Secretary Hand, Handwriting of the 16th Century and How to Read It.

Learn to read very old handwriting.

Your friends may laugh at you when you tell them you know how to read handwriting from the 1500s, but if you go through the online tutorials Vona Williams shared Wednesday at the Conference on Family History and Genealogy, your friends will have to wipe the smirks off their faces.

Williams is the manager of British reference at the Family History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She teaches a class there on how to read "Secretary Hand," a handwriting that was common between 1485 and 1650.

Read the rest of this article by following the link, and on the Mormon Times website the article continues with links to locations where you can observe and practice with this type of "Secretary Hand" writing. Very interesting.


By Michael De Groote
Mormon Times

http://tinyurl.com/6otuu3



(genemisc)

Preserving Wheeler Family Genealogy

Progenitor of the WHEELER Family in America.


In 1667, Thomas Wheeler, the first of his family to come to America, was granted 4,000 acres in Stonington, Connecticut. This made him the largest landowner in the area.

Today, all that remains is the family's quarter-acre burial ground in what is now the Stonington Acres subdivision.

"This is what's left," said Dick Wheeler of Ledyard, gesturing across the approximately 86 grave sites, most of which date back to the 19th century.

Wheeler and his son Steven, also of Ledyard, for ten years have painstakingly restored the family burial ground. Today, stone walls with a wrought iron gate surround the quiet, tree-shaded cemetery with its well-preserved gravestones and small white sign.

Read more of this story by Joe Wojtas of the Day of New London, in the Newsday Newspaper for July 27, 2008.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/connecticut/ny-bc-ct-fea--familyburialg0727jul27,0,6107601.story



(genemisc)

Just in Time for the Fourth of July, George Washinton's Boyhood Home Discovered by Archaeologists

This is the spot where George Washington supposedly cut down the cherry tree and then in a moment of guilt feeling had to confess to his father.

That story has never been proven and the experts that dug this site of George's boyhood home did not locate a hatchet.

The house burnt on Christmas Eve in 1740 when George was a lad, but it is an interesting story and you may read about at Boston.com.



(genemisc)