wright on the 25th of August 1829.  We were hoping to catch a service at St. Mary's but for some reason the regular service there was closed.

And my 6th great-grandparents Thomas Carpenter and Jane Rugg were married on the 27th of December in 1737 at St. James Church.  We were there exactly 275 years after their marriage.  I didn't even realize that we were going to be there on their anniversary.  What serendipity.  And miraculously the kids smiled for the pictures and everything.

We headed out to the Somerset Heritage Centre and I was really glad I had already been there.  I was able to take them straight to the good stuff.  And in the best of all possible worlds, I'm scheduled to go back for the Who Do You Think You Are conference in February so I know I'm going to get another shot at research in this archive.  So I didn't need to research, we could just treat the archive like a museum and show the kids the good stuff.  If possible, I highly recommend the miraculous way that turned out.  Go yourself to check the places out, take the kids, and then go back more for real research later.  You could combine the first and the last parts, but it was really beautiful walking out of that archive without the longing of being able to go back and do more research.

My younger son was the most enthused about the documents.  I got to show them the wills from 1721 and 1753.  "These are older than the Declaration of Independence!"  He helped me hold several of them down so that I could get good pictures of them.  It was really amazing to get to hold them and see the wax seals.  We tried to be really gentle with them so that they would be still be available for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  But nothing can compare to real hands on family history.

From there we went out to Bradford on Tone.  It was just so sweet for me to be able to take them there.  We hunted around the church yard for gravestones.  I told them I'd pay out a reward for anyone who could find one of our ancestors.  I would have paid good money for that since our last ancestor to be buried there was in 1812.  I knew there weren't any gravestones there but I was hoping for a miracle.  It got the kids involved but unfortunately they didn't find anything.  We had called the night before and the caretaker said St Giles church was going to be open but we were foiled again.  We tried to get ahold of several people but no one was available to open the church.  No matter, it was brilliant to be there. 

We walked down to the 13th century bridge between the church and the farm.  Our ancestors definitely would have crossed this bridge many times on their way to the village.  One of  the kids said "Now that's bridging the generations.."  Good grief.  

We had lunch at the White Horse Inn across from the church.  I absolutely loved the slow service and the time to sit and enjoy being in this town with my kids.  We relaxed and enjoyed each other's company.  It was a really sweet moment for me. 

We went down to the farm and took a quick picture with the real trefusis sign.  My dad and my sister have both been out to the farm and had nice conversations with the people who live there but I didn't want to bother them.  We drove around a little and then started back towards London. 

The kids were typical teenagers.  They were good-natured and even when I made them hold up the genealogy chart for a picture I didn't get complaining.  But I don't know how much really sunk in.  I want them to relish in it,  My overzealousness probably shut down some of their own enthusiasm and put them into "Oh Mom" mode.  But I do think they felt it more than they would ever tell me.  I'm sure they were happy to make me so happy.  I'm sure I'll hear about how inspiring it all was about the time they hit their 30s.  

This is really the story of investing your children coming full circle.  My Grandparents had that Brigadoon-esque Trefusis sign over their doorway when I was a little girl and that inspired my curiosity.  Today I got to take my kids to that place and invest the next generation in their family's history.  Hopefully I've planted some seeds that will take root in future years too. 

Hallowed Ground

Today we went to Bletchley Park on our way out to the place where my ancestry goes back to the 1600s.  My techie sons wanted to see Bletchley Park--it is the place where British intelligence worked to break the Engima machine codes in World War 2 and in the process laid the groundwork for the invention of the modern computer.  You can learn more about it here, and here.

I knew Bletchley Park would be interesting but I was unprepared for how moved I was by this site.  I was so impressed by how hard the work was and the intense dedication they had to this project.  I am so grateful for the workers of Bletchley Park and how they were able to cut the war short by their incredible intelligence.  Both of my Grandfathers may have been pulled into the European conflict had the war gone on and the course of my family would have changed dramatically. I am so thankful for what the British did to stop the Nazis.  I don't think I appreciated that enough previously. 

Then we headed down to Bradford on Tone, the site of my Carpenter line's family farm.  We are staying in Taunton tonight, the larger city next to Bradford on Tone.  My ancestor Robert Gibbs Carpenter moved to Taunton when he left the family farm.  The 1841 England Census shows Robert as a grocer on High Street in Taunton.  His son Robert Wright Carpenter, my father's great grandfather was born there.  High street is now a pedestrian mall that only runs about one block so we headed over there tonight for dinner.  I think the kids were quite impressed--like I was earlier.  They were quiet, maybe even reverent.  I'm still looking for the exact address of where they lived, but the kids got their first taste of walking where their ancestors walked.  Good stuff.