A Genealogy Trip to Wolcott and Cato New York

The Boating Genealogists made a summer genealogical trip to Huron, Wolcott, and Cato New York in August 2023.  After the American Revolution Wolcott New York, then known as Sterling, was part of the Military Bounty Tract. That tract contained lands awarded to veterans of the victorious American forces, lands that were previously held by Britain’s Indian allies. Several of my ancestral families settled there for some … Continue reading A Genealogy Trip to Wolcott and Cato New York

The New England Witch Trials – part 2

1684 – The Suspicious Death of Philip Smith Cotton Mather’s seventh example of witchcraft in New England in his book Magnalia Christi Americana details the death of my ancestor Philip Smith of Hadley Massachusetts in 1684. Philip arrived in the New World as a one year old having been born in England around 1633 to Samuel and Elizabeth Smith, early settlers of Wethersfield CT, and of Hadley MA. Philip … Continue reading The New England Witch Trials – part 2

Early Petoskey Settlers, The Shaws

This is an account of two early Petoskey Michigan settlers, Charles Nahum Shaw and his wife Emma Eliza (Shattuck) Shaw. Charles Nahum Shaw was born in 1836. His family moved from Massachusetts to Camden, Michigan by the time Charles was 7 years old. Similarly Emma’s family moved from New York in the late 1840s, first to Sylvania Ohio where Emma was born, and then to … Continue reading Early Petoskey Settlers, The Shaws

The Big Picture, a Family Tree View

The Boating Genealogists dig into genealogy, family history and history so much that one can forget that others don’t have the background to connect who we are writing about and where they fit in the family tree and history.   However, replicating an ever developing family tree on this blog would be silly, if not just plain time-consuming without obvious gain.   And human history is an … Continue reading The Big Picture, a Family Tree View