Grandma's Granny's Family Album

Bessie Spence Robertson in 1914, Boston (see Spence Pedigree chart) At what age do you feel comfortable sending your child off into the unknown alone, on a trip far away from home?   When I sent my children on a plane to see their grandmother, there were 3 of them, age 9 to 16, and they had a familiar adult picking them up on each end, yet I had some friends who wouldn't dream of sending their children anywhere without them.  And when my 16-year-old lost his bus ticket and had to spend the night in LaGuardia New York City Airport, I was on the phone with an agent booking him a new flight. 100 years ago, with no cell phones or planes, few telephones in houses, at what age would you send a girl to a foreign country a day's train ride away?  To live with strangers?  16?  What if there was a known sex trafficking ring operating in the area?  25?  I annoyed my daughter with frequent travel admonitions when she was criss-crossing Virginia during the time that a murderer was kidnappin

Springhill, Nova Scotia This stylish couple is my mother, Anne Robertson Sulzbach, and her cousin, Harmon Spence Jr.  (see Spence Pedigree Chart) They are both 29 in this picture.  They were always close because they were the same age, and when you have 12 kids in the family, even a year makes a difference. They are on their way to a New Year's Eve dance in, I forget, Parrsboro?  Amherst?  My mother used to tell me about these dances and I always felt left out that I couldn't go.  This was, of course, 15 years before I was born. The big story was the moose.  One night, driving home from the dance on the dark wooded road, you can see how high the snow is piled, they saw a creature in the woods beside them.   "Look, a deer!"  said my mother. "That's no deer," said Junior.  "That's a moose!" The moose took an interest in them and decided to accompany them home.  As a kid, I didn't understand the significance of this - I knew that moose wer

 All the stars aligned for a lovely Christmas present for me.  (see West-Presbury Pedigree chart)  Look at these gorgeous family trees from the Library of Virginia!  Above is the Fisher Family and below is the Carter Family.  The Carters are the most important family of Virginia, above the Lees and the Washingtons. A visual representation of how the Fischer/Fisher family split, with literally one branch staying in Germany and the other coming to America. All the tiny names. Having tried to lay out charts in perspective, I cannot imagine the hours it took to figure out space for each descendant in accurate place. It may look like a weeping willow, but all those leaves are names of children, divided, and sub-divided, and sub-divided again. As you can see, I spent a wonderful vacation day at the Library of Virginia drinking in their genealogy section and absorbing the march of women's suffrage in Virginia.  After going thru the parking garage, validated ticket, elevator, appointment