Mid 2016

May 2016 will be remembered as the date of publication (in the Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey) of my first genealogical article, co-authored with collaborator Chris Schopfer, about New Jersey founder William Sandford, who received in 1668 a crown grant of 30,000 acres in the area of New Jersey now called New Barbadoes Neck. Sandford was always referred to as an Englishman from Barbados, but no one had solved his parentage. Chris and I slogged through various pathways to find William Sandford baptised in Hamburg, Germany in 1637, the son of Thomas Sandford, a merchant adventurer. We are on schedule for part two of this saga, which should appear in the September issue of GMNJ.

In June we spent a fun day in Philadelphia, precisely on June 16, Bloomsday. We attended much of the annual reading of Joyce's Ulysses held outside the Rosenbach Museum and Library. Local opera singers rounded out the program by performing songs which appear in the book, including a thrilling rendition of "La Ci Darem La Mano."

This year in Gilmanton I found myself the featured poet at Bill Donahue's Scriven Arts Colony on

August 6, a reading in front of many old Gilmanton friends and family in the Donahue family barn. This was a very special place to read, a night to remember. The very next day I drove down to Chester, CT to meet with the formidable Chester Conference Group (we change our name at will...). We eight poets read at the Maple and Main Gallery in downtown Chester on Wednesday night August 10, where one of us, the incomparable Gray Jacobik, was also having a solo exhibit of her paintings.

Remember August 23, 2016 as the date my lovely condo at Long Hill Farm was finally sold!! No more for me the life of the landlord, biting my nails until the next repair might be needed. Lovely to own only one house at a time. I'm still waiting to drink the bottle of Brunello di Montalcino my realtor gave me to celebrate. It was rattling around in the trunk of my car as we were coming home from Gilmanton. Perhaps I'll wait til the eve of my departure on the next planned trip, which you will soon hear about in the forthcoming installment of this blog. It involves Swedish ancestors and...my sister, that's all you'll get from me at this point.