Back to the Rees and Hague roots

    In 2014 I was very happy to welcome Cris Lythe, my cousin through our common 2-great-grandfather, Elias Rees, of Carmarthenshire and Glamorgan, Wales.  She flew to Hawaii via Los Angeles from England and I hope she'll become a frequent flier to Honolulu!   We saw a few of the sights around Oahu and did a lot of talking.  My plans came together to travel, myself, to England in the fall to attend another cousin's (Judith Medlock) big birthday party and a gathering of the assorted cousins able to the following day in September.
    In preparation for the "reunion" with my wonderful Rees cousins, I prepared a book online at a site called Shutterfly.  It was a ton of work, but a real labor of love.  It was not difficult to do, but very time consuming.  Even then, I made errors which I'd like to correct for the future.  I passed out these soft covered photo-books to those families who had contributed so much to our common Rees history.  I started with Elias' grandparents' marriage then baptism records and then Elias' own marriage record and children's births.  Elias Rees and Jennet Morgans had five daughters.  They moved from Kilgwyn Mill, near Llangadog, Carmarthenshire for work in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, about 1837 (I need to double check the date).  Elias became the "Carpenter of Cyfarthfa Castle." Coal and Iron were king in those days.
    I devoted several pages to the backgrounds of each of the five daughters' descendants.  It was fun to gather this information and photos.  Family tree charts were included, along with maps of the early Rees farms and residences.  At the end of the book I included descriptions of those who'd served in the military (I'm sure I've left out many), and some who had recently died that contributed so much to the Rees genealogy.
   I spent three weeks in England and Wales, traveling from one gracious home of a cousin to another.  I really appreciate the kindness shown to me in every instance.
   One cousin, John McKee, lives near Manchester and this happens to be near where my Hague great-great grandfather, James Hague, was from.  Despite not being on the "Hague line,"  John took me to Dukinfield, Cheshire (Tameside District), to see the sites of my father's ancestors, and to get some government birth and marriage records in person.  We drove all around Ashton-Upon-Lyne, across the river from Dukinfield.  In the 1841 UK Census, James Hague is noted as a "tanner" - an occupation that I found very interesting, as the industrial revolution had created huge businesses and employment in the cotton mills.   We went to a "Hat Museum" which I found fascinating as it showed the history and intricacies of being a hatter and hat finisher from the cottage industries, to later days.  The original machinery of one of the last hat companies is in the museum.
     Before I went to England, I was contacted by a Hague cousin in Canada.  I do believe we had the same ancestors, via the father of my James Hague.  That would be Edward Hague of Dukinfield.  Very interesting that this family's first children were baptised as  (forgot the name) and I visited the cemetery at the site of the original church in Dukinfield, very near where the Hagues lived.  It is very exciting to find relations from this Hague/England link, and I hope to continue more sharing of the family ties.
   In Wales, cousin Jan and husband, Russ Clarke, drove me all over Carmarthenshire.  The brakes on their car got good use as I was always saying "Wait, stop, I need a photo of that!"  We knocked on a few doors and had gracious welcomes of old acquaintances.  Especially exciting was visiting the old mill which I believe Elias Rees had described in a notebook in 1838 as the place where he was from.  Being written in Welsh, and quite faded, it took "a village" to decipher the writing and decide that it was a particular mill a half mile from the "Dolgoy" farm where we believe Elias was either born or raised...  or his family worked there.   Also, next to that mill was the Bethlehem Church and Cemetery.  Tombstones of the Morgans family were abundant and still decipherable in that cemetery.  I think they are parents/relations to Elias Rees' wife, Jennet Morgans.  More research still needs to be done on Jennet.  The kind owners of the mill site gave us a tour of the home and renovated mill.  She said she thought she had old deeds to the ownership of the mill, which I hope she can find and share with me.  Was is a Rees mill, or Morgans?
    Upon my return home I did discover, in old newspapers, online, that James Hague was an active "Chartist." This was an unknown term to me until I found his arrest record in the paper, and that led to learning about this reform movement.  Perhaps that's why James decided to get out of England in 1848 and come to America (first Rhode Island, then settling near Des Moines, Iowa).
     My travels in 2014 left me little time to actually integrate and substantiate my research and information / photo gathering.  I expect to be home from March to May 2015 to do genealogy and tell the stories of my ancestors.
 

An update from Donna

I've been busy after getting back from Colorado after Christmas.  The weather in Hawaii has been wet and windy, but still happy to be here than under the snow and storms some of the mainland has received.
   The greater Rees family of Wales has had a sad week with the passing, March 10th, of Tony Lythe (Anthony Frederick Arthur Lythe), husband of Cristabel (nee John) Lythe, my 3rd cousin once removed.  Cris' great-grandmother and my great-grandmother were sisters in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, daughters of patriarch Elias Rees born 1811 in Carmarthenshire.  Tony was a Welshman through and through, born in Breconshire, and always proud of his heritage.  A wonderful person, he will be missed.

Tony Lythe

   Better news on the Welsh side, is that another descendant of the same great-grandmother's sister, Janet (Rees) Davies is coming to Hawaii to visit me.  The visitor is Helen Medlock, a part of triplets, who all visited me when they were 13 years old with their mother, Judith.  Now Helen is grown up and has been traveling on her own.  I am looking forward to seeing here again, and showing her more of the sights of Oahu.

Helen Medlock and her brothers in 2001

Time Goes By

I've not had too much time to devote to my internet research at FindMyPast.co.uk , BUT I did have the great pleasure to host my cousins from Wales in April.  We found each other through the internet in 2000 after I posted the names found in the bible of my grandfather.  It showed the family of Elias Rees of Merthry Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales.  His granddaughter, Jane, came to America in 1881 and married her intended shortly after her arrival in Des Moines, Iowa, where their son, my grandfather, Leonard PearceL was born.  Other descendants of Elias Rees contacted me after seeing the names on Rootsweb, and we all got together a couple times in Wales and England.  One cousin, Judith, and her teenage triplets visited me a couple years ago and it was such fun.  Recently, Jan and Russ, were finally able to make it to my home in Hawaii and see how their American cousin lives.  I kept them very busy seeing all the sights and doing all sorts of fun things.  We recalled the days we had spent driving around Wales visiting the sites where Elias Rees was  born and lived.  We spent time in the Carmarthenshire archives and held family reunions.  At one reunion I managed to sing the Welsh National Anthem with them, in Welsh.  I hope I can return to the beautiful country of Wales and learn more about my family and the history of the places they lived so many years ago.  In the meantime I am going to work harder to get more answers from my online genealogy subscriptions.

Greeting the New Year

2010 is here and I am back at home after a month away.  I was visiting my daughter and famiy in Arizona for three weeks, south of Tucson, and my nephews in Las Vegas for a week.  Christmas and New Year's passed and shortly after I returned to Honolulu the Haiti Earthquake happened.  The tradgedy sparked a inquiry from Operation Smile to me to see if I could rush to Haiti to work on the USNS Hospital Ship Comfort.  I was asked because I'm an operating room nurse that has recently worked on a surgical mission on the Comfort (offshore Nicaragua last July).  As it turned out the plans for Operation Smile shifted gears from doing life saving surgeries on the ship, to sending a small team in to do surgeries on land.  Perhaps more assistance will be needed down the line.  I've been riveted to the news programs about the situation in Haiti, and now with rescue and recovery teams leaving, I hope that the survivors will treated and sustained.

As far as genealogy goes, I have begun getting clients through Ancestry.com for conducting research.  But of real enjoyment was talking to a cousin on my Joshua Wallace side and catching up with the family.  It is so nice to have a not too distant cousin who enjoys doing genealogy and is interested in sharing information.   I have Family Tree Maker and was going to print out an Outline Descendant Tree for her, but since I haven't used the 2010 version much, I had to "re-find" where this version has hidden that chart (it's under "Relationship Charts" on the Publish Tab).  Then I figured I'd print off a few "Individual Reports", but discovered that these reports have headers that take up a lot of space, and I would have to use too many pages to print them out.  So I copied the Person's Notes and pasted them to a Word document which seemed to be able to condense the information into far fewer pages than if I'd used Family Tree Maker (FTM) 2010.  I feel like I am missing many of the FTM 2010 options, and I've signed on to a blog or two about using FTM 2010.  Now I need time to get back genealogy!

In the meantime I have been busy getting quartzite natural stone squares laid in my small patio area, and also tracking down a mouse (a big one) that seems to like the powdered dehydration salts in foil packets that I brought back from Bangkok when I left the hospital there last May.

I'm looking forward to the visit of my Welsh "Rees" family cousins, Jan and Russ, coming this March and am really happy that I'll be able to show them around Hawaii.  I originally met this line of my Rees-Pearce family through the internet about ten years ago and since then we've had visits back and forth.  Several of the family are interested in the family history and of our common ancestors, Elias & Jennet Rees, of Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales. 

Coming up, I hope to catch up with some of the genealogy blogs I subscribe to.  I feel kind of cut off from the genealogy world when I don't read them.    Thanks to all that made comments on my Pearce Genealogy Photo Book.  I have plans to make other similar books.

Genealogy Photobook

I have been busy with genealogy in spite of all the other activities.  I painstakingly completed a 55 page photobook based on a 1970 interview I did with my grandfather, Leonard Pearce.  I recorded it on a little reel-to-reel tape recorder back then, while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner.  Thank heavens I did that because listening to it now I have a wealth of information that I'd totally forgotten at the time of the interview.  I transcribed each word and printed it into the online book I created at www.shutterfly.com then added a variety of photos that I had on hand, and some from the internet, that illustrated what my grandfather was talking about.  I think it makes a terrific way to present the story of my grandfather's life.

   Then I just finished a 100-page photobook using my photos from my recent trip to Burma.  I fixed up about 439 photos to squeeze in the maximum size book I could create at Shutterfly.  It is a great relief to finish this, the last of three gift-certificate books that my daughter gave me two years ago for Christmas.  The gift cards expire Dec 18th, 2009 so I was in a hurry to complete them all.  The first one I finished just before Thanksgiving in 2008 and it was a photobook on my trip to Mongolia.

I intend to create, in the future, photobooks about the life stories of my parents and most recent ancestors.  It's a big challenge, but I think it is a project from the heart and will last, even if my CDs and digital images pass into technological oblivion.

Marching through May

May has already been filled with many projects and activities. I've had good success corresponding with my Rees cousins in Wales relating to a descendant of Mary Rees, a daughter of Elizabeth Rees & William Rees. We are just trying to find out which of two possible Mary Rees that fit the parents and birth year she is. In our line Elias Rees (b. 1805) & Jennet Morgans are the great-grandparents; Elizabeth Rees is their daughter, and Mary would be the granddaughter. We'll see what more can be found.
We were all very excited to see pictures of Elias Ree's carpenter's ruler and carpenter's apprentice wooden puzzle piece. Wonderful pieces to think were once in the hands of our illustrious ancestor (see photos -from Elias Rees descendant, Marcus Tiddy).
I'm busy preparing a booklet of the recent "Akins Family" for a cousin, Joyce, in California. We both have David Akins & Sarah Minerva Ells as ancestors. I'll be visiting her soon so we can compare each other's old Akin photographs and try to identify them. I'm eagerly awaiting Joyce's stories of old, and I hope to record them using a recording attachment for my iPod.
Lots to do and learn.