History in the kitchen

 

                                                                      A large kitchen with lots of gadgets

It has been a while since I baked anything but I volunteered to bring desert to my book club meeting and I had a hankering for gingerbread. That meant whipped cream, yum! But I needed a machine to whip it with. I thought immediately of the Mix Master my mum gifted me when she no longer baked due to a restricted diet. After cleaning the bowls etc., I took a closer look at the wiring. It looked dicey to me so I opted to use my old food processor instead. It took me a while to remember how to fit it together though. Now, after making the gingerbread and tasting a sample, it doesn't match what I remember. but then fondly remembered treats seldom do. In this case though, I think I picked a recipe I never made before. After a check of my old cookbooks, I think I've found the actual gingerbread I'm craving so will have to make that soon.

My recent attempts at baking highlighted for me the way things have changed in the kitchen. And, really it's one of the more fascinating rooms of old houses on display at historical sites. From the deep sinks and primitive ovens to the strange gadgets our forbears used, it's hard to think of those kitchens in action but then, we are used to one person cooking for the most part. Many of the homes I've toured featured large kitchens which would have a staff and many people to feed or, at the other end of the scale, a hearth and a primitive dwelling and a family eking by as best as they could. It all underlines how making meals has evolved over time.

                                                                 This spice cabinet was over 5 feet tall

DNA update

 

I signed up for two DNA courses on the Your DNA Guide site. They both started at the same time so it is hard going at the beginning. One of them is only for 10 weeks and the other is the Study Group which runs for a year. The shorter one, the DNA Skills Course, actually gets the participant to use their own DNA information to find out more about their own family lines through the use of genetic genealogy.

When I signed up for the more intense course, I planned on having my family tree DNA ready by filling in the collateral lines before I started. Funny how it seems there's lots of time before something starts and then it's a scramble to get even some of it done. So now part of my time is spent getting my tree in order and the other, trying to keep up with the lessons in both courses. I seem to be perpetually behind.

A bit of knowledge is rubbing off though as I look through my matches. I've decided to concentrate on my Ancestry match list to make life simpler. I just hope I've set a research question that can be answered with the use of DNA. The actual question is not in doubt, it's whether or not I have matches which can provide the answer. I hope that I do but I'm working on an English line and DNA testing in that country is not as widespread as it is in the US. I'll see how this goes but even if I don't come up with an answer I'll have learned the technique which I can use on other family lines. 

The ancestor you'd most like to meet

 

A holiday snap of my grandparents. 

My grandfather is the  gentleman on the left and my grandmother the woman in black

It was an interesting question. One used as a prompt for a short presentation at a meeting of my genealogy society. There were only two of us presenting and the person who went before me had a wonderful story full of information that her ancestor had left and that she had subsequently found. I love stories like that. They serve as inspiration for us who are searching.

My presentation had less of a story behind it and I'm more of a writer than a speaker but I think it went over well. The ancestor I focused on was my paternal grandfather, Charles Edwin Cavanagh. He died a few years before I was born, the same year my father married my mother.

My grandfather was single until 1915 when he married Ellen Myra Booth, a widow with 4 children then living (one had died), the oldest of which was 15, the youngest 4. Her husband, Henry Booth had died in March of 1913 of cirrhosis of the liver. Henry had been a beer house keeper and Ellen Myra kept the business going.

His circumstances changed drastically when he wed as he married into a ready-made family and a business. He and Ellen Myra had three children together, 3 boys of which my Dad was the eldest. It was at his father's insistence that he be given the name Booth as one of his middle names showing the importance of the family as a whole to his father. One of my cousins also told me that the older children liked their stepfather better that their own father. He certainly seems to have been a family oriented man.  

The power of researching in groups

 

                                                    The BCGS library where I spent time last weekend doing research

Remember those days hunched over a microfilm reader in a Family History Centre searching for that elusive record that would give you the next branch in your family tree or the census entry for the next ten years of your ancestors' lives? Present day researchers may not have memories of those times but I do. The work was painstaking but there was something about being with fellow researchers that made it more doable somehow. The majority of that kind of research has passed with genealogy databases giving us access to more and more information digitally.

It turns out that even accessing digital information goes better in company with fellow genealogists. Last weekend from Friday to Sunday, I got together with a group of researchers as we pursued out self-appointed research tasks. Mine was to add more branches to my Maidment/Rideout tree. It may be easier to find each individual census entry these days but it was still painstaking. Who knew there were so many children to follow up on? I stuck to my task for all three days. Even with indexes and digital records it took time to get those branches for the family tree.

I went old school, though, and wrote all the entries in a notebook. At this point I don't know what affect adding the new branches will have on my DNA matches, if any. Then again, my supposition that Harriet Maidment was Mary Rideout nee Maidment's sister might be incorrect. It remains to be seen if DNA can prove or disprove anything about the relationship of these two women.