Sunday April 25, 2009

I have been reading a couple of books over the past several weeks:

Eleanor of Aquitane. A biography, by Marion Meade. 1977. The historical facts of Eleanors life and marriage to Louis VII of France and Henry II of England are woven into an interesting history. It is just as good or better than any modern soap opera.

The Illustrated History of Britain, by Sir George Clark. 1983. This is a summary of British history interspersed with some interesting images.

Today I did more cleanup on the garden and lawn. Put out another 4 bags for recycling.

We did a shorter walk today of about 4 km. I was still a bit tired after the 17 km bike ride on Saturday.

Did a bit more work on the New Jersey Marriages. Colonial Era, 1665-1800 from Ancestry.com. I added a reference for a couple of marriages.

Saturday April 25, 2009

Well the week has just slipped by again.

Tuesday I did a little volunteer work at the book sorting facility for the Friends of the Library and Archives Canada. This is my weekly volunteer activity other than the genealogy groups I work with.

We continue to walk daily sometimes up to 8 or 9 km. Occasionally we also go for a bike ride.
Friday we rode about 14 km and today we did 17 km round trip. I think we were both a bit tired. Of course we had the grand dogs over today as well and took them for a walk. So I guess we really are tired.

I am trying to get back to work on the documentation I collected at the FHL in Salt Lake City.
I went onto Ancestry.com yesterday and looked at the New Jersey Marriages for Kip and Kipp. I am working through them and finding that I already have most of them.

I am also starting to work on the 1850 US Census again for Kip and Kipp. This is a little tedious trying to match names with names in my database.

Tonight we had a wicked wind storm go through our area followed by a little thunder storm and some rain. The temperature went up to about 28 C today in Ottawa.

Monday April 19th

I see it has been almost three weeks since I last posted. No excuse for that! I have not done much since then on the Kipp family.

The last week has been taken up with two newsletters: The Royal Yorker Spring 2009 issue for the St. Lawrence Branch UELAC and the Ottawa Branch News for the Ottawa Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society. I have finally finished them and they will be printed and delivered shortly.

Last Saturday we went to a rerun of the Metropolitan Opera HD series at our local Silver City. It was a very intense opera but the singing and acting were excellent.

Since the snow has melted rather quickly I have been working on the spring cleanup of the gardens, including trimming the shrubs back so they don't take over.

We have not had any rain for about three weeks either and it was beginning to look like a drought. Tonight it has finally started to rain. That should green up the lawn a bit and help things grow.

Sunday March 29th

This last week has been a bust other than posting what we did in New York. Both my wife and I caught a really bad cold virus which has kept us quiet for the week. It is still not over. I did my volunteer work with the Friends of the Library and Archives Canada on Tuesday and then did almost nothing the rest of the week except cough, sit, rest and read.

I read a book called Ex Libris by Ross King. Sort of a mystery odyssey set in the 17th Century. A good read with lots of historical facts etc.!

Saturday we turned the lights off for Earth Hour.

Also on Saturday I ventured out for a few hours to attend one lecture at the Gene-O-Rama Conference. This is a genealogy conference put on by the Ottawa Branch Ontario Genealogical Society, of which I am a member. I have been involved in the organization of Gene-O-Rama for over 10 years and I was sorry to miss most of it because of the bad cold virus. www.ogsottawa.on.ca.

It looked like a success again this year with over 200 registrants.

Monday March 16th Manhattan

This was our last day in Manhattan before heading home. I wanted to look at a book which was located in the Butler Library at Columbia University at 116th Street and Broadway. So again this required a ride on the LIRR and the subway. When we arrived we discovered it was school break week at Columbia University and they said the library was closed to outside people for the week. We prevailed and they finally told us how we could get a pass. We followed their direction and were soon able to access the stacks which are open stacks. This required that we visit the branch of the New York Public Library which was two blocks away and use our NYPL Access cards to get a permission paper which we took back to Columbia and they gave us one day passes.

The book I wanted to see was “Index to Abstracts of the Title to The Kip’s Bay Farm by John J. Post of the New York Bar. New York. 1896.” While this book appears to be held by many libraries, they usually only have the first 15 to 20 pages which contain family genealogy. The book itself was prepared as a sort of semi-legal document outlining all of the land transfers and sales between about 1671 and about 1850. There are lots of relationships mentioned and someday it may be useful to read through the three volume set and make and index of names.

After the library we walked a few blocks and visited Grant’s Tomb which is run by the United States Federal Parks Service. We then walked through part of Riverside Park on our way to Broadway and 112th Street to see Tom’s Restaurant (Seinfeld Series).

After that we took the subway to lower Manhattan at Fulton Street. We walked one block to John Street and visited the John Street Methodist Church which is a historic site relating the beginnings of Methodism in the Untied States through Philip Embury and Barbara Heck. They have an interesting museum with some old artifacts.

From there we walked by St. Paul’s Chapel, The World Trade Center site, which is under construction and then walked through Trinity Church graveyard which happened to be open to the public. A couple of famous people buried there are Alexander Hamilton and Robert Fulton.

We then walked to the end of the island near Battery Park and took a free ride on the Staten Island Ferry. We had a good look at the Statue of Liberty in the daylight for a change. That made a full day so we headed back to Long Island to relax and pack the next day for our trip home. The next day we took a 1o and one half hour drive back to Canada.

Friday March 13th Manhattan Kip's Bay Brewery

This was another Manhattan day for my wife and I. We took the LIRR to Penn Station and then walked along 34th Street to 1st Avenue. My quest was to locate the location of the Kip’s Bay Brewery. I had found a website called Forgotten New York which said the building was at 1 st Avenue between 37 and 38 Street. The building on the block would seem to be from the mid to late 1800s time period. It almost looks like there are two slightly different buildings attached. Not sure which is the correct one or maybe both are. Anyways this is the location which I had read about from several sources. There are no plaques on the building and there are several business located there.

We also walked by 2nd Avenue and 35th Street, which is the location of the Kip house before it was demolished about 1851.

For the remainder of the day we walked further to 42nd Street and 5th Avenue to visit the New York Public Library and have lunch in Bryant Park. It was a bit cool that day but we ate lunch and enjoyed the sun with a few others. We did a few hours of family research in the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy. We took a few images also with our digital cameras.

Thursday March 12th Manhattan

Today we visited the Morgan Library and Museum at 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street. This collection was started by Pierpont Morgan, one of the greatest financiers of America in the late 1890s and early 1900s. The collection includes drawing, prints, printed books and bindings, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, music manuscripts and Ancient near Eastern Seals and tablets. We did a quick tour and took the guided tour of his library. My daughter and I are both librarians and my wife is interested in books. If allowed we could have spent days looking over the collection!

We then walked over to the UN complex at 1st Avenue between 42nd and 46th Streets. We made it in time to get into the building but missed out on the guided tour. While there we saw an exhibit on the Holocaust. Just across thes treet is the Swords into Plughshares Monument.