Flipside: Home Sweet Home

I believe this beautiful Home Sweet Home
was hand stitched by one of my husbands
maternal ancestors

Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to give a try for the second year.

The prompt for week # 13 (March 26-April 1) is Home Sweet Home.

Goodness gracious! What to blog about here? I have "over" blogged about my wonderful childhood home in Perrysville, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania and my decade plus living there from 1950 to 1961. When I think of home sweet home, my memories wander there.

I do have two other places that I have alluded to on Flipside, Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia and Hartlepool, Durham County, England.

Morgantown represents my paternal grandmother's families, and my ancestors who lived there for over a century. I have spent much time walking cemeteries, researching at West Virginia University and visiting homes and historical sights. Almost heaven, West Virginia. 😊

Hartlepool, or the section that was called West Hartlepool, was where my paternal grandfather was born and lived until age eight when the family immigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1906. My brothers and I had the opportunity to visit in 2003 and meet numerous family still residing in town.

I can't decide so.....I'll do both. 😁

Morgantown, West Virginia

I have been looking back at my picture files and the nearest I can come to the number of visits to Morgantown is ten. Twice was a full weeks stay at a time share and others were a couple of days in hotels/motels. The trips from 1993 to 2010 was during a time when I was heavily researching my Morgantown ancestors. It's been a while since I have wandered there.

My pioneer ancestors settled in the area as early as 1786 and my paternal great grandmother and family relocated to Pennsylvania in 1911. I have pushed past that time with some Morgantown family members; however, my primary focus is during those one hundred twenty five years.

List of the Morgantown surnames

John and Bathsheba FERGUSON--Bathsheba Ferguson
William FRUM and Anna Smith
Sampson Smith FRUM and Elizabeth Ann VanGilder
Philip William HARNER and Sarah Fearer (Fear)
Robert HILL and Rebecca Caldwell
Joseph Davidson Hill and Sarah Houston
Purnell HOUSTON and Mary Carey
William LANHAM and Catherine Ferguson
Thomas McELROY and Elizabeth
Asby POOL and Vilender Lanham
William Lanham Pool and Ann Frum
Sampson Frum Pool and Sarah Louise Harner
Jacob VANGILDER and Anna Margaret Gibler
Jacob VanGilder, Jr. and Sarah McElroy
John Oliphant VanGilder and Mary Louise Hill
George Ethelbert VanGilder and Jessica Pool

This was a good exercise. I see I'm missing a few ancestors in Morgantown that need a blog. For some the link is on my old website.

1994 VanGilder Reunion
Face Forward Pictured
Richard Rootes & George VanGilder Hughes
Garrett Bevin Hiser

My first trips to Morgantown involved attending VanGilder reunions in the Winfield District, Marion County, Fairmont, West Virginia. I believe I was the only attendee from Jacob VanGilder, Jr's descent. On several reunions my Dad, Aunt Faith, brothers and son, Garrett, came along.

1995 Morgantown, West Virginia

During these trips we also located cemeteries and the area where the old VanGilder farm once was located. There is a street corner there--VanGilder and George Streets. Appropriately I captured my Dad, George VanGilder Hughes, named for his maternal grandfather, pictured there.

We always enjoyed shopping on High Street. I google mapped the street and it appears that many of our hunts are no longer there. Often I would imagine my paternal grandmother, as a young girl, wandering up and down High Street with her sisters.

I dragged any family members in attendance from one cemetery to another, wandering up and down the rows looking for family names and then taking the photographs. They were all good sports!

The Old Harner Homestead
my photograph

The most memorable trip was in 2007. My brother Ken and I took a couple of these trips to Morgantown together. We decided to stay at the Hotel Morgan in town. We did our usual meals in town and driving around looking for ancestral places. This time I had an address for the Harner House in the community of Sabraton. Imagine our surprise when we saw a For Sale sign outside. That led to us actually getting inside. The home was built in 1850 by my maternal great great great grandfather Philip William Harner. I had shivers thinking about my family actually living in the house and walking up the stairs to the bedroom area where they all climbed daily. It's no surprise that I have a blog on The Old Harner Homestead.

When we came down the hill and I first caught a glimpse
of The Old Frum Cemetery
I felt like Dorothy seeing Oz for the first time.

Another fantastic find was The Old Frum Cemetery. The cousin and very engaged family researcher I was then in contact with was Dr. Robert Poole Wilkins. He was not aware of the location. In 1995, through the Internet and very early genealogical websites, somehow I hooked up with a Morgantown researcher and she connected me with a distant cousin who knew where the cemetery was located. I was in a car with my kids and my Mom and on the way to Morgantown. After the VanGilder Reunion in August, 1995, we made a return trip to fix tombstones.

Morgantown is rich in my family history and on the sixth floor of the Wise library The West Virginia and Regional History Center is located on the West Virginia University campus.

And now for a trip across the pond.😉

The Hughes Kids on The Headland
Hartlepool, England
2003

Around 2000 a woman from the UK emailed me. She had seen I had family from Hartlepool, England and offered to help me with research there. She is also a genealogist and lives a short drive from Hartlepool.

It was a very generous offer. We have now shared a friendship for over twenty-five years. I was able to visit her in person twice, in 2003 and in 2005. During the 2003 visit we spent time together in Hartlepool. In 2006 it was in Scotland.

Through her I was able to connect with Hughes relations in Hartlepool and we spent many happy hours sharing stories, photographs, tea and biscuits.

List of the Hartlepool surnames

George Henry Hughes and Mary Ann Storey
John George Hughes and Elizabeth Ferdinande Olesen
Samuel Hughes and Ann Hill
William Hughes and Mary Bourne
Frederick Heinrich Adolph Weiss and Ferdinande Lehman
Christian Invart Olesen and Ferdinanda Weiss
John Storey and Ann Robinson
Robinson, Pounder and Roundtree

I do want to mention that there are numerous links on Flipside to some of these ancestors. To see if there are additional pieces on an individual person, an alphabetical listing is available on my blog.

Over the years I have been able to trace my Olesen line back through a generous researcher in Denmark. My UK friend also was able to trace the Robinson line back some additional generations. The Danish Olesen blogs are in the alphabetical list. The Robinson, Pounder and Roundtree surnames are MIA on Flipside. Note to self: Get busy on that, Linda. 😇

The first hurtle when arriving in the UK was my brother, Ken, adjusting to driving on the "wrong side" of the road. 😅 And, he did a masterful job of it.

At the Sandwell Gate Town Wall
Hartlepool, England

Of our week in the UK, we spent three days in Hartlepool and it was filled with Hughes Family time and special time with my new friend.

It was an exhilarating feeling just being in Hartlepool where my grandfather, George Henry Hughes, was born and lived until the family immigrated when he was eight years old. Certainly much of the town had changed over the century. West Hartlepool, where the Hughes and Olesen families lived was amalgamated into Hartlepool in 1967. The section of West Hartlepool where my paternal great great grandparents lived, Longhill, has been totally destroyed.

Myself with my Hughes Cousins
Hartlepool, England
2003

My brothers with our Hughes cousins
Hartlepool, England
2003

Cousins John and Mary Marsh
Their daughter and grandson

We were treated like royalty during our stay by both our cousins and my UK friend. Dinner out, a trip to a caravan with fish and chips, numerous teas and being chauffeured around.

Sumptuous Teas

Sunday service at St. Aidan's Church

Myself at the Hartlepool Monkey

On the Moors

Just a sampling of our wonderful three days. One of the perks was trading old photographs and stories with our UK cousins. And, Mary Marsh sharing several of her old Hughes recipes for the cakes she made for our tea at the Marsh home.

The scope of this trip for, anyone working on their family genealogy, is that they would look back on it with a heart full of love and appreciation to all those folks that came together to organize the three days.

THANK YOU. 💗

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published. PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.