Society of the Cincinnati...

I have been doing a little reading about Shay's Rebellion. Why you ask? Well as my ancestor General William Shepard was one of the major players in this incident, I thought it might be relevant to my research.

I won't be going into the rebellion as this time, but in my reading of the incident I ran across an interesting tidbit about William. He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati.

The Anderson House where the Society's archives and main branch resides.

According to Wikipedia and the Society's own website this organization was created in 1783  at the Continental Army encampment at Newburgh, New York. The concept was started by Henry Knox and would consist of only those officers who has served 3 years and were above a certain rank. It is the nation's oldest patriotic organization, founded by officers of the Continental Army and their French counterparts who served together in the American Revolution. Its mission was to promote knowledge and appreciation of the achievement of American independence and to foster fellowship among its members.

William joined the Massachusetts group.

There was some controversy when the organization first started as many Americans were fearful that the group was trying to create an hereditary aristocracy. The group was a bit shocked by the accusations, and decided to change a few of it's policy's and rules to alleviate some of the fears of the American citizens, the main one being it's restriction of hereditary membership to the eldest son.

The group continues to this day. If you want to read more about them check out wiki or go to their web site: http://societyofthecincinnati.org/.

A little cemetery visit...

Seeing as it is close to Halloween, (my favorite holiday), I thought this bit of news was very appropriate to share.

I have been going over Shaw research the last week or so as you can tell from my previous post where I found Montral and Charlotte's marriage record. So here is a little cemetery visit without having to leave the comfort of home.

Below is a link to the Shaw Cemetery on Jett Hill in Clemont County, Ohio. The local genealogical society has taken pics of all the headstones found in the cemetery along with a few landscape shots. This is where John and Idea (Webb) Shaw are buried, along with other related family members.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohclecgs/cemeteries/shaw/index.html

Courtesy of the Clermont County Genealogical Society

Back in the saddle again...

Well I took off a whole summer to rejuvenate and renew. That will be why you saw very few posts for the last few months.

But here I am back with a little tidbit. I have been doing a little housekeeping of my genealogy software starting with me and going back each generation. I am making sure that I actually have documents to back up my findings for me, my parents, my grandparents, etc. It's easy to know the dates and places from such recent events, but in the process one has to still back all the information up with actual documents.

So here my first effort, a marriage record for Montral Goble Shaw and Charlotte Hatch, from Cayuhoga County, Ohio found online at Ancestry.com:

It is surprising how many documents one thinks one has when they are working with their more recent family history. Now is the time to rectify that situation.