Autumn 2014

Leslie Tillett reminds, "The Pennsylvania Dutch (not Dutch at all, but German, the misnomer arising from the spelling and the anglicized pronunciation of 'Deutsch') are famous for their brightly colored and naively charming designs they applied to their objects of daily use--from their drinking glasses to their barns."

Likewise I've seen it written that "fraktur" is a style, not an object like a marriage certificate.  A certificate might be designed in the German fraktur style.

Investigating Wikitree which may prove to be a useful tool for us treesearchers!

And not feeling as compelled to write much fiction in A Quilt for Mama since becoming immersed in the top quality Elm Creek Quilts series by Jennifer Chiaverini.  I started with The Union Quilters and was both impressed and grateful for the author's ability to bring the controversy of historical argument into the minds and mouths of characters.  As I've been cross-stiching a queen-seized family tree quilt top for my family I've lent an ear to the Elm Creek sewing circle but felt my heart stir for the characters as if they are neighbors in some America that still exists despite technology and time for those of us who hold fast to tradition and care to forge a together even in tumult.



Mama (Sherry Candy Lane) emphasizes that Grandma Pearl (Fox) Bohlinger would never concoct story.  Grandma Pearl told Mama that our family has "Indian" in it.  And, Mama adds, Pearl had Indian hair.

I suppose that's the way legend gets passed on through social history and through family.  And be it exactly factual or grown bigger with tall in tale, legend takes hold just as strongly as truth in some cases.

We're using legend as impetus to firm up the facts.  We can make inferences based upon evidence but that is not strictly genealogical proof by any means.  We are examining lots of legend and facts to try and piece together a plausible case...

Pearl's father was Elias Fox; his father was Henry Fox who married Clarissa Long; that Henry Fox appears on census lists as in the household of John Hudson Fox and Catherine Fox (whom a genealogical society marks as cousins by virtue of the fact that John Hudson Fox's father was Joseph Newton Fox and Catherine's father was that man's brother Peter Fox).  Census lists simply do not tell whole story and can introduce confusion.  At this time we have no way of knowing for sure, for example, if Henry Fox was the child of John Hudson Fox and Catherine Fox or if these were the people who raised Henry.  We had a tidbit of information suggesting John Hudson Fox married someone else first.  And we have to compare what records we can round up with all the names and dates on the census lists.

We also find a maybe clue left by family in the list of relations to Joseph Newton Fox in carefully chosen names.  Sired by Joseph were girls and boys and interestingly we find John Hudson Fox and James Wilson Fox...perhaps telling the story of one boy being the child of mother Emily (supposed daughter of Chief White Eyes) and the other being the child of mother Jane "Jennie" Wilson.

So we're reading widely about the time period 1776-1850 in history and also about the different cultures in our family tree undertaking.  And we are getting back to the tasks of actual correspondence.

That's our update.