Carminow

 Nancy Magnuson and I worked together on a slideshow of the Great Wagon Road for the Homecoming at Bush River several years ago.  We discovered that although we did not have Bush River ancestors in common, we did share Coffin ancestors.  Nancy contacted me via e-mail this week to recommend the book Carminow by Elsie Balme.   I have not yet quite figured out the relationship of our mutual Coffin family to this line for myself, but I'll add that information as I get my head together on it.

I decided to put the information about my relationship to this family in a different blog post that can be found at:

http://www.marshamoses.blogspot.com/2014/06/coffin-family-of-nantucket.html

 I was disappointed that audible did not have this book available.  However, I bought it for Kindle for $4.99....quite the bargain!  The book is very well written and engaging.  I found myself reading in bed until late last night.  I'll add to this post as I read and finish the book.

Another e-mail that I sent to Nancy:

I am just beginning the book tonight.  Couldn't help but tell you that after even just a few pages, I read that there is a possible connection to the Ferrer family with Carminow.  I descend from Farrar in Virginia.....I am sure that it is connected.  I'll take a look when I get a chance and get back with you.  marsha  (anyone else reading this, remember that this is VERY iffy!....have done absolutely no research on this.....just didn't want to loose the thought)

http://patp.us/reading/cornish2.aspx

Finally finished the book in Nov 2014.  I liked the book.  I wish that I had taken the time to figure more of the history out as I went along.  Some of the main themes of the book from my perspective are:  The craziness of having to marry in one's own social strata vs. the craziness of willing sexual partners close to home who were not marriage material because of not being in the social class of the partner....too many illegitimate children because of this problem.

Roger de Carminow was the heir to his father's estate.  His brother was better at managing the estate because he was on the grounds and paying attention while Roger was off to the Crusades or fighting beside his English king, Edward.

The prologue was very appealing....the effigies made at the death of Roger and Joanna were being carted to a more suitable place after having rested in the Chapel on their property for 300 years.  It appealed to me that someone cared enough to move them to a proper chapel when their own resting place had become a home for cattle....It is what we are supposed to do....revere the dead even when we don't really remember who they were...

One more thought that I don't want to loose....need to check my understanding.  Near the end of the book Roger and his two sons go to fight with Edward against the Scots John Balliol....this would have been late 1200's.....and the author has Roger thinking in Chapter 22 about the the battle that had just taken place:

This was no knightly, chivalrous joust; this was blood for blood; slaughter for slaughter; a war of revenge upon the innocent for the acts of the guilty.  But who were the guilty?  The Scottish lords, for usurping John Balliolo?  Or Balliol himself, for being weak?  Was Edward to blame, for interfering in Scottish affairs?  Yet if he did not do so, what anarchy might not ensue?  An what of the French King, Philip, sitting a safe distance and urging his new-found Scottish allies to perpetrate what atrocities they would, in order that Edward's position in Europe might be weakened?  Guilt, Roger told himself lay not upon one, but upon all.  ....."All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God."  Surely this was never more true than in this war, where revenge seemed heaped upon revenge, and thousands of innocent people were losing their lives in the achievement of so little.

The Firebird

I am reading the Firebird by Susanna Kearsley via audible in my car.  As I have said before, Romance is not my favorite genre.  However, the Jacobite uprising ARE one of my favorite subjects.  And I like having history poured into my head with sugar coating.....that is understanding what was going on by looking at someone's life in the time period.  Susanna Kearsley does that very well.  I would never have known that the Scots were in so many places  in the time period just after 1712.  I would never have known the facts that I now know about the building of St Petersburg in Russia.  So I will repeat, while I do not love the Romance genre, I am enjoying this book!


*Starred Review* Authentic historic detail, a touch of the paranormal, and romance come together with a synergistic effect in versatile Kearsley’s (The Rose Garden, 2011) lovely and memorable novel. Nicola Marter works for a London gallery. She not only holds master’s degrees in Russian studies and art history; she also has the secret ability to hold an object and see past events. When a woman comes in with a small carved bird, Nicola has a vision of the Empress Catherine giving it to a young woman named Anna. With no documented provenance, the carving is worthless to collectors, and Nicola feels impelled to authenticate it. Impulsively, she heads to Scotland and enlists the assistance of Rob McMorran, to whom she was attracted when she met him in a psychic study. Even though Nicola can practice psychometry, she knows that Rob’s much stronger psychic powers will be invaluable. Together they embark on a journey that takes them to Ypres and Saint Petersburg and opens a window onto the early eighteenth century and the plight of Jacobites as they unravel Anna’s story. --Diana Tixier Herald

Abundance

By Peter H. Diamanis and Steven Kotler

We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better the lives of billions. An antidote to pessimism by tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist, Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler. 

Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—fast. The authors document how four forces—exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion—are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. Abundance establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.

Examining human need by category—water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom—Diamandis and Kotler introduce dozens of innovators making great strides in each area: Larry Page, Steven Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kahneman, Elon Musk, Bill Joy, Stewart Brand, Jeff Skoll, Ray Kurzweil, Ratan Tata, Craig Venter, among many, many others. 

This book also held my attention for the entire drive home from JAX in March 2014.  I liked it and was never enticed to turn it off and "listen to the music".  Some of my favorite ideas:  The photo above reminds one of the story that the authors told about aluminum.  Once more precious than gold....now it is "throw away".  Abundance.  

I also liked the story about the fact that if everyone gave up TV for one weekend and did something to make the planet better, the new ideas and progress made would be stupendous in scope.

Another story I liked was about the two shoe salesmen who fly into a undeveloped part of the world.  One looks around and says:  "No one wears shoes here.  I am out of here!  This is not a place I am likely to be successful"  The other one sends message home:  "No one wears shoes here.   This is an amazing market opportunity!  I may never come home!"

Some of the farming ideas made me think that perhaps I am too old to change some of my habits, but many of the ideas were amazing.  Can I really eat cultured meat?  Hmmmmmm.....we'll see.  

Still Life With Bread Crumbs

Rebecca Winter, Quindlen's protagonist, is a 60-year-old photographer who snapped her most famous photograph, the eponymous Still Life with Bread Crumbs, in the aftermath of yet another command performance dinner party, after which her unbearably supercilious husband, a British academic, retreated to bed, leaving her to clean up the mess. She became a feminist darling with her mainly domestic-themed photography, but two-plus decades later, her star is no longer so bright. She notes, "the coin of notoriety pays with less and less interest as time goes by."

Meanwhile, Rebecca's expenses have skyrocketed. Like so many of her generation, she's been caught off-guard with the burden of caring for her aged parents, helping with the rent on her father's downsized apartment and her mother's nursing home fees, plus an occasional assist to her filmmaker son.

What to do? Rebecca decides to cut costs by subletting the beloved Upper West Side Manhattan apartment she moved into after her contemptible husband left her for the next in his chain of ever-younger wives, and rent a cottage upstate in the woods, sight unseen. Of course it's a ramshackle mess, and she's unprepared for rural life. She calls in a roofer to help with a raccoon in her attic, and — no surprise here — he ends up patching up more than her flashing.

I read this book on the way down to JAX March 2014.  Very entertaining....almost a Romance genre book.  But easy to read and I was never tempted to turn the book off and listen to the music which happens when I get bored with a book.  I would not put the book in my top ten list, but would recommend it to someone looking for a light read that entertains.

John Brown

I spent some time reading a fictional book about John Brown and his family.  I would like to eventually review that book here.....even if I never finish it.  When I do that I would like to add a piece of information to the review that was sent to me by Jean Leeper in March 2014:

In about 1850, Brothers Barclay and Edwin Coppock came with their mother to Iowa, and were recorded in Salem Iowa Quaker Minutes. We do not know if they actually lived at Salem or just passed through on their way to Springdale, Iowa, where they met and joined John Brown and his raiders; Edwin was hung with John Brown in October 1859 at Harpers Ferry and Barclay joined the Civil War and was killed in action. (taken from: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jeanlee/CivilWar.html

Jean sent this to me while we were having a discussion about Quaker families during both the Revolution and the Civil War.  I had shared with the Quaker mail list the information about the Warren County, Ohio group that served and did not carry weapons that I talked about on the Homecoming blog in September 2013.  I just did not want to loose these thoughts.

The Princes Of Ireland The Dublin Saga

I started reading this book over the Christmas holidays and thus had no time to begin the blog.  Then I continued to read it during my trip down and back to Vero Beach, FL for New Year's Eve and again had not time to write anything on the blog.  And this is definitely a book that one wants to write a LOT!  I don't know if I can go back and capture all that has happened thus far.  Too many characters.....too many events....However, I can say that I did not turn this book off from being tired of it in the entire trip.  

The first section of the book is about Fergus and his daughter Deidre who live at Dubh Linn.  The time period is AD 430.  Deidre falls in love with Conall.  Conall is the perfect prince.   Their son is Morna.   Morna is raised in the home of Fergus because of his father's sacrifice.  I totally enjoyed the first part of the book with its twists and turns.  This section of the book ends with St Patrick converting the family from being Pagan to Christianity.  He then takes Morna with him which is against the hopes of Larine (the former Druid).  St. Patrick's words are:  "I returned to this island to bring the Gospel's joyful message to the heathen, Larine.  Not to make martyrs......Morna is a chief.  The ford is a crossroads.  Who can tell what Dubh Linn may be worth?"  Deidre is very happy that St Patrick has found a way to keep from sending her son to Tara for the new High King's fees ....his coronation.  Deidre worried about the safety of sending her son to the feis.  

The next section takes place in 981.  The main characters are Harold who is Norwegian and begins with his father, Olaf, taking him to visit Dyflin.  Also Osgar and his cousin Caoilinn who are both descendants of Fergus.  Morann Mac Goibnenn (MacGowan) is the jeweler who is friend to Harold.  

.....I did very little writing in the middle of the book as I was reading during the holidays and then on the trip to FLA and back.  But something came up in the book today and I wanted to add it here:

Tom Tidy overhears a message between a young girl with green eyes and a man while praying in the church that seems to be about the O'Byrnes coming .....They are in the church at Dalkey....but the message is that the O'Byrnes will come to Carrickmines.  So here is information about both of those places:

Wikipedia says that Dalkey is:

Dalkey (Irish: Deilginis, meaning "thorn island") is a suburb of Dublin and seaside resort just south of Dublin City, Ireland. It was founded as a Viking settlement and became an important port during the Middle Ages. According to John Clyn, it was one of the ports through which the plague entered Ireland in the mid-14th century. In modern times, Dalkey has become a thriving seaside suburb and a minor tourist attraction. It has been home to many writers and celebrities including Maeve Binchy, Hugh Leonard, Bono and Van Morrison.

......too much happened without my writing.....if I plan a trip to Dublin, I will reread

However in Sept 2014 I turned the book back on.  The time period in the Dublin area is 1592.  And a huge reception/party is being held to celebrate the founding of what is now Trinity College/University of Dublin.  The  main characters in the book in this time period are Joan Butler who married Doyle.  And Margaret who is a distant kin of Joan's husband.  Their is a huge misunderstanding because of an ancient feud over inheritance.  Margaret's father has told her that the husband's family "stole" his inheritance and thus they are poor while the other family is rich.  This is an English family that lives within the pale.  The main person founding the college and giving the party is a Fitzgerald.  The book refers to him as Kildare.  The story that Joan's husband tells to her is very interesting. 

Joan's one wish at the party is to meet "Kildare".  It happens early in the event.  He is dressed in a style that Joan has NEVER seen before.  His dress is influenced by the court of Henry VIII.  The information leading up to their meeting is that Kildare's father has sent him to the English court numerous times,  He has become a friend to the English kings.  As such he is left to rule Ireland almost as the High Kings of olden times have done.  He collects taxes but does not send them on to England ......thus becoming very rich....the reason that he can found this new college,  Joan's husband tells the story that during the reign of Henry VIII's father, he had two advisors who served him well.  When the king died, the coffers of the crown were richer than they had ever been,  But Parliament believed that reform needed to happen and wanted to impeach the two advisors,  The men were close to the new king, Henry Viii.....like uncles to him,  He had both men executed because it suited his purposes,  Joan's husband tells the story to illustrate the fact that being a friend to the king is very dangerous.

I found this map of Dublin 1610 in many places:

Below is a modern map of Trinity College.  Trinity College is now located inside Dublin's city limits.  This map helps put a perspective on the more ancient maps.

I found an 1840 map of Trinity College at:  

http://planetgeogblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/history-written-in-ink/

I found the following post card at:

 http://www.nli.ie/blog/index.php/2012/07/05/postcards-and-public-history/

I viewed other maps of early Dublin at:  https://www.behance.net/gallery/Medieval-Dublin/2801385

There is a particularly nice enhanced map of Dublin in 1500 which is well worth taking the time to look at.  The project is by Dara Smith.  

And the following map at Wikipedia:

King's Mountain

Sharyn McCrumb's Ballad NovelsThrough the Ballad Novels, McCrumb celebrates her ancestors and the land of the mountain South, crafting a story rich with tradition and the true character and spirit of that breathtaking region. The novels are listed in order most recently published.

King's Mountain is a subject of great interest to me.  Every year I think that I might go on the reenactment that is done between Fort Wautauga and King's Mountain.  So when I saw Sharyn's newest ballad Novel was about these events I bought it to listen to via audible.com.

The first section of the book tells the story of a French family living in the Pyrannees between France and Spain.  The family was Huguenot.  John Sevier

Wikipedia says of Huguenots:

The Huguenots (/ˈhjuːɡənɒt/ or /huːɡəˈnoʊ/; French: [yɡno], [yɡəno]) were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. French Protestants were inspired by the writings of John Calvin in the 1530s, and they were called Huguenots by the 1560s. By the end of the 17th century and into the 18th century, roughly 500,000 Huguenots had fled France during a series of religious persecutions. They relocated to Protestant nations, such as England, Wales, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, the Dutch Republic, the Electorate of Brandenburg,Electorate of the Palatinate (both in the Holy Roman Empire), the Duchy of Prussia, and also to Cape Colony in South Africa and several of the English colonies of North America which were willing to accept them (colonies such as Maryland and Massachusetts denied settlement except to members of certain religions).

Don Juan De Xavier was born in Navarre, France in 1652, he married Marie Maris, who was born in 1654. They had one son, who was named Valentine Xavier, he was born in 1678 in Navarre, France. 

This couple's son Valentine was born in this region, but left as France was too dangerous for Huguenots in his lifetime.  He moved to England, married an English wife, changed his name to Sevier.  I is in England that William Sevier was born to Valentine and his English wife.  William Sevier moved to the Shenanadoah Valley where he was a farmer and also kept a small store.  

John Sevier was the oldest of William's children. Sharon says in the book that the combination of being the oldest of a large brood of children with a father who liked to drink and gamble along with a chance meeting with an old priest who told him that he had the bloodline to a saint and thus was blessed gave John Sevier the feeling that he would succeed and a great deal of confidence along with a feeling of duty towards those around him.

The Sevier family lived along the Great Wagon Road according to Sharon.  One day they became tired of seeing everyone moving south on the road and they decided to move.  The entire family moved to an area that was very near Ft Lee  (see map below):  

Fort Watauga, more properly Fort Caswell, was an American Revolutionary War fort that once stood at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. The fort was originally built in 1775–1776 by the area's frontier government, the Watauga Association, to help defend Watauga settlers from Native American (primarilyCherokee) attacks, which were in part instigated by the British.

The Watauga settlers, meanwhile, had been anticipating a Cherokee invasion. Arms and ammunition were purchased through the Fincastle County, Virginia Committee of Safety, food and medicine were gathered, and various forts were constructed or strengthened, among them Fort Caswell (now called Fort Watauga). In early July, Cherokee Beloved Woman Nancy Ward tipped off the Cherokee invasion plans to trader Isaac Thomas, and Thomas proceeded to deliver the news to John Sevier, who was at the Nolichucky settlement (near modern Limestone) overseeing the construction of Fort Lee. The news alarmed the settlers, and most of them fled to Fort Caswell, forcing Sevier to flee likewise and abandon Fort Lee's completion.^{[5]   This information is from Wikipedia} 

<sup>The statement that Sharyn makes helped me understand the early years when the Revolution was mainly about fighting Indians in the areas that I look at historically.  She says that the people in the Eastern part were fighting for ideals....unfair taxes etc....but the people in the backwoods were fighting for their land.  The English were furnishing arms to the Indians to help them run the white settlers off their lands.  My own interpretation is that the English thought that they were giving allies arms to fight their battles on the frontier, but what really happened is that men who might never have entered the battles of the Revolutionary War became incensed at what the British were doing.  On the above map according to Wikipedia, John Sevier and his family were living near Ft. Lee.  It was Ft. Lee that they were building and it was burned during this summer of 1776.  

The settlers in the back country of Virginia and NC decided to fight the British BEFORE they moved north to fight on these settler's own turf....marching south to fight instead of waiting until the British moved into their home lands.

This part of the story that I have described above of King's Mountain is augmented by the story of Patrick Ferguson.  This part is told from the voice of Virginia Sal who is a camp follower who is maid and female companion to Ferguson.  I read this book via audible.</sup>