July 7, 2007

I'm on the "mainland" now. The weather in Arizona is sizzling, and it was 114 degrees in Las Vegas yesterday. I'm heading for Las Vegas today with grandkids, Emily and Braden. We will arrive there after crossing the Arizona desert, in the evening. Then Sunday we'll stop by to see sister-in-law Chris Hague, and nephews. Also get a chance to see nephew Rich's wife, Lucy, and son, Michael, again. Michael is two now and almost talking. We plan to go see my brother's grave. Richard Hague died last November and I haven't seen his grave marker yet. Then we'll have to high-tail it on to St. George, Utah, where we'll begin our Elderhostel Intergenerational Program.

This Elderhostel program is about dinosaurs in S.W. Utah. It promises to be a terrific program for the grandkids and their grandparents. We'll stay 4 nights in St. George at the College Inn, part of Dixie State College. We're going to Grand Escalante National Monument and to the Dinosaur Discovery Site. We watched a Discovery Channel program on a new type of dinosaur found there (or somewhere close) that is a mass grave of a dinosaur than is transitioning between a meat eater to a grass eater. Should be interesting.

Then we go on to Bryce Canyon and stay at Ruby's Inn for two nights, including taking in the Bryce Rodeo. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up with more relations on the trip - Jeff and Leslie and their five children. Then back to St. George for another night and the end of the program. I plan to drive back to Sierra Vista via Flagstaff and show the kids where my mother stayed with Aunt Fern Blanding Ferrell in about 1920 on a potato farm on the northwest side of Flagstaff.

In my disorganization to plan/pack for two trip this summer (Arizona, etc. and China) I forgot to put my cell phone charger into my suitcase. Hmmmm. No other way around it, I had to go and buy a new charger. Well, now I've got an extra I can keep in my suitcase - ready for any trip. I helped Emily cleaned out some of her closet yesterday so she could pack for the Utah trip. What a chore! Luckily Braden is better organized even though he's only 10.

Genealogy news: I've found the 1870 Agriculture Census online at Ancestry.com. I don't know why they added this Ag Census for Goodhue County, MN - but I'm glad they did. It's very interesting to see that my David Akins had two horses, two milk cows, one swine, spring wheat, indian corn and oats. He, my great-great grandfather, had homesteaded near his cousin, Marshall Akins, his wife's father, James Warren Ells, and his son, Edwin Ells, and another cousin, John Orcutt. These early pioneer families stayed together when they got land in Minnesota from where they were in Wisconsin. Edwin Ells had some of his land surveyed and established the village of Skyberg, Goodhue Co., Minnesota. Today is is a ghosttown. Click to enlarge census.

I've sent photos back and forth with Terry Akin and Howard Blanding about relations in Chautauqua Co. NY. We still can't seem to find photographer George Morris Akin in the business directories, etc. for Fredonia, NY. We know he was a very good photographer from looking at some of his work - probably at the turn of the century. Also Terry and I are sending "Mystery Photos" to each other from our pile of old, old photographs, in the hopes of identifying the ones without names. I love a good mystery!

Is this Welton Akin? --------------A Ship in Newport RI -----An Akin of RI -maybe his ship?

July 1, 2007

I've been happily tracking down new family history and websites on the Akin line, thanks to my contact with cousin Terry Akin through cousin Larry Akin. Terry has carefully put much Akin information on the website www.findagrave.com. It is a free website where people can enter information about people and which cemetery they are buried in. Since Terry is my 3rd cousin once removed we share many relations that lived in Chautauqua Co., New York near Jamestown in the southwest corner of the state. I've spent many days, over three different years, driving around the area and researching my ancestors in that county, which also includes the Stevens, and the Blandings up in the Silver Creek area. Terry is my closest Akin relation that is doing genealogy and we are very happy to have found each other. Anyway, I was able to send him the tombstones photographs that I took at the Stillwater Cemetery and the Busti Cemetery. The oldest tombstone pictures are of Joseph Akin (1761 - 1847) (pictured) and wife Elsey Holloway (1760-1833) who were among the very first settlers in the Jamestown area. The photo on the right is of the original Akin homestead area at the Stillwater, Kiantone Twp, Chautauqua County, NY. Joseph traveled from near Albany along trails to purchase land from the Holland Land Co. near Erie. Then he probably sailed down the coast of Lake Erie to Westfield area and then followed Indian or trapper trails back eastward to claim his land in 1807, on the east end of Lake Chautauqua. He tried to establish a village called "Akinville" - but wanted to lease the lots instead of sell them fee simple. So eventually Jamestown became established and more popular. But Joseph had the first house in the township.

My great-great grandfather, David Akin moved west from Chautauqua County New York, to Wisconsin to teach, but became ill with tuberculosis. Terry's great-great grandfather, John Howard Akin, Jr. asked his younger 25 yr old brother, David, to come back to New York and stay with him and sit in the sun in his apple orchard, so he could get well. David did return to his brother's farm and he was identified as staying with him in the 1860 census. Luckily for me, David did recover, and went back to Wisconsin to marry Sarah Minerva Ells. Together David & Minerva and their Squier cousins then moved west on to new land in Goodhue County, Minnesota, to farm and establish the town of Skyberg. David Akin had dairy cows and built a school house on his property for the community. Good thing too, as he had 12 children. On the left is a picture of apple blossoms I took around Busti near John Howard Akin, Jr's land. The lower left picture is David & Minerva Akins in Minnesota about 1927. The picture on the right is David's brother, John Howard Akin, Jr. in New York in earlier years.

It's really fascinating history around there. Guess what Westfield, NY is famous for??? Two things - Welchs Grape Juice and the place where President Lincoln got off a train and a little girl said he'd look better with a beard -- and the rest was history.

I finally had to stop doing the fun things and settle down to getting my stuff together for my big trip to the Mainland. I courageously and cautiously approached my old Vaio laptop computer - which was such a faithful friend on my two-year Vagabond roots-finding journey - and attempted to start it. I bought it in 2000. After a few coughs, it started right up when plugged in. I don't think the batteries are any good anymore. Anyway the next challenge was to find the external CD player that connects to the laptop and see if I could download the latest version of my Family Tree Maker program. Amazingly it worked. The next challenge was to move my present 432 megabyte Family Tree file onto a flash drive, from my PC, and that went surprisingly well. Then with that flash drive stuck into the Vaio laptop I hoped beyond hope it would work, so I could transfer the family file to the laptop. But no, the laptop couldn't find the driver for the flash drive - of course. The Vaio laptop has Windows 98 still on it and the modem no longer works, but if I find the CD that came with my other the little flash drive and load the driver, it would work.... But the little flash drive is only 128 megabytes, so it wouldn't work. Anyway, I decided to burn the family file from my PC to a CD and copy it to the laptop. This worked!!! But then the copied file in the laptop is a read-only, so I had to re-copy it in the laptop and rename the file in order to be able to edit it. At last all systems are go, and I can pack up the laptop in hopes it will work when I attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Indiana in August.

Now I have to collect all the stuff I'll need for my iPod and iPod microphone, for my Sony VideoCamera, my Sony digital still camera, and who knows what other crazy gadgets I must have. The worst thing is that I have to carry it all onto the airplane. So let's see: Laptop computer, two cameras, iPod, cell phone, all the cords for recharging the items, food, ear plugs, empty water bottle to fill up after security, a book, chapstick, medications - what else needs to be in the carry on? I'll be flying the ATA red-eye, an all-night delight from Hawaii to Las Vegas, then on to Tucson.... Oh yes, I need to carry-on my noise canceling headphones. Of course I'll have to remember to print out my e-ticket boarding passes before I leave.

I don't know if I'll be able to add to this blog while I'm gone, but maybe I'll be able to use my daughter's computer to do it. So until then, I'll say aloha. Don't forget to add comments to any of the pages.