15 Aug Genealogist for Hire- August 15, 2020
Contents
What about our summer of 2020 Family Reunion?
This picture from the early 1900s was of my ancestor, Ephraim Bowen’s descendants.
Indeed, the pandemic has taken a toll on large gatherings.
Here is one family’s story:
“Her family reunion feels unsafe. But her 98-year-old grandma wants her there.
Denise Rowe voted against holding the reunion during the pandemic, upsetting her grandmother. They are one of many families at odds over big gatherings.”
Read in The Washington Post: https://apple.news/AmBNLETH5R0afofIIuq6ggw
Let Dancestors help you prepare for your next family reunion by capturing all of those pictures, stories, and historical documents for easy sharing at the gathering. Click the red button below and lets chat.
The Zoom Reunion
We are all getting pretty familiar with online video gatherings. Why not the family reunion? No one has to worry if Aunt Sally’s potato salad has set in the sun for too long!
Here is the tale of one family’s approach.
What were headrights?
In the colonial days, the Virginia Company of London and the Plymouth Company both used headrights to encourage settlement of their colonies.
Generally, it cost about six pounds to cross the Atlantic. If a colonist was too poor to pay their way, they could work off the debt as a contracted (indentured) servant generally for seven years.
The colonial companies would compensate the sponsor who paid for the transport with 50 acres of land. The headrights did not have to be claimed right away. Headrights could be traded or sold, leading to an informal market.
Some of the ingenious abuses of the system included multiple people claiming to transport the same person, claiming a headright for a person numerous times, and transporters claiming themselves each time they traveled from Britain back to North America.
Overall the system worked well in terms of bringing settlers to the colonies. Often the 50 acres that were granted were for lands where the companies did not have clear titles. That usually caused more problems with the native Americans that ended up with settlers on their lands.
Let Dancestors find out if your ancestors transported others or were transported for headrights!
Many times Great Grandpa Denis!
Humans have been interbreeding since the beginning of time. Read about a new ancestor courtesy of DNA. Any resemblance to that handsome 3rd cousin at the reunion?
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/archaic-human-ancestor-0014087
Dancestors won’t be able to directly connect you to Denis. We are good, but not that good!
