Nathan Gulick was born 10 April 1777 and died 02 October 1826. He married Elizabeth Erb on or about 24 May 1800.

The stone shown here is in the Pioneer Graveyard in Maysville, Kentucky.

My great-grandmother Louise Grant Smith transcribed the inscription on her great-grandfather’s tombstone as follows:

To  the memory of
NATHAN GULICK
who departed this life
October 2nd, 1826
aged 49 years, 5 months
and 22 days.

His languishing head is at rest,
Its thinking and aching are o’er.
His quiet and immovable breast
is heaved by affliction no more.
His heart is no longer the seat
of trouble and torturing pain.
It ceases to flutter and beat,
It never shall flutter again.

The image shown here was posted to Find A Grave by user Debbie J on October 29, 2009. It’s listed there as memorial #43690720.

Here’s what I think I know about my MERRYMAN/MERRIMAN line:

1. Dean Richardson

2. David Richardson, born 17 Nov 1935 in Erie, Erie County, PA; died 16 Oct 1998 in Stanford, Santa Clara County, CA

3. Owen Richardson, born 02 Dec 1899 in Baltimore, Baltimore County, MD; died 05 Dec 1993 in Edinboro, Erie County, PA

4. Allen Chapman Richardson, born 18 Jun 1859 in Baltimore, Baltimore, MD; died 21 Dec 1908 in Erie, Erie County, PA

5. Sarah Rogers Merryman, born 03 Oct 1834 in Baltimore county, MD; died 14 Oct 1896

6. Levi Merryman, born Dec 1795 in Baltimore, MD; died in 1868 in Baltimore, MD

At this point, several compiled genealogies and Ancestry Member Trees are able to trace the Merryman line  from Levi back to 1600’s-era England. The image above is from Volume 10 of the Maryland Historical Magazine, p. 298. I haven’t been able to adequately document Levi’s connection to these sources myself yet. As always, I would welcome contact with researchers pursuing this line.

My main mode of discovery for new genealogy blogs lately has been to look through the most active and interesting people I follow on Twitter and pursue their “Web” links to see what they point to. I’ve often been intrigued by “ResearcherB”’s Tweets so tonight I visited her blog for the first time. It passed the “frequently updated, original content, quality writing” test, and I’ve added it to my Google Reader subscriptions. Here’s what I like about Beth Bandy’s blog, “Farms, Creeks & Hollows.”

• The frequency of her posting has increased steadily since she began her blog last August. She’s already reached the stage where she’s posting new discoveries and insights daily… that’s a level that it took me a year-and-a-half to attain.
• She’s researching in localities that are of interest to me, like Massachusetts, Kentucky, New York, and Northern Ireland.
• There’s a strong theme of mystery and problem-solving to her posts, which draws me in and makes her narratives entertaining to read.
• Beth’s got plenty of photos and documents to share, including a bunch she brought back from a recent visit to the FHL in Salt Lake. I look forward to hearing more analysis of her finds there.

From her Twitter stream, it looks like Beth’s involved in her local genealogical community as well, volunteering to help a local historical society digitize its photo collection and fulfilling Find A Grave requests.  To me, that sets her apart and makes me even more interested in what she has to say.

I’d encourage you to visit Beth’s blog and peruse her recent posts. You can also follow her on Twitter, where she’s @ResearcherB.

Note the inventory of gifts at the end of this very detailed announcement of the marriage of Georgianna Schryver to D’Linton W. Greenfield. (Found in a scrapbook at the Rome Historical Society, Rome, Oneida, New York; probably clipped from the Rome Sentinel.)

I think it speaks for itself.

D’Linton Greenfield, a Rome, Oneida, New York book seller and stationer, was the son of Joseph and Cynthia M. Hubbard Greenfield. According to his obituary (found in a scrapbook at the Rome Historical Society and likely clipped from the Rome Sentinel), he was born in Trenton, Oneida, New York on 25 Jun 1846. D’Linton married Georgianna Schryver in Rhinebeck, Dutchess, New York on 2 April 1885 (again, from a newspaper clipping found in a scrapbook at the Rome Historical Society) and they had one daughter. D’Linton died in 1919 and is buried in Rome Cemetery.

D’Linton is a fascinating name and it doesn’t appear to Google. If you’ve heard it before or know where it might have originated, please let me know.

Here’s what Dean’s been able to learn so far about his GUILFORD ancestors.

1. Dean Richardson

2. Roberta Matthews Knapp

3. Kenneth Guilford Knapp, born 07 January 1906 in Worcester, Worcester, MA; died 8 Sep 1974 in Bradenton, Manatee, FL.

4. Rosamund Guilford, born Jun 1874 in Williamsburg, Hampshire, MA; died 1942 in Westfield, Union, NJ.

5. Andrew Guilford, born 1839 in Conway, Franklin, MA; died 14 Sep 1876 in Williamsburg, Hampshire, MA.

6. Ebenezer Morris Guilford, born 24 Dec 1813 in Williamsburg, Hampshire, MA

New FamilySearch and several Ancestry Member Trees also point to Ebenezer Morris being the son of Ebenezer Guilford and Mary or Polly Packard. We haven’t been able to document that connection to our satisfaction yet.

The image at the top of this post is from the 1860 US Federal Census for Williamsburg, Hampshire, MA and shows a “Morrison Guilford” married to Sally and living next to their sons Lewis and Andrew.

If anyone researching the Guilfords of Massachusetts comes across this and has information to share, We’d be very grateful to hear from you. Thanks!

I first met Jean at the St. George Family History Expo last year. She and her husband Butch had an exhibit booth near mine, and Butch played tunes on his saw occasionally throughout the day in the exhibit hall. That got my attention and I was soon able to visit their booth and get to know them. We met again at the Colorado FHE a few months later. I found we had several things in common: in particular, she grew up in Wilmette Illinois where we now live! That led to Jean and Butch giving one of their marvelous musical/historical programs to members of our Stake in Chicago not long afterwards.

Jean’s blog  — Circlemending — combines the two main passions that my wife and I share: genealogy and music, particularly folk music. Jean frequently melds the two topics together marvelously in her posts. An example: she writes about the banjo that belonged to her great grandmother, which she had restored and now plays in her presentations.

Jean shares photographs, artifacts, dates, and places from her own family history (mostly via popular geneablogging memes like Tombstone Tuesday and Wordless Wednesday.) But you can tell she’s most in her element as a writer when she leans back and tells her ancestors’ stories. No doubt her Ph.D. in folklore has something to do with that.

If you’re looking for a pleasant, relaxing geneablog experience with a warm and entertaining storyteller who’s also a board-certified genealogist, you can’t do much better than Jean’s Circlemending blog. Give it a try!

Walter Ferdinand Knapp was born on 16 October 1872 in Easton, Aroostook County, Maine. He was the son of Hiram Loring Preston Knapp and Mary E. Gilbert.

Walter married Rosamond Fannie Guilford on 24 April 1897 in Worcester, Worcester County, Massachusetts.

Rosamond was born in June of 1874 in Williamsburg, Hampshire County, Massachusetts to Andrew Guilford and Harriet Amanda Fisk(e).

Walter died of typhoid fever on 4 December 1906 in Worcester, Worcester County, Massachusetts. Rosamond died in 1942 in Westfield, Union County, New Jersey. They are both buried in the Spring Grove Cemetery in Florence, Hampshire County, Massachusetts.

The image shown here was added to Find A Grave by P.K. Magruder on 21 January 2010. It is listed there under Memorial #46943655.

Here’s what I think I’ve learned so far about my TRAFFORD ancestors.

1. Dean Richardson

2. Roberta Matthews Knapp

3. Roberta Trafford Matthews born 05 July 1907 in Leonia, Bergen, NJ; died 19 September 1987 in Emmaus, Lehigh, PA

4. Sarah Caroline Trafford born 21 April 1868 in Manhattan, NY; died 27 March 1933 in Springfield, Hampton, MA

5. Benjamin Trafford born 5 August 1835 in NY; died 23 December 1883 in Little Silver, Monmouth, NJ

6. Abraham Trafford born 31 December 1804 in NJ; died 27 August 1871 in NJ

7. Samuel Trafford born 1750 in Shrewbury, Monmouth, NJ; died 22 June 1806 in Shrewsbury, Monmouth, NJ

8. Samuel Trafford born 1725 in Monmouth county, NJ

Some of the later data we have is from Historical and genealogical miscellany: data relating to the settlement and settlers of New York and New Jersey, Volume 4 by John Edwin Stillwell.

The Benjamin Trafford obituary shown here was published in the New York Times on 24 December 1883. It’s the first genealogy document I encountered relating to my ancestors. My wife found it on microfilm at the BYU Genealogy Library shortly after our marriage. It’s fair to say that my interest in genealogy and family history dates back to that experience.

I’m particularly fond of this sentence from the obituary:

He amassed a fortune, but through his generous habits and high living, coupled with disastrous speculation, he lost his property and had recourse to journalism as a means of gaining a livelihood.

We were later blessed to gain access to a marvelous collection of correspondence between Benjamin and his wife Cecelia during Benjamin’s various Civil War enlistment periods. My mother has in her possession a trunk that Benjamin supposedly carried with him during the war.

Family lore indicates that the Trafford name was originally de Trafford on the other side of the Atlantic. I’ve yet to uncover any evidence documenting this speculation, though it certainly seems plausible and I haven’t tried particularly hard.

I’d love to hear from any one with Traffords among their ancestors who could help me make the de Trafford connection. I’d also be interested in receiving help locating the “work on military tactics” mentioned in the obituary that Benjamin is supposed to have authored.

It’s high time I offered my Follow Friday endorsement of Taneya’s Genealogy Blog. Taneya Koonce is an absolute dynamo when it comes to online genealogy content. She maintains six separate blogs covering newspaper research and specific county resources for numerous localities in North Carolina. She runs her own TNG-powered personal genealogy site. She’s the webmaster for seven different USGenWeb sites, including the main one for North Carolina. All of these sites display a professionalism in content, design, and functionality that is sorely lacking in many Geocities-era pages out there on the web.

Her main blog covers pretty much every topic you’d expect from a top-tier member of the geneablogging community: her own surnames and favorite research localities; reviews of books, genealogy gadgets and web resources; geneablogging memes like Tombstone Tuesday and loads of personal research stories. Her stellar NCGebWeb work gets frequent mention too.

In a recent post, she riffed on Amy Coffin’s “52 Weeks to Better Genealogy“  WorldCat.org challenge and talked about how she’d reached out to the WorldCat folks and even snagged a guest blogging stint as a result.

Of course, I’m a little biased, since Taneya is one of our providers and offers genealogy lookups for Tennessee. But if you don’t already have Taneya’s Genealogy Blog bookmarked or subscribed in your feed reader, I heartily recommend that you do.