GRAVES FAMILY BULLETIN
A
Free, Occasional, Online Summary of Items of Interest to Descendants of all
Families of Graves, Greaves, Grieves, Grave, and other spelling variations
Worldwide
Vol.
10, No. 5, April 28, 2008
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Copyright
© 2008 by the Graves Family Association and Kenneth V. Graves. All rights reserved.
Information
on how to start a free subscription to this bulletin and how to be removed from
the subscription list is at the end of this bulletin. If you received this bulletin directly, then you are already
subscribed.
Visit
the GFA web site at http://www.gravesfa.org
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CONTENTS:
**
General Comments
**
Trip to England in 2009
**
Additional Graves Reunions
**
Changes to the GFA Website
**
Published Research for the Early Family of George Grave of England &
Hartford, CT (Gen. 65)
**
Picture Album for Some Descendants of John Graves and Margery Harvey
**
Making Genealogies More Interesting
**
Difficulty in Accessing the GFA Website or Sending Email to Ken Graves
**
Essays and Books from James A. Graves
**
To Submit Material to this Bulletin & Other Things
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GENERAL
COMMENTS
There
is still time to join us in the trip to England in June 2009. Don’t delay your decision any longer. Even if we don’t go to every place you might
choose, this will be the trip of a lifetime!
We will be meeting some fascinating people, some of them relatives, and
visiting some wonderful places.
Some
of the other things that have happened or are about to happen are in this
issue. Please let me know of any other
items I might have missed or subjects you would like to have discussed.
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TRIP
TO ENGLAND IN 2009
If
there is a possibility that you may want to go on our tour of England in 2009,
please let me know as soon as you can.
The following paragraphs describe the trip. Although many people have already told us of their interest, we would
like to have a higher response. In
general, the more people who go, the less expensive it will be. I would very much appreciate any comments
and suggestions about what might make you want to go with us. Are there particular places you want to go? Are there certain activities you would like
to have included? Is there anything
else that would make you want to go on the tour? It is not too late to make changes, but time is growing short!
The
trip is planned for June of next year (2009), and will be about 12 days,
starting from and ending in London. The
cost will probably be only slightly more than the trip in 1995, which was about
$2,400 per person (not including air transportation to and from England). More information about that trip can be seen
on the GFA website under Activities/Recent Events.
We
will be visiting places of scenic and historical interest, as well as places of
significance to your ancestors. This
will not be a research trip, and we do not plan to schedule time in archives
and libraries, although you always have the option to go off on your own for a
day. In the 2009 tour, we will be
visiting a few of the same places as in 1995, but in no way will this be a
repeat of that trip. The present plans
are for the tour to include Keswick and the beautiful Lake District, the
Hertford/Nazeing area, York, Lincolnshire, and London. We are also considering visiting other
places including King’s Norton and Moseley Hall (now part of Birmingham), Mickleton,
Beeley, and Buckingham. Meetings with
members of the various Graves and Greaves families will be an important part of
the tour. See also the discussion on
the website under Activities/Future Events.
One
of the big advantages of this trip will be that many of us now know where in
England our ancestors were from, and some of the various Graves and Greaves
families that are related. You will
probably get to meet distant relatives you never knew existed.
If
you live in the U.K. or Ireland and would like to join us, that would be
great! If you live there and might like
to help organize a meeting with local Graves/Greaves/Grieve family members as
part of our tour, please let me know.
No matter where you live, if you have any strong feelings about places
we should visit, let me know that also.
A
link to a response form to let us know of your interest is in the first
paragraph in the “What’s New” section of the main page of the GFA website. There is also a link at the end of the
sidebar section for “Next Events”. If
you have any problem with the form, just send me an email with your name,
address, likely number in your group, and whether you might be interested in an
optional add-on tour of Ireland and/or Scotland.
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ADDITIONAL
GRAVES REUNIONS
June
21-22, 2008
will be the Belden-Billings-Graves reunion in Hatfield, MA for descendants of Thomas
Graves of Hartford, CT & Hatfield, MA (genealogy 168). There will be a meeting and dinner Saturday
evening and a picnic on Sunday afternoon.
This reunion is held every 2 years.
For more information, contact Mrs. Canada Squizzero, 53 Danielson Pike,
North Scituate, RI 02856.
August
1-3, 2008
will be the Keck Reunion at Chicken Creek, Oklahoma. This is also for related families, including the Graves family
descended from John Graves (Johann Sebastian Graff), genealogy
105. In this family there have been
many Graves-Keck marriages, the earliest being Solomon Graves (b. 1797) who
married Charity Keck. For more
information, contact Billy G. McBride, Jr., 1302 15th St.,
Galveston, TX 77550, bgmcbrid@utmb.edu.
===============================================
CHANGES
TO THE GFA WEBSITE
To make it easier for people to contact me, I
have added a new messaging option to the Contact page of the website (accessed
by the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of each page). This can be used for convenience or if other
contact methods don't work.
A
biography of Adam Graves, former Canadian ice hockey player, has been added to
the page of notable descendants.
If
you have other notable descendants of Graves/Greaves/Grieve ancestors that you
think should be added to this page, please let me know. Even better gather the information, find out
the ancestry, and send it to me.
===============================================
PUBLISHED
RESEARCH FOR THE EARLY FAMILY OF GEORGE GRAVE OF ENGLAND & HARTFORD, CT
(GEN.65)
Eben
W. Graves, a longtime GFA member, recently published an article in the Oct.
2007 issue of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Titled “Notes on the family of Deacon George
Grave of Hartford, Connecticut,” the article discusses the evidence for George
Grave as the one admitted to the Weavers’ Company in London in 1615. George had a brother, Edward Grave, who was
admitted as a freeman of the Society of Apothecaries in 1624, possibly married
Anne Geffington in 1618 in London, and had 4 children. This part of the family was very fortunate
in having six pieces of correspondence received by the Grave family in Hartford
from their family in England still preserved, and this evidence enabled the
reconstruction of part of this family.
It
is hoped that the parents of George Graves, the earlier ancestry, and more of
the branches can be found by further research.
This family is of interest to many because George Graves is closely
related to Thomas Graves of Hartford, CT (genealogy 168, possibly his brother),
and also to part of the family attributed to Capt. Thomas Graves of VA
(genealogy 169, that part of the family from John2, Ralph3).
===============================================
PICTURE
ALBUM FOR SOME DESCENDANTS OF JOHN GRAVES AND MARGERY HARVEY
I
recently received correspondence from a relative (not a descendant) of one part
of the family of John Graves and Margery Harvey of Randolph Co., NC (genealogy
77). She has come into possession of a
photo album of Saphronia Isabelle Graves (born 1887) who married Ariel Raymen
Martin. They had 2 sons, Norman and
Basil. Norman died in childhood and
Basil died in World War II, so there are no descendants who might be
interested. If there is anyone who
would like to have this album, let me know, and I will put you in contact with
the present owner.
===============================================
MAKING
GENEALOGIES MORE INTERESTING
Genealogy
is really about the stories of our ancestors and relatives, and how they are
related to each other and to us. When
we think of our family history as just a bunch of names with a few dates thrown
in, we lose most of the interesting parts.
To make our genealogies more interesting, we should try to find out and
record as much as we can about everyone mentioned, and the times in which they
lived. What were their occupations,
where did they live, why did they move, who were their neighbors? Did their neighbors and relatives move with
them? Did the times and places they
lived in present them with special problems?
What did they and their neighbors probably believe, and what were their
living conditions? And many, many other
questions can be asked?
As
you look through the genealogy of your family on the GFA website, or the pieces
of it that I may send you from time to time, it would be wonderful if you could
add some of these details to liven it up!
Some of the stories and details in some of the genealogies are
fascinating, but we need more!
===============================================
DIFFICULTY IN ACCESSING THE GFA WEBSITE OR SENDING EMAIL TO KEN GRAVES
Difficulty with Website Access
In recent months, some people have told me
that they have had difficulty accessing the Graves Family Association
website. It is believed that the
problem is related to some ISP's and some of their users not having adequate
hacker/spam protection. This allows
hackers to use those computers to send spam. Then ISP's like mine sometimes
block access from those sources.
In response to some Graves/Greaves
descendants in Australia not being able to access the GFA website for several
weeks, the technical support person at my ISP wrote: “They are most likely
using an ISP that was being blocked due to attempted break in from that
class. Many people leave their PC on
full time when they are connected directly to the internet. This can be by dialup, DLS, or cable
modem. The problem is that these same
people do not protect their PC's from viruses or from being hacked by installing
the latest OS updates (and by installing antivirus software). The end result is that those PC's end up
getting used by botnets to hack into other PC’s or servers.”
“I find that foreign ISP's are not as good as
American ISP's in filtering their customers outgoing traffic. More that 95% of the attempted break-ins to
our servers are from overseas.”
If you think you may have the problem of not
being able to access the GFA website, please let me know.
Difficulty with Sending Email
Some people also seem to have experienced difficulty sending me email
messages. The cause of this problem is
similar to that for accessing the website.
Alternative contact methods are to write me a letter, call me on the
phone, or use the new messaging option on the Contact page of the GFA website.
===============================================
ESSAYS AND BOOKS FROM JAMES A. GRAVES
James A. (“Jim”) Graves of Milton, FL, has just published an
interesting new essay on his website at http://jagwriter.com/author.
This is titled “What happened to the first chance?” and is a commentary
on our prison system. On his website
you can also see some of his other articles and essays, as well as 4 books he
has written. All his books are available
from Amazon or your local bookstore.
Jim is descended from John Graves of Northamptonshire, England & VA
(genealogy 270). The biography on his
website indicates that in addition to writing, he is a lifelong musician, a
licensed pilot, and currently works for the Federal Aviation Administration.
===============================================
ABOUT THIS BULLETIN:
This
bulletin is written and edited by Kenneth V. Graves,
ken.graves@gravesfa.org. Ken Graves was
also editor of the Graves Family Newsletter (no longer published). This bulletin will contain announcements and
news of special interest to Graves descendants with Internet access. It will not contain queries, genealogies,
photos, and the kind of in-depth articles that used to appear in the Graves
Family Newsletter.
TO
SUBMIT MATERIAL TO THIS BULLETIN:
Send
any material you would like to have included in this bulletin to
ken.graves@gravesfa.org. The editor
reserves the right to accept, edit or reject any material submitted.
TO
JOIN THE GRAVES FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
If
you do not already belong to the GFA, you can join by sending $20 per year to
Graves Family Association, 20 Binney Circle, Wrentham, MA 02093 (more details
on GFA website). Payment may also be
sent electronically via PayPal by going to www.paypal.com
and sending payment to gfa@gravesfa.org.
Benefits include access to the “members only” section of the website,
membership directory, and help with learning more about your Graves/Greaves
family. The purpose of the GFA is to
bring together as many descendants as possible to work toward learning more
about the Graves/Greaves families, to help other descendants, and to instill
pride in our ancestry.
COPYRIGHTS:
Although
the contents of this bulletin are copyrighted by the Graves Family Association
and Kenneth V. Graves, you are hereby granted rights, unless otherwise
specified, to re-distribute articles to other parties for non-commercial
purposes only. Do not re-distribute the
newsletter in its entirety.
TO
SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE TO THIS BULLETIN:
To
subscribe to this bulletin, send an e-mail message to
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address and information on your Graves/Greaves ancestry would also be
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