Monday, March 3, 2008

War of 1812 - Joseph Orne's Service

I am researching Joseph Orne's service in the War of 1812, since I had read a comment previously that he had been a POW in Ontario during that war. Today I found abstracts from the payrolls of regiments stationed at Burlington, VT. This is a "pay roll of a company of infantry commanded by Catpain Benjamin S Edgerton, of the Eleventh Regiment of th United States, for the months of September and October 1812":

(You can click to enlarge.)

He is listed here with an Ebenezer Orne. Not certain which Ebenezer this is -- there are several in the family. My hunch is that he's a family member. Joseph had a son named Ebenezer, born in 1796, and it's most likely him.

Keep in mind that I'm simply guessing that this Joseph Orne maps to the Joseph Orne in our tree (all I have is a name and a state to go by) but I do not yet have the pension files or other documentation to verify this. My degree of confidence is about 85%.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Will Glass / E J Rubottom Photo

This is E J Rubottom and Will Glass - they traveled to the Yukon together and were related. E J was married to Nellie Hickey, Will's Cousin (they had the same grandparents, Patrick and Bridget Hickey).

E J Rubottom was an interesting guy. I found four patent applications issued to him (you can see one here), two of which were beer-related. Another invention was mentioned in a local paper, but I haven't found the patent application, yet.

Jim Shaw (who is descended from the Hickeys) gave me this photo. He is extremely knowledgeable about Felton history and these families. Here's what he said:
"BTW, Mary Shaw's father, Michael Hickey, was foreman of the Lime Kilns for Henry Cowell. We have a very pretty bowl, made in Prussia, that was a gift to Michael from Henry Cowell. Also at the ranch are large portraits of Michael Hickey and his wife Catherine Quinn Hickey. They are buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Santa Cruz.

"In addition to Mary and Nellie, there were two boys, John, who died in a train wreck two years to the day before Frank Shaw was killed in 1900, and Dan Hickey, who was wharfinger on the Santa Cruz wharf. He was found drowned off the wharf in 1923 and the family always suspected bootleggers.

"Dan's daughter Kate married and had a son, Harold Soper. After she was widowed she married a cousin, Charlie Glass, also an engineer on the South Pacific Coast. I interviewed Harold Soper about 1992, but my tape is packed away. I'll find it one of these days and transcribe it. I also interviewed Red Sinnott, another cousin from that side.

"Ok, I found the photo I was hoping to find. It's from a tintype I scanned. This is E. J. Rubottom, husband of Nellie Hickey, and Will Glass, when they went on the Alaskan Gold Rush."

I found this second photo in the book "Santa Cruz"--- a history of the Santa Cruz area:


Mary Hickey Shaw and Nellie Hickey Rubottom were sisters. They are your great-great aunts (granddaughters of your great-great-great-grandparents).

The date on this photo is incorrect. It was probably taken in 1913 at the time that Nellie was widowed (at which point she moved in with Mary, also a widow). Roy Shaw (the boy in the photo) was born in 1899.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

How to turn off email alerts

If you continue to get daily alerts from ancestry.com when new content is added, and want to turn it off, here's how to do it (Click any image below for an enlarged view):


1) In the top right corner of any screen, click "My Account":

2) On the Account Options screen, in the right sidebar, click the "Update your newsletter and marketing email preferences" link:

On the Email Preferences screen, in the right sidebar, click the "My Alerts" link:

On the Alerts screen, click "Change delivery options":

Click the "Off" radio button for each of the alerts you want to turn off (or switch the frequency as desired), and when you're done, click the orange save button at the bottom of the screen.