Cleland Family History
Part 1 39.4 MB
Part 2 102.3 MB
Part 3 77 MB
Family history of Marilyn Joyce Harper Cleland (my mother), born 1928.
Part 4 88 MB
Distant past Cleland history, obtained by my cousin John Munter.
Part 5 1.6 MB
Poster-sized, concentric circle chart of Cleland ancestors, created in 1924.
posted by Tom Cleland @ 3/09/2011 07:48:00 PM
14 comments
14 Comments:
Thank you for doing this!!!
Yup!
We think Bernie was 1909-1984, and Hazel 1894-1984.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Here is my family tree in outline form. You can search it to look for a common ancestor.
Sarah Hanuske is descended from Sarah Elizabeth McDonald.
From my second cousin Wallace Boss…
I am adding many more to this email so there will be many ears catching my synopsis. Because there were a few great conversations while family met during my fathers visitation and funeral, I'm compelled to write out the recent history of the family research as I know it, for the record. Please pass this on to Munters and Clelands as any of you see fit.
First, Ancestry.com has gone gangbusters for all of us. This is great and fun. I first started a profile in 2002 or so and spent an embarrassing amount of time clicking on leads and building a family tree online. I unfortunately did this without a copy at my elbow of the 'family wheel' family tree I built in 1993. I call it a 'family wheel' because I created the family tree concentrically, present generation in the middle, ancestors spoking outward.
I was without the family tree I had made for two reasons. First, the digital incarnation was in the Quark program which had become obsolete and inoperable. Secondly, my own hard copy had water damage and had fallen apart from mold. (!!!)
I growing concern of mine since creating what I could in ancestry.com is that all of that clicking I did in 2002 might have included some bogus links. With my sister Cathleen's renewed interest in the ancestry.com tree, I have recently gone back through and noticed such things as husbands and wives born 80 years apart. So I resolved to go back to the family tree I built in 1993 as the iron clad legitimate collection of family information and comb back over what is on ancestry.com. My Aunt Jan has lent me her copy of the 'family wheel', so you know what my weekends will look like for the next month.
I'll describe in the following what my resources were to make that particular tree so self-described dependable so you all know why I put so much stock in that pre-ancestry.com incarnation.
To create the tree in 1993, I was standing on the shoulders of others to start, especially the '76 booklet I believe was the work of Polly Cleland pulling together concisely what her father Spencer Cleland had researched in the 50's. Somebody correct me if I am wrong on that.
Fact is, all of my hard copies of everything I have are in a box in a closet at my mothers in California right now, so this is from memory. But it is all safe there. What that particular box of mine contains are xeroxes from 20 or so books of family lineage I located within the remarkable genealogical room of the New York Public Library.
Both of my sisters, Cathleen and Christine have shown a great interest in this genealogy, as well. They both live in NYC and Christine has found gravesites in upstate New York. When I moved to NYC for work in the early 1990's, I was interested in doing some research myself. My great luck was that I I worked only a block away from the NYPL, on Madison Ave. (No, I don't watch 'Mad Men). So the genealogical section there became my lunch hour destination for the next year or so. What is memorable about this process, beside the remarkably distinctive smell of very, very old books was that the gorgeous, large wooden tables (maybe 4' x 30' or so) had seat numbers inlaid every few feet. Each table had unique inlaid patterns from each other, also. A dozen tables in this room with 6 or so brass lamps with green shades built into the center of each. Three levels/stacks comprised the surrounding walls with patterned metal grating protecting them. You certainly had the sense you were part of an important endeavor.
Let's reenact one of my more auspicious finds as an example of how the research would unfold: Bringing the 1976 'Lamont-Boss booklet with me, I decided that day that I was interested in Evalena LaMonts Great, Great, Great Grandmother, 'Hannah Thayer', for whom I didn't have parents listed, but I have that she was was born in 1698 in Branbee, Connecticutt and married John Tyler in 1716. I look up 'Thayer' in the card catalog and there are dozens of books on 'Thayers', but only a few look promising with descriptions such as 'Thayers of central Connecticutt 1640-1750' (I'm making this up, I don't specifically remember this book from memory). At the desk, I put in a request for 4 or 5 other books as well, then sit at the seat number I picked out and wait 10 minutes or so. A library employee with white cotton gloves lays the books down and give me a pair of matching gloves. In the 'Thayer' book, I begin with the index, looking for a 'Hannah Thayer' and then turn to the page number in the center of the book. Was this particular Hannah a match? Does this book mention her birth date? That she was married to a 'John Tyler'? Do I have a marriage date myself that is shown in the book? Often no, and there would be another 'Hannah' in the index. If yes, I then work forward towards the front of the book and see hew parents names, grandparents and hopefully even more further back in time. Often the worthy information goes back only a few pages because the hot lead trickles down to the mere mention, for instance, of 'her mother being named Anna' with no surname mentioned.
None of these books can be checked out and most were over 80 years old. I then fill out another form requesting a library employee to make copies of the pertinent pages and come back the next day, paying the the 25¢ per page. What made this particular 'Hannah Thayer' remarkable was that, as I worked forward in the book, the family lineage stayed true all the way to the first page of the book, where in this case I began to read 'Honorable John Alden, passenger on the Mayflower…'. I had to snap out of a dull transcribing mindset when I realized what I had just read. Mayflower? Further, included in the John Alden description was a reference to the Longfellow poem about Miles Standish, John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, when she was to have said 'Why don't you speak for yourself, John?'. That night, as I excitedly told my sister Christine of the discovery, she told me she had that very day bought a pillow at a flea market with the quirky quote 'Speak for yourself, John'. This was family history in a Longfellow poem!
Addendum: in a conversation last week with Aunt Jan, she mentioned she thought Benjamin Franklin was related. I was skeptical, but she was right! In the very tree I made in '93 is a note that the maternal grandfather of Evalena LaMont had a mention in his obit that he was related to Ben Franklin. I will see if I can prove this fully through the ancestry.com website.
AND today I just received the first results from 23andme.com. I'm 2.8% Neanderthal, and I am of the haplogroup R1b1b2a1a2f. I knew it!!! It's that 2a1a2 part that I just had a HUNCH was true (joking). This is the first notification and is incomplete, more to come, but it looks like I am intensely anglo (go figure). Attached is a screen grab of the page from 23andme.com that explains this initial overview. I thank Tom Cleland for his enthusiasm which got me to participate. More specific information is coming from them soon.
Okay, so thank you for trudging through this background I've given you. Hope you stayed awake, but I am sensing we are about to get legit by comparing notes with the Cleland side of the family. -Wallace
Hello, my name is Trichia"Cleland" Ashley. I have recently received this same chart from my uncle Ken, who was raised by Esther Edmundson, b.1904 (my great-grandmother whose name is on the chart.) She was daughter of Clara May Cleland, daughter of John Cleland. Their names are located on the lower right side of the chart. My e-mail is trichia_ashley@yahoo.com, I would be interested in corresponding with you, perhaps you might assist me in reading the chart correctly. I am also interested where you are in relation to me.
Thank You, Trish
Hi Trish! I just sent you an email...
My free Dropbox account expired. Contact me for more information.
Dropbox links are back up for now.
Organized MN Farm Bureau county-by-county.
https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/168480/mn_2000_eb_155-03.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
...(Spencer Boyd Cleland).
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