52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #4, Célina (Cloutier) Rabideau

For ancestor #4, I'm going to depart from the pattern of previous profiles, and focus on an ancestor about whom I know very little: Célina Cloutier, my second great-grandmother, wife of Louis Rabideau. Célina represents one of my biggest brick walls – the only one of my eight maternal g-g-grandparents whose origin and parents I have not yet been able to identify. Almost everything about Célina is a mystery: her parents, her place and date of birth, where she is buried, and even her exact name.

The first inkling we have of Célina is in the 25 Sep 1869 record of marriage intentions¹ in Milan, New Hampshire between "Lewis Robadeau," age 19, and "Cyntha Criaque," age 17 (implying birth ca. 1851-52), both residents of Milan and both born in "Lancristof."² His parents are given (Lewis and Mary Robadeau), but hers are not. And while it may seem a leap to connect "Cyntha Criaque" with "Célina Cloutier", bear with me as I trace the connections.

Marriage intentions for "Lewis Robadeau" and "Cyntha Criaque", 25 Sep 1869

Not quite seven months later, their first child was born. A baptismal record from Saint-Michel-de-Sherbrooke Parish (Sherbrooke, Quebec) gives the baby's date of birth.³ Roughly translated, it says "The 11th of July 1870, we baptized Louis, born the 15th of April last of the legitimate marriage of Louis Robida, laborer, and Célina Cloutier. Godfather Louis Robida, godmother Marie St. Cyr..." The baby's godparents are Louis's parents, named in his marriage intentions. Baby Louis was not born in Sherbrooke, however; census and other records (including the 1870 U.S. census two months after his birth) all give his birthplace as New Hampshire. No doubt this explains the three-month delay between his birth and baptism: his parents waited until they could travel back home so the grandparents could witness the baptism of their new grandson.

Baptismal record for Louis Robida

Célina appears in just two U.S. censuses. In 1870, "Silena" Rabideau, age 21 (implying birth ca. 1848-49), is living in Milan with husband Lewis, age 20, and Lewis Jr., age 2 months, born in April in New Hampshire – matching the birth date from his baptismal record.⁴

Lewis Rabideau household, 1870 U.S. Census, Milan, Coos, New Hampshire

By 1880, "Loi" (age 31) and "Salina" Rabida have three more children, all daughters, and are living in Berlin.⁵ Despite a major discrepancy in "Salina's" age (she's again listed as 21, probably a slip of the pen for 31), and the odd spelling of several names, it seems fairly certain that this is the right family; "Loi" père et fils are both about the right ages, both parents were born in Canada, and all the children were born in New Hampshire

"Loi" Rabida household, 1880 U.S. Census, Berlin, Coos, New Hampshire

As far as I know, Célina died 24 Jan 1881 in Berlin, "a. 25 [sic]."⁶ Louis remarried (to Marie-Beatrice Croteau) almost immediately; the 1900 census indicates they had been married 19 years, and their first son, Thomas, was born in Feb 1882, followed by Francis and Melvin at three-year intervals.⁷

Lewis Rabideau household, 1900 U.S. Census, Milan, Coos, New Hampshire

So far I have located only one marriage record among Célina's children which names both parents, that of Adeline ("Allene" in the 1880 census), which gives her parents as Louis Rabida of Milan Corner, N.H., and "Marie Clouthier", deceased.⁸ (This is the only record where her name is given as Marie, but it was extremely common for Catholic girls in Quebec to be given Marie as a first forename; most likely she was baptized Marie Célina.)

Thomas Castonguay - Adeline Rabida marriage, Brunswick, Maine, 1899

Her brother Louis's marriage record, unfortunately, does not give his mother's name, and I have found no further records of Xalia or Marie. By the time he married, young Louis had become Peter L(ouis) Rabideau, probably to distinguish himself from his father.⁹

Peter L. Rabideau - Evie M. Taylor marriage, Berlin, New Hampshire, 1894

Finally, we come to my great-grandfather's obituary.¹⁰ Peter L. Rabideau was "born April 15, 1870 at West Milan, N.H., the son of Lewis and Cynthia Cloutier Rabideau." Here we have confirmation that Peter L. really is Louis/Lewis Jr. – his date of birth and his mother's surname – and the only other appearance of his mother's name as Cynthia, making it credible that the "Cyntha Criaque" of the marriage intentions is actually Célina Cloutier. The surviving sister and half-brothers mentioned also link him to Louis Rabideau and both his wives.

In summary, we know that:

• Her name was probably Marie Célina Cloutier, sometimes called Cynthia.
• She was born in Quebec ca. 1848-1852, possibly in Saint-Christophe d'Arthabaska.
• She married Louis Rabideau after 25 Sep 1869, probably in Milan, N.H.
• She had four children, Louis/Lewis Jr. (aka Peter L.), Xalia, Marie, and Adeline/Allene.
• She died probably 24 Jan 1881 in Berlin, N.H.

Do any of my readers have any other information about Célina/Cynthia Cloutier, her parents, or her daughters Xalia and Marie? If so, please leave a comment, or contact me by email. I'd love to be able to fill in those blanks on my tree!

(Note: This post is in response to Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge at No Story Too Small.)

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SOURCES

1. Milan, Coos County, New Hampshire, Births, marriages, deaths 1854-1881, p. 45, "Lewis Robadeau" and "Cyntha Criaque", 1869; digital images, "New Hampshire, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1636-1947," FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 18 Jan 2014).
2. This appears to be a corruption of "Saint-Christophe" with an "L" substituted for the "S"; in the script of time, the two capital letters are easily confused, though in this case the letter definitely appears to be an "L". The town clerk may have copied the information into the permanent register from a loose page written by someone else. Saint-Christophe-d'Arthabaska is a parish municipality in Arthabaska County, Quebec, close to the location where Louis Robida (Célina's husband) and his parents were enumerated in the 1861 Canada East census.
3. Saint-Michel-de-Sherbrooke Parish (Sherbrooke, Quebec), Baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1869-1874, pp. 140-141, baptism 146, Louis Robida, 1870; digital images, “Quebec, Catholic Parish Registers, 1621-1900,” FamilySearch, (https://familysearch.org : accessed 18 May 2012).
4. 1870 U.S. Census, Coos County, New Hampshire, Milan, p. 17 (penned) 135 (stamped), dwelling 137, family 130, Lewis Rabideau household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com : accessed 18 Jan 2014).
5. 1880 U.S. Census, Coos County, New Hampshire, Berlin, ED 29, p. 2-B, dwelling 11, family 16, Loi Rabida household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com : accessed 18 Jan 2014). 
6. Marshall Kenneth Kirk, comp., Ancestry of Kathleen Murphy Kirk, ca 1990, Kirk-Murphy Family Charts, privately held by the author, Virginia Beach, Virginia. This chart, inherited from the suthor's brother, gives the date and place of death (and quotes the age, which is almost certainly incorrect) and states that the death was "recorded at Holy Family [Church], Gorham [N.H.]." So far I have not found among his papers an actual document or copy from which the information was obtained.
7. 1900 U.S. Census, Coos County, New Hampshire, Milan, ED 268, sheet 5-A, dwelling 96, family 97, L??is Rabideau household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com : accessed 18 Jan 2014).
8. “Maine, Marriage Records, 1705-1922,” database and digital images, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com : accessed 30 Jun 2012), Thomas Castonguay Jr. and Adeline Rabida, Brunswick, Maine, 1899.
9. “New Hampshire, Marriage Records, 1637-1947,” index and digital images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 1 Apr 2012), Peter L. Rabideau and Evie M. Taylor, Berlin, New Hampshire, 1894.
10. "Peter L. Rabideau" obituary, Lewiston (Maine) Daily Sun, 17 Dec 1946, p. 2; digital images, Google News Archive (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=IT5EXw6i2GUC : accessed 28 May 2013).
    

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #3, Kate Maria (Rand) Hodsdon

Time for a female ancestor! For ancestor #3, I have selected one of my great-grandmothers – specifically, my father's maternal grandmother.

Kate Maria Rand was born 19 Apr 1855¹ in Andover, Maine, the sixth of eight children of Nahum Alonzo Rand (a farmer and stone mason) and Dolly Brister. We have only the barest hints of her childhood. She was attending school by the age of 5,² and ultimately completed the first year of high school.³ In Jun 1870 she was living with another Andover family as a "domestic servant", but had also attended school within the previous year.⁴ In those days, youngsters from outlying farms might live with a family in town, doing household work to pay for their board, in order to attend high school,⁵ and quite possibly that's the reason for Kate's position as a domestic.

Our next glimpse of Kate's life is the birth of her first child, Walter, in Mar 1875.⁶ The details are hazy, but it appears that Kate spent some time in Philadelphia in 1874 – probably visiting her two brothers who lived there at the time – and made the acquaintance of a local electrician named Jacob Dedier.⁷ Kate brought her baby home to Maine (or perhaps returned home before his birth), where her parents adopted the child and raised him as Walter C. Rand.⁸

Kate Maria Rand Hodsdon (ca 1900?)⁹

The following year, Kate married a farmer with the lengthy and improbable name of Silas Marchant Hillman Hodsdon (he sensibly dispensed with the "Silas" and "Hillman" and went by "March" most of his life) from nearby Byron, Maine.¹⁰ They settled at Farmer's Hill in Andover, where they had six children: Luther Marchant, Sarah Elizabeth "Sadie", Mary Milliken (my paternal grandmother), Essie Gertrude, Grace, and Gardner P. Hodsdon. Gardner may have been something of a surprise (but we hope a happy one), arriving a full eight years after Grace's birth, when Kate was 40. We can only imagine her grief at then losing her youngest son to diphtheria in 1908 at the age of only 13.¹¹

The rest of her children had all left the nest and married by the time March Hodsdon died late in 1911,¹² and she went to live in Lewiston, Maine, with her daughter Mary, who had married veterinarian Chester Kirk ten years earlier. Kate was there for the birth of Mary's children, Geneva in 1917 and Roger (my father) in 1919.

Four generations: "Grammie Hodge" (center) holding great-grandaughter Laura Jean Leach,
grandaughter Ellen Hall Leach (left), daughter Sadie Hodsdon Hall (right), ca 1929¹³

Growing up with his grandmother in the home, recalled my father, meant learning to eat with dispatch. "Grammie Hodge" cooked and served up the meal and was always the last to sit down to the table – but she was also the first to finish eating. And when Grammie was done eating, she immediately set about clearing the table. So you either learned to keep up with Grammie, or risked having your half-finished plate whisked away to the kitchen right out from under your nose.

Kate M Hodsdon grave marker, Woodlawn Cemetery, Andover, Maine

Kate remained with the Kirks until a few weeks before her death on 6 Oct 1940 in Roxbury, Maine, at the home of her daughter Grace (Hodsdon) Thomas.¹⁴ She was buried with March, Gardner, two of her daughters, and a son-in-law in Woodlawn Cemetery in Andover.¹⁵

Marchant Hodsdon family gravestone, Woodlawn Cemetery, Andover, Maine

(Note: This post is in response to Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge at No Story Too Small.)

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SOURCES

1. "Maine, Births and Christenings, 1739-1900," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 17 Jan 2014), entry for Kate Maria Rand, 19 Apr 1855.
2. 1860 U.S. Census, Oxford County, Maine, Andover, p. 67, dwelling 492, family 491, “Naam” Rand household; digital images, ProQuest, HeritageQuest Online (access through participating libraries : accessed 12 Mar 2012).
3. 1940 U.S. Census, Androscoggin County, Maine, population schedule, Lewiston city, ward 1, ED 1-28, sheet 2A, household 34, Mary M Kirk household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com : accessed 2 Apr 2012).
4. 1870 U.S. Census, Oxford County, Maine, Andover, p. 6, dwelling 36, family 37, Kate Rand in Henry W Poor household; digital images, ProQuest, HeritageQuest Online (access through participating libraries : accessed 11 Mar 2012). 
5. Kate Hall Franklin Chadwick and Nancy Franklin Earsy, A Home-Made Life: Memoirs of Kate Hall Franklin Chadwick (Lexington, Mass.: YSRAE Publishing Co., 1995), p. 14. Kate Rand Hodsdon's granddaughter, Kate Hall, recalled that "In order to go to high school, Mother [Sadie Hodsdon Hall] ,,, lived with different families in Andover, working for their board... Aunt Gracie had a similar arrangement when she went to high school." It seems quite likely that the young Kate Rand may also have attended high school under the same circumstances as did her daughters a generation later.
6. 1900 U.S. Census, Oxford County, Maine, Andover, ED 177, sheet 7B, dwelling 162, family 164, Walter C Rand in Marchant S “Hodgman” household; digital images, ProQuest, HeritageQuest Online (access through participating libraries : accessed 11 Mar 2012).
7. "New Hampshire, Marriage Records, 1637-1947," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 11 Apr 2012), Walter C. Rand and Ellen E. Adley, 1906; Walter's father is given as Jacob "Didgere", an electrician born and resident in Pennsylvania. While this name is not found anywhere else, a Jacob Dedier (listed in censuses and city directories variously as a wood turner, electrician, and tin worker) lived near the Rand brothers in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia during this time period.
8. Chadwick and Earsy, A Home-Made Life, p. 14. "Born in Philadelphia, [Uncle Walter] was the first child of my Grandmother Kate Maria Rand Hodsdon. Her mother, Dolly Brister Rand, adopted Uncle Walter when [Kate] returned from Philadelphia with her infant. Uncle Walter wa raised by Great Grandmother Rand and her husband, although it was no secret that he was Grammie Hodge's son." However, Walter always gave his birthplace as Maine in the censuses and in his marriage record.
9. Kate Maria Rand Hodsdon portrait, possibly ca 1900; digital image scanned from the original in 2012 and privately held by the author, Virginia Beach, Virginia. The original is privately held by the author's brother, a great-grandson of Kate Hodsdon, who received it from his aunt Geneva Kirk, Mary Hodsdon Kirk's daughter.
10. "Maine, Marriages, 1771-1907," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal : accessed 17 Jan 2014), Marchant S. Hodsdon and Kate N. [sic] Rand, 25 Nov 1876, Byron, Maine.
11. “Maine, Death Records, 1617-1922,” database and digital images, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com : accessed 16 Jan 2014), Gardner Hodsdon, 25 Jun 1908.
12. “Maine, Death Records, 1617-1922,” database and digital images, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com : accessed 27 Apr 2012), Marchant S. Hodsdon, 4 Oct 1911. 
13. Chadwick and Earsy, A Home-Made Life, p. 45, figure 3. 
14. “Andover Obituaries”, transcriptions, Robert A. Spidell, Andover, Maine (http://www.andovermaine.com : accessed 28 Apr 2012), “Kate (Rand) Hodsdon, 1885-1940” obituary, ca Oct 1940, citing “Obituary from an unidentified and undated local newspaper”.
15. Woodlawn Cemetery (Andover, Oxford County, Maine), Marchant Hodsdon family monument and Kate M. Hodsdon marker, read and photographed by the author, 15 Aug 2012.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #2, Silas Kirk

I had always been vaguely puzzled about the fact that my paternal grandfather, his parents, and their families, were buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Auburn, Maine, rather than across the Androscoggin River in Lewiston. My grandfather, Chester Kirk, lived the last 39 years of his life in Lewiston, raising my father and aunt there. His parents, Silas and Sarah (Sukeforth) Kirk, had spent at least 25 years in Freeport, Maine, before Sarah's death there in 1905, after which Silas moved to Lewiston to live with his son until his own death in 1909. So why Auburn?

The answer lay in a brief mention in Silas's obituary, an 1873 land ownership map of Auburn, and two names on the gravestone.

Obituary of Silas Kirk, Lewiston Daily Sun, 10 May 1909

When Silas died on his 82nd birthday in 1909, his obituary¹ noted that "Over 30 years ago he came to Auburn and owned a farm where Mt. Auburn cemetery is now located." It was no surprise to me that he had lived in Auburn – Silas, Sarah, and Chester were enumerated in Ward 2 of the city in the 1870 census – but until I read the obituary, I had no idea exactly where.

I located an 1873 land ownership map² of Auburn, Maine, and sure enough, there in Ward 2 is the house labeled "S. Kirk", and it appears there was already a cemetery there, just around the corner from the homestead. (Click on the image to see a larger view.)

Excerpt from 1873 land ownership map of Auburn, Androscoggin County, Maine

Curious as to where the house and cemetery lay with respect to present-day Mount Auburn Cemetery, I pulled up the area on Google maps and overlaid the 1873 map. I had to distort the land map somewhat to make it line up, and either the shores of Lake Auburn have changed considerably or the old map was not too reliable, but several key roads are clearly in virtually the same locations (notably the road with the sharp bend and the adjacent triangle just west of the tip of Lake Auburn; the road that curves around Central Maine Community College east of the lake; and the fork where Silas lived). And there, in the red circle, is Mt. Auburn Cemetery, exactly where the old cemetery was located and with Silas's house on the periphery.

Land ownership map overlaid on present-day Google map

All right, now it's easy to see that Silas did have a connection to the area... but the family had moved to Freeport by 1880, and had lived there much longer than they did in Auburn. So I might have expected Sarah, then Silas, to have been buried in Freeport, or even back in Knox County (Silas was born in Warren and Sarah in Washington, Maine). No, there was more than just nostalgia for the old farm going on here, and it's revealed on the last four lines on the gravestone.

Silas Kirke family gravestone, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Auburn, Maine

This stone³ was clearly erected well after Silas's death, quite possibly after Chester's death in 1939 (Chester and his family are on the other side of the stone) – it's not likely that a two-year error in his date of death would have been made otherwise. (The odd spelling of the last name, with the added "E", seems to have been something that Silas adopted in his later years; no other records have this spelling, with the exception of Sarah's death record, and no one else in the family ever used it. Note that even Silas's obituary used "Kirk".) It reveals that Chester was not an only child, as it would appear from census records: he had two little sisters, Abbie and Mabel, each born and buried between two consecutive census years.

Five-and-a-half-year-old Abbie died in 1867; two-year-old Mabel in 1874. Noting that the land ownership map dates to 1873, it would seem likely that these children died while the Kirks were living in Auburn. And in fact, a little more research revealed that both children did die in Auburn, and Mabel was born there (Abbie was born in Washington, Maine).⁴ Almost certainly they were buried in the original old cemetery on the farm property; it would be logical for Silas to retain the rights to the cemetery plot when he sold the farm. And now it makes perfect sense that Silas and Sarah were buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery with their two little girls, and that Chester and his family later joined them there.

(Note: This post is in response to Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge at No Story Too Small.)

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SOURCES

1. “Silas Kirk” obituary, Lewiston (Maine) Daily Sun, 10 May 1909, p. 8; digital images, Google News Archive (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=IT5EXw6i2GUC : accessed 7 Jan 2014).
2. "U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860-1918", database and digital images, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com : accessed 7 Oct 2012), database entry for S. Kirk, image of map of City of Auburn, Androscoggin County, Maine (1873); citing Library of Congress Collection Number G&M_1, Roll Number 1.
3. Mount Auburn Cemetery, Auburn, Androscoggin County, Maine, Kirke monument, read and photographed by the author, 10 Nov 2007.
4. Greenleaf Cilley and Jonathan P. Cilley, The Mount Desert Widow: Genealogy of the Maine Gamble Family (Rockland, Maine: Knox County Historical and Genealogical Magazine, 1895), p. 170; digital images, Internet Archive, (http://archive.org/details/mountdesertwidow00cill : accessed 5 Mar 2012).

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #1, William George Murphy

Amy Johnson Crow, at No Story Too Small, issued this New Year's challenge to bloggers:

The challenge: have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor.  

Needing some inspiration for my newly-launched Pine Trees and Pedigrees, I thought this would be just the thing to provide the incentive I need to keep my blog current. But who to start off with, out of the 168 ancestors I have identified going back through my 7x great-grandparents, not to mention all the collateral relatives? (Okay, so all those aunts and uncles aren't technically my ancestors – I'm not directly descended from them – but I'm going to use a somewhat looser definition of "ancestor" here. They're my relatives, after all.) I decided to begin with someone on my mother's side of the family: my grandfather, Bill Murphy, who I never knew (he died five years before I was born).

William G. Murphy, date unknown

William George Murphy was born 20 May 1886 in the (extremely) rural community of Hebron in Lot 8 on Prince Edward Island, Canada. He was the second of eleven children and the first son of farmer Dominic Murphy and Rose Ann McIntyre, and was baptized on 25 Jul 1886 in St. Mary's Church in "the Brae", a nearby and also extremely rural community.

I know little of his childhood, except that "Willy" grew up with five sisters and five brothers (though "grew up with" might not be an accurate description when it came to the youngest siblings – Bernard, the baby of the family, was nearly 21 years William's junior), attended school through eighth grade, and eventually decided, along with several of his brothers, to give up farming and make a new life in the United States.

His uncle Lot (and, I think, several other uncles and aunts) had emigrated and settled in Newburyport, Massachusetts, about the time William was born, and around 1904 William's grandparents had followed their children to Newburyport. By 1913, William, his older sister Mary Ann, and brothers John J. and Joseph had all emigrated; Mary Ann and John J. were both married, and the three brothers had moved to Berlin, New Hampshire (Mary Ann remained in Newburyport, where her husband had been born). William became a house painter, and his brothers went to work in the Cascade paper mills.

Bill Murphy (right) with a fellow painter and unknown man in back, date unknown

Then in 1914, his father Dominic died back on P.E.I. William returned home for the funeral, and then made arrangements for his mother Rose Ann and the seven younger children to pack up and move to Berlin. The family arrived on 5 Nov 1914 at the Vanceboro, Maine, border crossing and headed for Berlin. Over the next few years, most of the older children married and set up their own households in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. William served briefly in the U.S. Army during World War One, and was naturalized in 1918. Not until 1922 did he marry Glenna Rabideau and finally leave the nest.

William George Murphy (left) with unknown fellow soldier, 1918

Bill and Glenna had a daughter, Kathleen (my mother), and soon moved to Lewiston, Maine, where another daughter, Theresa, arrived. Aside from a short sojourn in Texas in the late 1920s, the family remained in Lewiston, and Bill continued to ply his painting trade there, until his death on 15 Oct 1946 at the VA hospital in Togus, Maine. He is buried in the Mount Hope Catholic Cemetery in Lewiston.

William G. Murphy's gravestone, Mount Hope Cemetery, Lewiston, Maine

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: My Ancestor Score

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings issues a weekly "challenge" to have some Saturday Night Genealogy Fun. For the premiere of Pine Trees and Pedigrees, I decided to take tonight's What's Your Ancestor Score? challenge and find out how "complete" my genealogy is. Check out Randy's post at the link for some background; in a nutshell, you count up the number of direct ancestors you have identified, as a percentage of the total possible number of direct ancestors through at least 10 generations (more for "extra credit") starting with yourself as generation 1. Here are my results:

I came up with the numbers by generating a 10-generation pedigree chart in Reunion, and counting up the number of boxes in each generation that actually had names in them. Well, some of the women have only first names... The chart shows the number of possible people and the number identified, in each generation and as running totals for all generations, and I calculated the percentage identified by generation and overall.

Perfect score through my great-great-grandparents, pretty close for the great-great-great-grands, and still quite respectable for g-g-g-g-grands – but it drops off pretty rapidly after that. For the 10-generation benchmark I end up at 169 identified out of 1,023 total, or 16.5%. Going back two more generations for extra credit, my score sinks to 5.0% (206 out of 4,095). Clearly I have my work cut out for me!

Welcome to Pine Trees and Pedigrees!

Pine Trees and Pedigrees is about my genealogical exploration of my family: primarily in Maine, but also in New Hampshire, Vermont, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec.

My major family lines (the four grandparents) include:

• Kirk (originally Kirkpatrick), in what is now Knox County, Maine
• Hodsdon (or Hodgdon), in Oxford County, Maine
• Murphy, immigrants from Prince Edward Island, Canada, to Coos County, New Hampshire
• Rabideau (originally Robidas or Rabida), immigrants from Quebec, Canada, to Coos County, New Hampshire

Stepping back a generation to my great-grandparents, I also follow the additional lines:

• Sukeforth (originally Suchfort), in what are now Knox, Lincoln, and Waldo Counties, Maine
• Rand, in Oxford County, Maine
• McIntyre, on Prince Edward Island, Canada
• Woodward, in Vermont and in Coos County, New Hampshire

Come along as I search out my pedigrees among the pines!

Gravestone of my great-great-grandfather Jabez Bradbury Kirk, Newcomb Cemetery, Warren, Maine