I met Keith Gregson quite by chance one night last year while exploring my ancestral stomping grounds. My wife Ruth and I were grabbing a hot meal in the dining room of the South Causey Inn after having spent a rainy but satisfying day at Beamish Open Air Museum, near Stanley in the north of England.
Suddenly, without warning or provocation, the room was filled with men dressed in strange costumes who began to dance around the room bashing each other with sticks and waving white hankies in the air in some sort of choreographed madness. At first we thought it must be an attack of sugar plum fairies as each of the men was attired in short pants with white leggings, pumpkin coloured vests, hats with ribbons, and footwear adorned in jingly bells that rang out with every step they took. Doubling the occupancy of the room in seconds, they began and were quite literally dancing between the tables. Here is one of several videos I shot from our table. (Note: The first ten seconds of the video are black as I struggled to get my camera out of its bag and onto the unfolding scene.)
The group provided their own musical accompaniment and it was clear above the turmoil of the presentation, that this strange act was based on some sort of long established tradition. Turns out we had stumbled upon the Benfieldside Morris and Sword Dancers (perhaps it is more accurate to say that they stumbled upon us) and were about to meet Keith Gregson, one of the members of the group.
After the men had finished their first set and had sat down to enjoy some of the fantastic fare on offer, Keith told us that in addition to being a Morris dancer, he was an educator, historian and author and was in the process of preparing a book of “Interesting Ancestors”.
I told him about a couple of mine and was later contacted by him to give him details of my relationship with Mary Dyer, “The Quaker Martyr”. This appears in Chapter 35 entitled, “Hanged For Being A Quaker”.
This entry is just one of 47 tales which make up this compendium of off beat and colourful characters found by family researchers upon the branches of their own family trees. Each story in the book is followed by Gregson’s comments about what the story has to teach us as family historians about the records, the methodologies used, and the pitfalls of family research. I quite enjoyed the book and would recommend it for anyone who has an interest in family research.
The book provides encouragement to the family historian by illustrating stories of research that worked and the various paths people took to discover their interesting family roots.
The book is available from Amazon.ca and Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Search for Keith Gregson as the title alternates between Interesting Ancestors and A Viking in the Family depending on the website location.
The transcription below “A Very Pretty Home Wedding” was created by me from a type-written note given to me by Renae Grubb. She says of the document and the attached images:
I thought everyone might enjoy these photos of Ethel McLeod Good Deakin. For those of you who were at the family reunion, it’s Steve Scott’s grandmother. Ethel was my Grandma’s (Gretta Good Elder) sister.
click to view larger
We went to the Kings Co. Museum in Hampton, NB on Mon. Aug. 22. The lady at the museum was able to pull out Ethel’s wedding dress for us to see. Lois Deakin Scott, Steve’s mother had donated this dress many years ago. I also sent this information to the museum providing some history to go with the dress. The pictures show the dress in 1908 (Ethel) and in 2011 (Renae)! Although I’m sure Ethel wore much more dainty shoes than what I wore!
Notes:
2nd paragraph: Miss Helen Good played the piano at the wedding = John Charlton’s Grandmother
4th paragraph: Mrs. E.A. Banbury & Mrs. Levi Thomson, daughters of Senator Perley late of Sunbury Co., attended the wedding = Phoebe Banbury’s relatives.
~ Renae
A Very Pretty Home Wedding
Ethel McLeod Good Deakin in wedding dress 1908
A very pretty home wedding took place at the residence of Mr. & Mrs. Jas. E. Good of Fillmore, Sask. on the afternoon of Thursday the 4th inst. when their daughter, Ethel McLeod Good, was married to Oscar Frederick Deakin of the C.P.R. The bride, who was one of the most highly esteemed young ladies of Fillmore, looked charming in a princess dress of white silk mull elaborately trimmed in Valenciennes lace and insertion and carrying a shower bouquet of carnations and sweet peas. Miss Gertrude Good, sister of the bride who acted as maid of honor, was prettily attired in spotted Swiss muslin.
The bridal party entered the drawing room to the music of the Bridal Chourus from Lohengrin played by Miss Helen Good. The ceremony which took place under a bridal arch of lilacs and maiden hair fern was performed by the Rev. Arthur Smith. After the wedding ceremony the guests partook of a recherche* luncheon and then drove to the depot whence the happy couple departed for an extensive trip to Calgary, Banff and points west intending to return by way of Toronto and Niagra Falls to their future home in Benton, N.B.
The bride’s gong away dress was of striped brown broadcloth with hat to match. The presents which were beautiful and expensive consisted of cut glass, silver, linen and cutlery besides several substantial cheques. The groom’s present to the bride was a handsome brooch of pearls.
This photo shows “Cousin Ralph Slipp, son of John G. Slipp & Annie M. Sharp, lived in Trochu, Alberta with Ethel & Oscar.
The noticeable feature of the company was the large number of Maritime Provinces people who were present including Mr. W. Dell Hartt and Miss Hartt formerly of Fredericton Jct., Mr. & Mrs. W. M. Black of Sackville and Moncton, Mr. and Mrs. Geo. E. Stopford and Aire Stopford of Fredricton, Mr. and Mrs. B. D. Branscomb of Baltimore, Mrs. Kinnear (nee McLeod) of Millstream N.B., Mrs E. A. Bambury and Mrs. Levi Thomson daughters of Senator Perley late of Sunbury Co., Guy McLeod of Saint John, Mr. & Mrs. Mr. and Mrs. Trueman Brundage of Amherst, besides Mr. and Mrs. Good and family, late of Millstream, Kings Co. All these are now residents of Saskatchewan yet have fond memories of Atlantic sea breezes and old N. B.
*recherche – Sought out with care; choice; of rare quality or elegance. (Webster’s dictionary)
About 60 descendants of Leonard and Elizabeth Slipp congregated on August 20th to 22nd, 2011 in Kings County, New Brunswick. The weekend included a riverboat cruise following the trail of our ancestors as they arrived in the region, a visit to the Gagetown Court House Museum where family artifacts on loan from the New Brunswick Museum were on display, a stop at the Merritt-Slipp Cemetery in Queenstown, and a BBQ at descendant Larry Slipp’s organic farm. Those who were able to stay till Monday had the opportunity to also visit the home of George Leonard Slipp in Sussex, N.B.
Here are a couple of shots from the gathering: (click images to view larger)
By all accounts, extensive planning by descendants Lynn Godwin and Doug McQuinn made the event a complete success. A future (even bigger) event is already under consideration.
We know from his death certificate that my Great Great Grandfather Richard Richards was “killed by horses running away instantly” in 1874. According to a gravestone at Bell’s Cemetery, this was the same year as the death of his daughter Etta and only a short time after the death of his wife Eliza – nee Hinton.
Delbert Connell & wife Ethel May (Richards) with daughter Della Jean Connell (my mother age 14) in front of the Richards House. Family photo taken on Sept 1, 1930.
The gravestone at Bell’s Cemetery is situated almost directly across from the family’s home at Lot 15 Con 10 in Elizabethtown Township.
This is just a stones throw west of the Peer Homestead we visited recently at Bells Crossing, where Lucy Adeline Peer (Ethel May Richard’s mother) grew up. Lucy married William Henry Richards, the Richards’ eldest son who inherited the property twenty years after his father’s death.
On July 16, 2011 a number of descendants and their relatives gathered on Rocksprings Road near Bells Crossing at the rear of Elizabethtown Township. We were looking for the home of Reuben and Margaret Peer.
Direct descendants of Reuben and Margaret Peer standing in front of the old Peer House (from left to right): John Charlton, Pamela Vittorio, Miranda Beninger, Betty Britschgi, Julie Hinton, Gary Bushaw.
We had a couple of pieces of information to go on.
More before and after photos of Julie Hinton’s and Pamela Vittorio’s efforts to save family gravestones from ongoing destruction from lichen. These photos were taken by Julie at the North Watertown Cemetery in Watertown, New York.
What is lichen?
Lichen (pronounced liken) is a simple slow-growing plant that typically forms a low crustlike, leaflike, or branching growth on rocks, walls, and trees. Lichens are composite plants consisting of a fungus that contains photosynthetic algal cells. Their classification is based upon that of the fungal partner, which in most cases belongs to the subdivision Ascomycotina, and the algal partners are either green algae or cyanobacteria. Lichens obtain their water and nutrients from the atmosphere and can be sensitive indicators of atmospheric pollution.
Pamela Vittorio, Julie Hinton, Ruth & John Charlton
This past week, three descendants of Reuben Peer Sr. and his wife Margaret Keough (Chio) met in Ogdensburg, New York to visit the Ogdensburg cemetery and the graves of the Chio family, related to Margaret. Pamela is descended from Reuben Peer Jr, Julie from Clarissa Lovina Peer and myself from Lucy Adelaine Peer. Ruth shares our interest in genealogy and has done research with me on the Peer family.
This was the first time we had met Pamela who had put two and two together and proved the connection between Margaret Keough of Elizabethtown Township in Ontario and the Chio family of Ogdensburg. She did this using census records and the information from Clarissa’s Lost But is Found journal entry.
During our recent trip to England we spent our first day in Durham searching through St. Cuthbert’s Churchyard trying to do what my Grandfather had failed to do when he visited the site in 1953. He had returned from Canada to the city of his youth for one last time, trying to locate and pay respect to his first wife’s grave. She had died suddenly while they were visiting his parents at 26 Western Hill. It was a blow that neither my grandfather nor my father who was only six years old ever fully recovered from.
The churchyard today is in pretty rough shape. It is largely overgrown with many stinging nettles but was dominated during out visit with these pretty little yellow buttercup type flowers. The ground is very uneven with many of the graves fallen in upon themselves. Many of the stones are damaged, leaning badly or knocked over so we knew our work was cut out for us. What chance had we of finding a marker for Helen Charlton?
All we had to go on was a photo I once saw of the burial site. I remembered from the photo that has long since disappeared that the grave was beside a wrought iron fence. Still, so much time had past. The burial and the photo were from 1919. There was no guarantee that the fence would still be there, or the stone for that matter. The only thing to do was comb the entire churchyard. We knew it would take some time.
We were also looking out for My great grandparents who we knew were also buried in the churchyard.
Special thanks to Tony Tremblett of Vancouver for sending me this wonderful gift and remarkable family artifact.
Tony recently wrote to me:
“I have in my possession a book with a note written and signed by Rev Robert Charlton of Arcola Saskatchewan. He writes about his candidacy for ministry with the Methodist Conference in Regina, Saskatchewan, and about his immigration to Canada from England on September 19, 1906. …The book itself is in poor condition but the note says he bought it in Montreal the day after he arrived in Canada.”
Robert Charlton
Arcola
Sask.
Sept 19th 1906
The above date – is the date when I arrived in Canada from my home in England. 26 Western Hill Durham City.
At the Methodist Conference in Regina the following year – June 1907 I was accepted by the Conference as a Candidate for the Ministry. I was ordained at Moose Jaw in 1912 – and “accepted into full connection” -
The book was purchased in Montreal at the Methodist Book Room the day after I arrived in Canada.
This entry is made in the office of the Church in Shawinigan Falls Que. July 16 195?
Robt. Charlton
Note: The date in the inscription looks like 1957, however Rev. Charlton died in 1956, the year I was born. Could the date be 1951? - John
A rare photo (perhaps the only one) of my mother’s first and second husbands. Bill (left) and Wendell met each other at Palm Plaza in Daytona Beach. Photograph by Della Charlton.
After the men had finished their first set and had sat down to enjoy some of the fantastic fare on offer, Keith told us that in addition to being a Morris dancer, he was an educator, historian and author and was in the process of preparing a book of “Interesting Ancestors”. 
