too many choices....

... all clamoring to be in the blog banner! After some stumbling around to figure out how to add an image to the header, I determined to get one done today. It was of course a foregone conclusion that it would be bits and pieces of my ancestors but frankly, I have far too many bits and pieces on hand and nearly all of them wanted to be there!!! 

Anyway, the bits that ended up above are as follows:

The background is part of the sampler completed by my 3rd great grandmother on my father's side, Sukey Foster, and completed by her in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in August of 1803 when she was 12 years old. 

The story of the sampler is at

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/foster/sukey.html 

and the sampler itself is shown at

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/foster/sampler.html

The small journal on the left is a "Mathison's Life Diary" that was given to my great grandfather, Charles Stanton Adams for Christmas of 1905. After a small section for entering information about family, it commences with Jan of 1890 with three months to the page and continues until December of 1964. Charles, or "Thuddy" as he was called by family, made a scattering of back entries from 1890 to 1905 and then for a little over ten years he made frequent entries including listing everyone who came for Thanksgiving or Christmas and a number of small entries about his son and only child, my grandfather, Arthur Stanton Adams, who was born 1 July 1896. 

The miniature on the journal is a mourning locket with a braided lock of hair under glass on the reverse side along with the name "Wm Adams." It is believed to be William Adams, my 5th great grandfather, grandfather of Charles of the journal. There are two William's in a row but Charles' father William did not die until 1905, rather late for the miniature and portrait. The elder William was born 11 January 1789 and died 26 March 1827 and is the liklier candidate.

The little girl with the book is myself, circa age 2 or 3, and the book is Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" and certainly typifies my childhood and much of my life, buried in a book!!!

The two girls to the right are my maternal great grandmother, Lida Deshler Willson, on the right and her sister Olive Sinks Willson on the left. The girls were born and raised in Leavenworth, Kansas, but the picture was taken in Dayton, Ohio, possibly on a trip back to see their mother's family in nearby Williamsburg in Clermont County.

The final item, the paper behind myself and the sisters, is my third great grand uncle, John Stanton's letter requesting a passport. On 4 November 1848, he writes, "Being out of health and ordered by my physicians to travel through the south of Europe for its restoration, I am desirous of obtaining a passport." He dies at sea on 25 January 1849 "on board barque Star, 25th Jan, on the passage from New Orleans for Marseilles, Mr. John Stanton, 39, of the firm of Stanton & Co, of N.O." as noted in the Boston Evening Transcript of 30 Mar 1849. 

I guess now I will have to figure out how to add images to the actual blog so I can stop the clamoring of all those who got left out.