(Source: Dalton Cemetery)
(Long Branch, New Jersey – 1872)
Written by Susan Maria Swain (Mm. Van Nostrand)
How do you confirm ages of your relatives? What do you do with the non-direct descendants? Do they get added to your tree? Let me know in the comments!
In this letter, my ggg grandma Susan is on a trip for a family reunion by herself and with her daughter (my aunt) Grace J. VanNostrand. According to ancestry, Grace is the eldest child, born in 1864 and would be 8 years old at the time of this letter. However, in this letter she appears to be the youngest child. My grandmother Susan writes, “Grace is delighted with sea bathing she screams with delight every time we put her in the water.” The act of helping Grace into the ocean does not seem keeping with an able-bodied 8-year old, especially when their 6-year old daughter Hattie (Harriet) is walking to school solo in the July sun.
The information I have suggests that Grace married a George W. Smith. Ancestry says she died in 1946, and other than the photo of the grave above suggesting a daughter (named Georgia), I can find no further information. Even Ancestry’s little leaves are silent. The unfortunate truth of not having children means that in the egocentric process of genealogy, almost no one will have kept good information for “miscellaneous relatives.” They exist on trees for completeness, to denote the fun-fact of how many siblings a direct relative had, or if they did something note-worthy. But, Grace merely lived.
I could not locate her in the Short Tract Cemetery, only Grace’s grandmother who was her namesake. However, in the Dalton Cemetery I found a stone that seems to combine her with the rest, but no dates.
Are you related to me? Do you know Grace J. VanNostrand or George W. Smith of Dalton, NY c. 1860-1940s?
Thomas Hill (1829-1908), Niagara Falls, c. 1860, oil on canvas
Of the North Shore 