This week’s theme is “Family Legend.” The last batch of my family to arrive in the United States came over from England (via Canada) in 1910. Bertrand Sidney Avenell, his wife Emily (nee Thomas), their oldest son Roland, Bertrand’s parents Walter and Jane Ellen (Hagell) Avenell, his sister Eleanor, and Jane Ellen’s sister Letty all…
This week’s theme (really last week’s theme) was “Storms.” I don’t have any family stories of storms at this time, though if I were to sit down with my ancestor Benjamin Morse Melcher’s ship log on microfilm, I’d probably find some mentioned. Instead, I’m going to write about a storm that came up in my…
Today is the 259th birthday of the venerated Scottish poet Robert Burns, born in Ayrshire, in 1759. I had vague knowledge about Burns the poet for most of my life. I knew he wrote “Auld Lang Syne,” and that he was a famous Scottish poet. Then I found a photo of the headstone of one of…