End of the Line - Charles Chapin Adsit Jr. ~ 52 Ancestors #31

Charles Chapin Adsit, Jr. was born in 1892, to Charles Chapin Adsit and Mary Bowman Ashby. His father and his grandfather, James, had been prominent businessmen in Chicago for many decades. He was four years old when his sister, Elizabeth, was born. He is the end of this particular ancestral line of men with the Adsit surname as can be seen at Surname Saturday:Adsit. See a photo of him and his sister at 1904 Car.

By 1917, he was a stock and bond broker, working in his father's office at The Rookery Building, an historic office building at 209 South LaSalle Street, as reported in his World War I Draft Registration Card.

This is one section of his registration. All men were required to register for the draft, but not all men served in the military.

From the WWI Draft Registration Card for Charles Chapin Adsit, Jr., June 5, 1917

However, one week after he registered for the draft, he enlisted in the navy.

Freeland Sisters Marry Lake Captains ~ 52 Ancestors #30

When my 4th great-grandfather David Freeland and his family immigrated from Scotland in 1821, they originally settled in Lanark, Ontario, Canada. Within ten years, he was in New Hartford, Oneida County, New York. Widowed by 1840, he likely lived with various of his children until his death in 1862 in Buffalo, New York.

In previous centuries, travel by waterway was often easier and more efficient than traveling over land. Three of David Freeland's daughters married ship captains who spent much of their lives on Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes. 

Appreciative of Automobiles ~ 52 Ancestors #29

My husband and I traveled to Nova Scotia for eight days at the end of June. This was a place I had wanted to visit for years. We drove from eastern Massachusetts to Bar Harbor, Maine (over five hours), took the CAT Ferry to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and spent one night there before driving to Halifax (over three hours) and spending four nights. There was a stop in Liverpool for lunch.

Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, was a good "home base." We did a couple of day trips from Halifax where we drove at least an hour each way (one day to Burntcoat Head Park to see the Bay of Fundy at low tide and another day to see Peggy's Cove). In Halifax, we visited the Citadel, a centuries-old hilltop fort, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, and Fairview Lawn Cemetery. The Maritime Museum has interesting exhibits about the April 15, 1912, sinking of the Titanic and the December 6, 1917, Halifax Explosion. The Fairview Lawn Cemetery has a somber memorial to victims of the Titanic as well as a memorial to those who died in the Halifax Explosion.

The next drive was from Halifax to Guysborough with a stop in Truro for lunch. 

We had a wonderful two days in Guysborough, where I spent some time in the old Court House Museum, home of the Guysborough Historical Society. I met a fifth cousin (a Hull) and a fourth cousin (a Pyle) who showed us the sights: cemeteries, churches, and the house built by Stephen Pyle probably in the 1790s in which my second great-grandfather, James Pyle, was likely born in 1823.

The Stephen Pyle house in Boylston, Nova Scotia.

Grandfather Loved Trains! ~ 52 Ancestors #28

My maternal grandfather, Lowell Townsend Copeland, loved trains. 

In 1947, he and my grandmother took my mother and her younger sisters on a vacation via cross-country train from Pittsburgh.

Ann, Caroline, and Margot Copeland, July 1947

Several years ago, my mother told me what she remembered about the 21-day train trip to the West Coast: from Pittsburgh they went to Chicago, then to San Francisco, followed by Los Angeles, then back to Pittsburgh. Of the 21 days, she remembered that they spent 20 of them on the train.

James Pyle and Air Safety ~ 52 Ancestors #27

On page B10 of the April 9, 1998, New York Times, the lead obituary contained the following headline.

James Tolman Pyle, my father's first cousin, was born on November 8, 1913, to David Hunter McAlpin Pyle and Dorothy Merle-Smith. He was named for his grandfather, James Tolman Pyle, who died less than two years before his birth.

 This obituary is full of wonderful detail.