I haven't written about the milestones in my family tree for the past couple of years, but as I try to get back to a regular posting schedule, it's one of the topics I wanted to bring back. I find it interesting to look at what happened years ago in my family (obviously, or I wouldn't be doing genealogy!), and I like to make sure these people and events are remembered.
200 Years Ago
In January 1825, my 3x-great-grandfather Abel A. Lippincott, son of Stacy B. Lippincott and Alice Parker, was born in New Jersey. Because New Jersey is the real Quaker state, and because you can't go anywhere in New Jersey without tripping over lots of Lippincotts, I still don't have Abel's complete birth date or where in New Jersey he was born, because Lippincotts are just bloody hard to research. I wish I could spend a month or two at the New Jersey State Archives and do some in-person research to sort all this out. And if wishes were horses . . . .
150 Years Ago
Henry Heath, the great-great-grandfather of my aunt Mary McStroul and her sister Anna McStroul and the 3x-great-grandfather of my not-quite-cousin Angela Williams, died December 2, 1875 in Thurman, Warren County, New York. He was originally from Surrey, England, born roughly between 1816 and 1819 in Haslemere, although I still need to nail that down. He immigrated to the United States around 1838 and married Eliza Bullock in 1844 in Argyle, Washington County, New York. I have names for his parents and grandparents but little information beyond that. More research I need to catch up on!
100 Years Ago
My aunt
Dorothy "Dottie" Mae Sellers, daughter of Bertram Lynn Sellers and Elizabeth Leatherberry Sundermier, was born October 29, 1925 in Trenton, Mercer County, New Jersey. Technically Dottie was my half-aunt, because she was a child of my grandfather's first marriage. Grampa was still married to Elizabeth while he and my grandmother were living together and my father came along. (My father had no full siblings but had seven half-siblings, three from his mother and four from his father.) I met Dottie when I was about 11 or 12 and then stayed in touch with her the rest of her life, through my moves and hers. She lived to be 95 years old. I'm still
looking for the son she surrendered for adoption in 1945.
My great-great-grandfather
Victor Gordon, originally Avigdor Gershovich Gorodetsky, died January 26, 1925 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. He immigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire in 1914, bringing his two youngest sons with him but leaving his second wife behind (I was told by cousins that she did not want to come). He lived long enough to see his second-youngest daughter (of eight children) get married, on December 31, 1924, for which occasion a wonderful oversized family photograph with about three dozen people in it was made. I have a two-piece photocopy of the photograph; I'm working on getting it scanned and tiled so I can share it.
Henry Crawford, son of Wallace Crawford and Louisa, died April 25, 1925 in Upatoi, Muscogee County, Georgia at the age of about 69. He is the great-great-grandfather of my not-quite-cousin Angela Williams on her father's side. Henry was Black and born enslaved. In 1917 he and four family members sued Standard Oil for gross negligence for having misrepresented an explosive for kerosene lamp oil. Standard Oil settled out of court and they received payment for damages.
75 Years Ago
Richard Wesley Preuss, son of Richard Preuss and Donna Potter, was born March 14, 1950 in Missoula, Missoula County, Montana. He is my stepfather. He married my mother December 19, 1977 in Villa Tasso, Walton County, Florida, a small unincorporated community which might have had a grand total of about 200 people living in it. He used to be a paint and body man, and I learned a great appreciation for car bodywork because of him (although I still don't know why he painted my father's Chevelle BFY).
50 Years Ago
This is one of those years when there was a significant birth, marriage, and death.
In 2021 I wrote about my first cousin Andy Meckler turning 50. This time around, it's his brother,
Todd Meckler, who turns 50. They're the cousins I knew the most growing up, and it makes me feel really old to know that both of them will have hit the half-century mark.
Also on my mother's side of the family, her 1st cousin Yedida Marcia Amine, daughter of Moshe S. Amine and Florence Meckler, married Richard J. Merrill on December 24, 1975 in San Francisco, San Francisco County, California. Aviva was born exactly one year after my mother, on Armistice Day, so they had a special connection.
The other notable event of 1975 for my family was the death of my grandfather's brother,
George Moore "Dickie" Sellers, on March 26. One day Grampa was out of town, and when I asked why, my mother told me that his brother had died. To which my stunned reaction was, "Grampa has a brother?" It was the first I had heard of him. Several years later I met their youngest sister, Betty, who told me that
his nickname Dickie came from the Dickie Do Flicker. When I Google that, however, nothing comes up. When I get no results from Google, I tend to think something is wrong. Maybe it was an inside family joke.
