I'm back!

I feel as though I have let the blog go too long without an update. Are you missing me? Amy was home for the weekend since it was Homecoming. Ryan and his team had a great game bringing home the win! They are now 3-1 and he seems to have recovered from his concussion. This is a picture of his leaping rushing TD. Paula was right there with me on the sidelines as we watched the play develop. Great fun. Wet, but great fun. We go to Oxford this week so I hope to see Judy, Patrick and the boys.

I haven't done ANY genealogy to speak of since school started but the final DNA results are in and I still don't have anything figured out yet but there does seem to be at least one decent Ryan lead. I will follow up as soon as I can clear my mind to do so.

The analysis of Nanny's handwriting has been broadcast and it is VERY cool!!! I haven't figured out a way to link an audio file to this blog but I'll make sure you get to hear it at some point. It's more fun when you can look at the letter while you are listening to the analysis.

Aren't the leaves pretty this year? We went to Remsen yesterday. If you like craft fairs, this is a really good one -- higher end style of crafts and great gifts! It's always the last week in September and we try to go every year. If you'd like to join us next year, you are welcome to. We especially noticed the leaves on the ride.

Have a great week. See you at the game!

Something Fun to Try

Here's one way to waste some hard earned online time: Try the World Names Profiler and see how surnames are distributed across the globe in the present day. Type in the surname you are interested in--let's say you are wondering about "Nevins". Make sure you click the SEARCH button after the name.

The page takes a minute to reload then you'll see a world map with shaded areas demonstrating the high/low ranges of families with that surname in a particular area. Click the darkest areas which are the heaviest density for that surname, the page will take a second to reload then you'll get a closer view. You can click down to general localities.

Now, I enjoyed doing this but even more fun was scrolling down the page past the maps to see the most common first names with that surname and the specific cities with the highest density of the surname. I learned about this from one of my favorite podcasts and it was more entertaining than I expected it to be!

Enjoy and have a great weekend! We'll be in Connecticut for a wedding.

DNA news

The DNA results of the test Chris submitted for the Ryan surname are dribbling in. I can't make heads or tails of any of it yet, but so far it looks somewhat promising that we might be able to link up to other Ryans that belong to our line. So far, the 12 marker and 25 marker test results are in and the 37 marker results are due in about 2 more weeks. As I said, I don't understand any of it just yet but the more markers, the better the chances are of making a close connection. I hope to devote some real time to studying this shortly.

So thanks again, Chris!

The Schooner Festival has been in high gear in Gloucester recently as shown by some great pictures by Jay Albert you can see at Cape Ann Images blog and the Good Morning Gloucester blog. So, of course this makes me think about schooners in our family history.

This is a picture of the schooner Concord, owned and operated by Captain John Duguo, an ancestor-in-law a couple of generations back who sailed about the same time as our direct ancestor Captain John Bentley. This picture puts in perspective for me the relative size of the ship to the mean and to the sea. Yikes. Those guys sure look small there and it's a wonder ANY of them ever came back from these fishing trips.

John Bentley was born in 1847 in County Galway Ireland. I have not yet found the siblings he surely must have had. To my knowledge, his parents Henry and Kate never came to America. He arrived in New York from Ireland before he was 18 years old, perhaps in 1863 when he would have been only 16--Ryan's age! He married Mary Catherine Costello (Kate) Christmas Day 1864 (17 years old if we accept the dates on the various records). Our ancestor Catherine Bentley was born 4 years later, the third of six children.

Captain Bentley and his father in law, Martin Costello, died at sea in February 1882 when he was only 35 years old. His wife was left with 5 living children, the youngest only 8. Kate Bentley died just 3 years later of "natural causes". By this time, the children were older and probably taking care of each other, but I've often wondered what life was like for them after they lost their father and then their mother in such a short time. An article in the October 1886 The Century Magazine called Gloucester Fishers states "Few men who fish on the Banks live to be old, and the result is there are comparatively few old fishermen in Gloucester." And many fatherless children.

Captain Bentley is our great great grandfather -- the same generation as the old fisherman Timothy Ryan. When I read The Perfect Storm I immediately thought of Captain John Bentley and have always felt a strong bond with this story.