Just when you think you've got the whole family . . .

Few things genealogical are more fun than finding a probate that reveals a supposed bachelor marrying, fathering five children, and dying -- all within the 1880-1900 "little dark age." Without the probate they and their mother would have been difficult or impossible to find. We're talking Pennsylvania here, no marriage records. And so far this branch of the family appears not to have been in communication, even though it was one of the few who remained in Erie County. Did somebody have a quarrel?

Five generations of New York women

Ye fair that cast on this an eye
By me a pattern take and
Spend your time industriously
And such a sampler make
Polly Holmes her work done
In the year 1824

Polly Homes did not live to see 25, but she is the 5G grandmother of our granddaughter. The sampler she stitched 193 years ago survives, a little faded in parts. I tell the stories of her five generations of non-living female descendants in the July 2017 New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. Cuddle up with a copy and see what you think.

Samplers were a part of schooling at that time, and to some extent an insurance policy: wives marked their linens, and many a widow or grass widow plied the needle for a living. Books and surveys have been published based on samplers, some of which are beautiful and some of which document family trees. For more, check the informative and illustrated books by Betty Ring, Susan P. Schoelwer, and others. For now, I'm just happy to have these Holmes-Denison-Crandall-Burdick-Bassett female lines documented: just as much a family as those who share the same surname every generation. And thanks to NYGBR retiring editor Karen Jones for  being willing to publish a "cross-grained" lineage.