111th Annual Meeting

With a resurging attendance, over seventy Piscataqua Pioneers and guests filled the Masonic Hall on July 25, 2015 for the annual business meeting and series of stimulating sessions and speakers. An exciting part of the day was distributing copies of the new 2015 Register that Barbara Alex, Tylene Jousse, Alan Moulton, Susan Engle, Ellen Dennett and others had worked tirelessly to update and publish this spring.

The President shared some pictures of a Bachelder family reunion in Delta Junction, Alaska that he attended earlier that week with over 60 family members. He presented a simple diagram of his preceding generation's migrations back and forth across the USA to start a discussion about advances in genealogy research that had been featured at the NERGC.

 

Barbara Alex gave a terrific impromptu talk about the use of DNA mapping to complement traditional techniques and gave insights into how it has progressed from an early National Geographic database to the extensive ancestry.com database. Fred Boyle, Bill Walker, and other attendees provided their assessments and experience with a variety of databases and tools that are available online. After the DNA database and tools discussions, President Bachelder showcased the new Register. As attendees signed in and received their copy of the new Registry that had been included with the luncheon ticket, we asked them to indicate their ancestor's name. Using that listing of names attendees formed groups (using page 126, Principal Ancestor), took pictures, visited, and prepared to share thoughts with the rest of us about (1) their favorite ancestor and/or story and (2) what that ancestor would say if they were to join us in Hampton that day?

Eleven family groups had a nice time catching up with each other and talking about their relatives. Fred Boyle has done considerable research for the books he has written and kindly explained to me that we are "all cousins"—a great point which makes the annual meetings more meaningful. After the small group discussion, we went around the room table by table and had each group share a favorite story about one of their ancestors. It was enlightening and enjoyable to hear about some of our cousins' adventures ranging from surviving shipwrecks, Pioneers killed in battles up in Maine, finding remote riverside gravesites, and learning that a group Piscataqua area settlers had moved to Piscataway, New Jersey.

The most common theme that people thought their ancestors would say to their Piscataqua Pioneer descendants would be to "carry on" and keep their stories and history alive. We are fortunate that Tylene Jousse, our new President, has energy and ideas about how we can do just that this year.

After a nice lunch catered by Kandi's Katerers, we listened to our featured speaker, Cheryl Lassiter. She gave a fast-­‐paced presentation about the Tavern Keepers of the Public Houses and shared her insights into the lives of our ancestors based on her research of colonial era public records and well-­‐crafted storytelling. Cheryl's fascinating book, "A Meet and Suitable Person" provides a lens to view life in Old Hampton New Hampshire from 1638—1783. I found the book to be both enjoyable and educational.

Complete details and photos of the Annual Business meeting and induction of Officers can be found here in the December 2015 newsletter.