DNA testing has added a whole new dimension to my genealogy research this year,  but it’s proving more difficult than expected to achieve results.   Of course there is a learning curve with any new endeavor, but understanding the technology is only part of the roadblocks I’ve been facing.

In my last blog post I talked about the different types of DNA tests and the reasons why I chose to test my autosomal (family finder) DNA through FamilyTree DNA (FTDNA).  I want to find new cousins, and validate what I have already found through traditional research.  The results of this DNA test include a list people who share a varying amount of DNA with you on one or more chromosomes, their contact information, and an estimate of how closely you are related.  The autosomal DNA tests identify matches from both your father and mother’s side, but they’re all mixed together.  It’s up to you to use your traditional genealogy research and other DNA successes to figure out which line and which common ancestors you share.   
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Generally speaking, the more segments and the bigger the segments, the closer you are related to any given match.  The further back you go, the more possible ancestors there are to check or find.  There are tools provided so you can see which chromosomes are involved, and tools that allow you to identify subgroups that are “in common with” each other.  Here’s just one small example clipped from the Chromosome Browser tool at Family Tree DNA.  

The Chromosome Browser displays up to five selected people at a time, each represented by a different color.  It shows the relative lengths and positions of the DNA segment(s) that each share with you on all 22 chromosomes (this example just shows chromosomes 7, 8 and 9 as most of the other chromosomes do not apply in this example).  The smaller segments have not been included as they are not reliable.  The yellow person is actually my new 3rd cousin, who also shares smaller segments with me on chromosomes 1 and 16 (not displayed here).  He is also a match with the pink, green, blue and orange people, although we don’t yet know how any of them connect with us.  Note that the pink does not overlap with green, blue or orange, meaning he is not related to them (at least through this area of chromosome 7). But I am, somehow.  I have used another relationship matrix tool to confirm that these “in common with” deductions are correct.

See the bottom of this posting for an example of another type of chart, created using a powerful analytical tool on the third-party site dnagedcom.com - it's free to use if you already have your autosomal DNA data from other providers such as Family Tree DNA and are willing to upload it to another site.  These reports will help you focus you research, one chromosome and group of common matches at a time, contacting these matches in the hopes of finding common surnames and common ancestors.

One of the biggest hurdles is that many people do not yet know who all their direct line ancestors are back 5 or 6 generations.  They have gaps in their pedigree charts (as do I) where the common ancestors could be “hiding”.  Another problem is that only a small percentage of people have had their DNA  tested - it’s a relatively new technology.  And if they haven’t tested, you can’t find them as a match.  And even if they’ve tested, quite a few don’t answer your emails.  It can get discouraging.  It makes me very grateful for those who do reply.

None of my more immediate family has had their DNA tested yet.  I now understand the benefits of knowing the DNA results for close relatives: it is much easier to determine which common segments on each chromosome came from which line or ancestor.  For example,  you might identify large segments on chromosomes 4, 9 and 11 (for instance) that is inherited from your mother, and other segments on specific chromosomes from your father's mother, etc..  By “mapping” our chromosomes in this fashion, we can then use this knowledge to zero in on the appropriate line and common ancestors for more distant DNA cousins.  

​I hereby encourage my close relatives to take a Family Finder DNA test:)

Since receiving the results of my autosomal DNA test this past January from Family Tree DNA, I have:

• Downloaded my match data into Excel for analysis, then sorted by name and also by chromosome and segment start position, saving several versions of the sorted spreadsheet for quicker access.
• Downloaded my raw data and uploaded it to the free gedmatch.com (available to 23andMe and Ancestry customers as well as FTDNA) to increase the number of matches available and access their powerful analysis tools.
• Uploaded my result to another analysis site at DNAGedcom.com  which makes it easier to understand my match information.
• Joined an email group for “Newbie DNA” folks (I’m now getting inundated with emails!)
• Done a lot of reading to learn more about the theory, matching process, idiosyncrasies and limitations.
• Done more traditional research on my father’s tree to find more ancestors and increase my chances of finding more common ancestors.
• Sent emails to 54 of my matches.  22 of these have not bothered to reply (not a very encouraging ratio) but I'm enjoying continuing conversations with some of the others. 
• Found how I connect to 7 of my matches :
  
  • 1 3rd cousin once removed (3C1R) on my mother’s side who I knew prior to DNA testing (as reported in my last posting: "My DNA Adventure Begins");
    
  • 6 new cousins on my father’s side.
    

It is a real gift to now be in contact with six new paternal DNA cousins.  My closest match turns out to be my 3rd cousin (3C) Bob, which is within the predicted 2nd to 4th cousin range. Our common ancestors are my great-great-grandparents Jesse HENSON and Phoebe FRALEY (or FRILEY).  I can only assume that the DNA associated with one of these two common ancestors is our largest shared segment on chromosome 7 (as displayed in the above chromosome browser diagram), but I won’t know for sure until I have explored and “mapped” the other three chromosome segments that we also share.

I also have a new 4th cousin Marla who connects through may paternal HUNT and ALLEN ancestors.  We share a DNA segment on chromosome 3.  I have two new 5th cousins, both connected through the OSBURN and LEMASTER line: one match involves chromosome 2 and the other chromosome 11.

​The final two cousins are further back than expected in my HARPER line - they’re my 6th cousins once removed (6C1R) and share DNA on chromosome 4.  This is about as far back as you can reliably go with this autosomal DNA testing.  So I’m celebrating!

I have also been very fortunate to have met up with Donna, a very knowledgeable woman who happens to administer the DNA account for one of my matches, even though she is not related to either of us.  She has graciously shared some of her experiences, tips and links with me, and helped me identify the common ancestors with a new distant cousin.  This particular connection happened to be a couple of generations further back than expected, which (I am told) can be the case when there are intermarriages in the direct lines.  As I do not yet know where and when these potential intermarriages occurred, there is still plenty to investigate in this line.

Location also plays a key role in uncovering common ancestors.  At the right time, ancestors from both matches must have been in the same location.  The main reason that all 6 of my new DNA cousins are on my father’s side is because all his known ancestors lived in the USA, whereas most of my mother’s ancestors lived in England or Canada.  It seems that most of the people who have had their DNA tested through FTDNA (and who are also matches with me) also have ancestors in the USA.  So the supply of matches is heavily weighted in favor of my paternal ancestors.  My father’s ancestors tended to follow the frontier west where historical records are more scarce.  Learning more about the history of migration and settlement through land and military records as well as local histories can sometimes bear fruit.  But I too still have some persistent gaps in my tree which can be clearly seen in my father's HENSON pedigree chart.

So is DNA genealogy research really worth it?  Most definitely!  I'm hooked.   I have heard several good luck stories from other researchers where DNA research has helped knock down a brick wall.  I've also heard stories of mistaken paternity when ancestors had taken on the surname of a step-father. Thanks to DNA research,  their trees can now be enhanced and corrected.  My tree has already grown as a result.  

Although DNA research cannot find all your relatives, it is indeed a powerful new and evolving tool to enhance and assist your traditional research methods.  I'm only getting started!  

What are your experiences with DNA research?
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REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

DNA Explained - http://dna-explained.com/
Autosomal Results Basics: http://dna-explained.com/2012/08/19/autosomal-results-the-basics/
DNA Tutorials - http://www.dnaexplain.com/Publications/Publications.asp
Beginners Guide to Genetic Genealogy (with links to tutorials) - https://sites.google.com/site/wheatonsurname/beginners-guide-to-genetic-genealogy
Face it: DNA cannot find all your relatives - 
https://medium.com/@dl1dl1/face-it-dna-cannot-find-all-your-relatives-f68089b8e1e9#.v13l8jhsq
Chromosome Basics Video - http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/chromosomes/  
Segment-ology -  http://segmentology.org/

Additional tools if you already have your test results:
GEDmatch Tools for DNA and Genealogical Research (free) - https://www.gedmatch.com
GEDmatch Basics Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acGJmLlsWg4&feature=youtu.be

DNAgedcom Tools (free) - http://www.dnagedcom.com/
Their "Autosomal DNA Segment Analyzer" Tool (ADSA) is extremely powerful - it can create a single chart for each chromosome that lists all your matches, details of the segment shared, and a grid of who shares relatives with each other ("in common with" matrix).  Everything you need shown in one place.  In the following example from my matches I have blocked out my match names and email addresses for privacy reasons (click to enlarge further):

At the start of this brand new year, I would like to take a brief look back at the accomplishments of the past year, genealogically speaking, before moving on.  A big shout out to Amy Johnson Crow, genealogist and blogger extraordinaire, who for the past two years has hosted her “No Story Too Small - Life is made of stories” blog, and administered her “52 Ancestor” challenge.  I heard about this challenge in December of 2014, and began participating on 1 Jan 2015.  Because of this challenge, I wrote and posted 52 postings last year, plus 3 other posts not directly related to this challenge.  I know for a fact that these stories would not have been written, at least in this format and timeframe, had I not felt accountable to this challenge and supported by Amy and the other bloggers. The goal of the challenge was to write a weekly story of any length about an ancestor or relative, optionally including the theme of the week.  And I did it!

Writing 52 stories seems a lot (it was), and did take a lot of time.  Most stories required a lot of review of known information plus further research, even as I wrote each story.   I was also surprised to realize how much I didn’t know about the subject until I started looking at their life from a story perspective.  Choosing the ancestor to write about each week was no mean feat either!  I found the themes very useful for narrowing down the candidates, so I generally used the theme albeit obliquely in a few cases.  It’s been many, many years since my high school and university English courses, so I was reminded anew how a theme is a very effective unifying tool for writing a focused and more interesting story. And I do want these stories to be appealing so they will be read and enjoyed by family members.  I think that this challenge has stretched and fine tuned my writing skills (although there’s still much room for improvement), an unexpected key benefit of this challenge.

I decided at the beginning of the year that I wanted to at least summarize all I knew about a deceased person in our trees in a single article, although others chose to write a number of short stories about the same person at various times throughout the year(s).  I deviated from my plan on occasion, writing two stories about Terry’s father William Irvine BOORMAN and still not covering all aspects of his life.  I only wrote one short story about my mother Mabel Marion ANDREW as it related to a favorite photo of her; so much about her is still left unwritten. My last post was about making a photo memory book for my husband Terry BOORMAN.  Both of us are obviously not yet deceased, but I thought that merging the past and the present in the same story about an alternate way of preserving stories was a good transition and “resolution” to the year’s project.  Talk about an oblique use of theme!

I wrote about direct ancestors (grandparents…) and collateral relatives (uncles, aunts, cousins …).  I wrote about about a number of relatives in our parents generation, and as far back as the 1600s, including my 9-times-great grandparents Lord John LISLE, Lady Alice BECONSAW LISLE, and Thomas HAZARD.  And many others in between.  My selections were unevenly distributed between the various branches, generally reflecting the amount of research already accomplished in the different lines.  Ten of the fifty-two stories dealt with Terry’s relatives (including Terry himself); only one dealt with his maternal THOMAS line while nine involved individuals from his paternal BOORMAN tree.  My own maternal ANDREW, RICHARDSON and COMPTON tree is by far the largest so warranted thirty-eight stories. My paternal HENSON tree was the focus of only four stories.  So it’s obvious there are many more stories still to write, no matter how small!

I received notice from Amy on  December 31st that she would not be continuing the “52 Ancestor” writing challenge in 2016.  I will keep writing stories for this blog this year, but not as prolifically and not always in that format.  I need time to expand my research and hopefully scale some of those brick walls.  My future posts can now focus on the research process itself as well as individuals and family groups in our trees.  I will need to pick my own themes as well as subjects.  My new plan is not yet set in stone; I will let it evolve as I proceed with my genealogical research in 2016. One thing is certain: there is always more to discover and write about!

In the past I had created other photo memory books for my side of the family using the online tools at shutterfly.com, but none for the Boorman side.  Last summer I decided it was time to rectify that situation.  I pulled out old photo albums and boxes of loose pictures, then scanned, enhanced and organized those that had not yet been digitized.  There were lots.  

Gradually a theme presented itself, and I decided to make Terry the focal point of the new book and save it as a Christmas present.  The title became “Terry Boorman’s Family”.  Terry's childhood naturally included his parents and sister.  As Terry’s life also includes his marriage and his children (no grandchildren yet), I also needed to add the younger generation to the book.  And finally I decided to include his parents’ siblings and Terry’s grandparents.  I was important for me to include all those relatives who had affected Terry's life, as well as information on his more recent heritage. 

With the book's scope set to include four generations, the next task was to pick the best of the photos and to group them by era and type of content.  Then I let the number and proportions of each group of photos mandate the layout of each page.  Because of this I always had to customize the pre-formatted pages included with the chosen book template.  It was worth the extra time and effort because the results were more personal and effective, and made the way I wanted.  ​

The front cover shows three different photos of Terry: as a toddler, a young man, and after retirement.  The back cover shows a grid of nine photos of his extended family throughout the years, including his childhood home.  And the 48 pages between the covers contain a large variety of colour and black and white photos with captions and short descriptive paragraphs. One of the first pages includes a “picture family tree” page, showing thumbnail-sized head shots in four rows, one for each generation: grandparents, parents, siblings and cousins.  ​

​The next group of photos involved Terry’s grandparents: Harry Eustace BOORMAN and Daisy Louise JOHNSTON and their five children: Bill, Ken, Jack, Sheila and Audrey.  I even added in two formal group photos from 1911,  showing four generations of the JOHNSTON family.  The youngest in the group was Terry’s father William Irvine "Bill" BOORMAN (a baby in his christening gown), then his mother Daisy Louise BOORMAN (nee JOHNSTON), his grandmother Deborah Sophronia JOHNSTON (nee KERFOOT), and his great-grandmother Eliza Jane KERFOOT (nee NEELAND).  The second picture also included three of Daisy's siblings: Russell JOHNSTON, Della JOHNSTON and Irene JOHNSTON.  It's fun to see the family resemblances.

Three more pages in the book were dedicated to Terry’s father of Bill BOORMAN, including his service in WWII in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserves.  Four pages were devoted to Terry’s THOMAS grandparents and relatives: Ivor John THOMAS, Lily Mary YEOMANS and their five children.  Terry’s mother Lillian Joyce THOMAS was their youngest.

We think we've just invented Social Media (in the form of digital apps such as Facebook and Twitter) and the need to know the minutiae of everyone's daily lives, but it was thriving years ago in the guise of personal columns and community bulletins in local and district newspapers.  I admit that, until recently, I have virtually ignored these wonderful sources for genealogy research, mainly because of access fees.  But some are now free, it seems.  And I find it much more addictive than Facebook to browse the online newspaper images in search of tidbits about my ancestors.

I have Mike to thank for telling me about the Prince Edward Island newspaper archives online.  Surprisingly the Charlottetown Guardian paper contains a wealth of news about all areas of this small province, including the western Prince County where my mother (and some of her ANDREW, RICHARDSON and COMPTON ancestors) were born. Mike, who is not related to me but who has turned out to be quite generous with his help, first contacted me this past April, wondering if I had further information on the location of the old French / Acadian cemetery which had been established on COMPTON property in PEI Canada. He had spotted a small newspaper article published in 1932:

This was subsequently validated (except for the date and illustration) by an old lease document, which was drawn up 29 Sep 1814 and (finally) registered on 20 Feb 1817 in PEI.  Harry COMPTON of Saint Eleanors PEI (my 4 times great grandfather) leased a small parcel of land to James and Charles CRASWELL of Richmond Parish PEI.  This land was known by the name of Churchill, already occupied by James and Charles, and was described as "Seven Acres a little more or less of Arable dry meadow or clear Land Bounded on the West by Lakes the property of Captain Thomas Compton, on the North by the shore of Richmond Bay on the East by Lands now in the occupation of Mr Benj'n Crossman and on the South by Lands the Property of Mr Wm Craswell".  Conditions of the lease included "reserving to the said Harry Compton his Heirs Executors and Administrators the width of six feet together with a Dyke round said Premises to the Burying Ground allowing the French agress and regress for the purpose of Burying their Deas [sic]…"  We also learned that the church and graveyard were later moved off the property (perhaps in 1819),  and by 1880 this 7 acre plot seems to have been absorbed into the neighboring CRASWELL property (then belonging to Harry C CRESWELL) as it then extended all the way to Malpeque (Richmond) Bay.

In the process of this investigation, we became interested in other families including the CRASWELLs who bought land from Harry COMPTON and later his son Thomas.  This led to scouring the old PEI newspapers for real estate ads and sales, and it fact any news at all relating to the familiar surnames in St Eleanors and Richmond Parish, PEI.  We came up with quite a number of death and marriage notices, and I ended up expanding my CRASWELL trees (even though most are not related to me) so I could better understand relationships and possible reasons for  land transfers.  William CRASWELL who was the father of James and Charles (and who had bought a couple of larger plots of land from Harry COMPTON in 1809), had another son Robert who married a Catherine COMPTON, a niece of Col Harry Compton.

Having the old newspapers available online is a real benefit to long-distance researchers.  Yet finding information in these files can still be a challenge.  The newspapers have not been transcribed by human hand.  As is frequently done for large collections, documents are scanned using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software that tries to convert the graphic image to text automatically.  Success varies widely depending on the clarity of the printing in the image, the varieties of fonts used, and the sophistication of the algorithms used by the software.  Too often the text results are unreadable.  And as these text files are the ones searched in response to a query, you can appreciate why many actual articles are missed by the search engines.  So it pays to search using a variety of different search terms, and even browse the images directly in search of noteworthy items, especially if you have at least an approximate date in mind. Even better, have a friend like Mike who is so much better at finding old articles than I am - don't know how he does it!

It was this combination of tactics that helped me find some old news articles on the history of North St Eleanors, written by Hubert George COMPTON (my 3 times great uncle who died in 1915), the grandson of Colonel Harry COMPTON. He obviously had a keen interest in local and family history, and a gift for writing. In 1937, the Summerside Journal republished his 4-part series entitled "The First Settlers of St. Eleanors".  Part 2 includes mention of William Craswell buying 208 acres in 1809.  I have also found other articles by Hubert printed in the Charlottetown Guardian in 1905 and 1906, entitled "A Short Sketch of North St Eleanors" (several installments), and "French Settlers at St. Eleanors".  Places are described, people and land owners are named, events are mentioned and colourful stories are told.  They are wonderful resources!  I'm sure there are more I have not yet found, so I'll keep looking.

Of course, all this has become rather addicting, and very much the treasure hunt.  As if the Compton research wasn't enough, I decided last week to see if I could find anything about my Great Grandfather Sydney RICHARDSON, the first cheese maker in Prince County, if not in all of PEI.  Although I haven't yet found notice of him winning a bronze medal in 1886 for his cheeses (although later, Hubert tells me so), my search query did produce about 32 different mentions of Sydney or his wife in the Charlottetown Guardian.  In 1907, Mrs. Sydney RICHARDSON won second prize for her Bradshaw plums in the Prince County Fall Exhibition.  In Oct 1915 in the personals, it says that "Mrs. Sydney Richardson, St. Eleanor's, and Mrs. William Andrew, North St. Eleanor's, spent a few pleasant days with friends and relatives at Port Hill."  Mrs Andrew was also a Compton and her first cousin.  And my favorite notice was published 5 Nov 1928: "Mrs. Sydney Richardson of St. Eleanors, has returned home this week from Seattle, Wash., where she had spent an enjoyable three months visit with her two sons who reside there.”  I have pictures taken during that trip, received from relatives in Washington State.

Sydney had by far the majority of newsworthy mentions.  He won a good number of prizes at the Summerside Exhibition, primarily for his garden produce: carrots, Winnirgstadt cabbage, parsnips, self-blanching celery, and Roxbury Russet apples; he also was a prize winner at the Seed Fair and for his eschallot seeds.  Along with his daughter Miss E. L. RICHARDSON (my grandmother Eleanor), he also raised Orphington Buff chickens, and it's interesting to note that in 1911 Eleanor won 1st prize against her father, then the following year Sydney's pair of chickens bested his daughter's.  A bit of family rivalry there!  I also found mention of Sydney traveling to Summerside or Charlottetown on various occasions, where he usually stayed at either the Lennox Hotel (once with Horace ANDREWS) or Revere Hotel (once with Fred COMPTON).  

Sydney RICHARDSON was also mentioned in:
1909 - Elected as Vestryman, and Delegate to D.C.S. as a member of St John's Church, St. Eleanors
1915 - "Western Personals… Messrs. Sydney Richardson and Bruce Bernard, St. Eleanor’s, were on a trout fishing excursion to Freetown Tuesday evening and returned with a fine lot of speckled beauties."
1921 - Honorable pall bearer at the funeral of Thos Andrew
1926 - Foreman of a jury at the inquest into the death of Anthony Mitchell, killed by his son
1928 - Member of the grand jury for the November term of Supreme Court in Summerside
1947 - A reprint of an old article from 1897:
"Cheese-Makers From Ontario
   “Of the 32 cheese-makers engaged on the Island last year, twelve were Ontario men, as folows:- Hazelbrook, Joseph Bur;gess; Baram’s Village, W. J. Stevens; New Glasgow, J. W. Hesseltine; Marshfiled, W. T. Leslie; Stanley, James Bristoow; Orwell, B.F. Dingman; Vernon River, S. T. Wallace; Kensington, Albert Raby; Cornwall, C. J. Brown; St. Eleanor’s, Sydney Richardson; Montague, E. L. Head; Hillsboro, Fraser Morrow.  Most of these mentioned have spent two, three or four years in their present positions.  Mr. Richardson has been at St. Eleanor’s for 15 years.  A number of the Ontario boys have taken unto themselves fair daughters of our Island Province, and are settled down in matrimonial bliss in the land of brilliant cheese prospects.” - Daily Examiner.  1897
1951 - Death and funeral notice.

I'm sure there is lots more to unearth in these newspaper archives!

Don't you just love old family photos?  While I agree that each photo is worth at least a thousand words, it would be nice if the photos could also speak, as most often the detailed stories behind each image is lost once the people shown are no longer with us.  And sometimes, even learning the identity of captured likenesses is a challenge.

Some time ago I borrowed a group of old Richardson family photos from my mother's first cousin Ralph living in Washington state.  Some photos had captions on the back, and as I asked questions about the others I wrote the responses on the back.  Only a few mysteries remained.

My best laid plans to scan, digitally enhance and organize these pictures took much too long to fulfill (I can't blame it all on temperamental scanners!).  But I am pleased to announce that they have all been scanned and at least partially enhanced (although some were badly blurred and/or damaged), and have now been mailed back.  But I wanted to do more with these photos.

Earlier this fall I had created a digital photo book for my mother's Andrew, Richardson and Compton heritage (see blog posting in Sept 2013), which has now been printed.   Rather than trying to include all my family photos in one book, I thought it was better to attempt smaller and more manageable projects that would be more achievable and affordable.  So I focused in on my mother and her Andrew family, with a bit about her Richardson and Compton ancestors.  That book became an overview, only 22 pages, only 5 of which showcase the Richardson line.  And there is almost nothing on the current generations. It was a great start!

So as I was organizing and scanning this borrowed batch of photos, I realized that they focused mainly on the descendants of Henry Melbourne Richardson, my maternal grandmother's oldest brother, who went by the name Melbourne, or Mel.  (I remember we visited him once when I was a child - we traveled to Seattle to attend the Seattle Worlds Fair there at Easter time, 1962, but otherwise we didn't have much contact with this branch.)  It was exciting to learn from these photos that in September 1946, Melbourne and his wife Marion went on a cross country trip to visit relatives in PEI on the east coast, and also in Westholme BC on the west coast (near Duncan on Vancouver Island).  The surviving snapshots of this trip are very valuable for locating various relatives on either coast. 

In 1946, Melbourne's parents in PEI were very elderly (both were to die in 1951).  His sister Lulu (Richardson) Bernard had died in PEI in 1940 and his brother George Lewis Richardson had died in WA state in 1943, so his only living sibling was my grandmother Nell (Richardson) Andrew who was married to Harry Charles Andrew and was still in PEI.  The war had ended the year before, and the Andrew family had lost their farm to the air base on PEI.  Nell and Harry's son Dean had been critically wounded during the war and needed a milder climate in which to convalesce.  So in 1945 Harry decided to move to the west coast, near Compton relatives who were dairy farming in Westholme, along with sons Dean and Sydney, and his sister Mabel and her husband Major Fred May.  Other Andrew children, Alan and Eleanor, also joined him later that year.  By 1946, Harry and Nell's oldest son George was married and settled in the Toronto area,  Nell stayed behind in PEI to nurse her ailing parents. My mother Mabel was working in Summerside, and Harriet was married to Charles Clark in PEI with one young son Arnold (Harry and Nell's first grandchild, 20 more to come).  So this group of photos captures this family's migration while still in transition.

With such stories to tell, I decided to create another digital photo book, focusing on the Richardson line, specifically the descendants of Sydney Richardson and Isabella Harriet "Ella" Compton, my maternal great-grandparents and parents of both Melbourne and Nell.  My original plan was to include all of the photos I had borrowed, so I could send a copy of the book as a thank you gift for the extended loan.  Then I decided to include a few of my own photos to support a back story on the Richardson origins, and to tie the various subjects together.  But as I progressed through the project (which I worked on almost constantly for over 2 weeks!), more and more related photos crept onto the pages.  By the end, I had a total of 50 pages (in 8" x 8" format), again without covering most of the current generations. It was enough!  Two copies of the book are now on order, and I look forward to receiving my copy in the mail before Christmas.

If the book below won't load, please try this link to the Richardson book on Shutterfly.