Over the past few months I've neglected this blog in favor of my Norwegian heritage site (What's in a Nordic Name?) and life's daily demands. In family gatherings over the week of Christmas I anticipate family conversations about shared ancestors and the cultures and circumstances in which they lived. The focus will be on the family present this holiday season, so, I don't expect to be back to blogging for a while. When I resume, it will most likely be on my Starkey family site. However, I want to post one more 2009 blog for my Blackley ancestors.
The mid-Atlantic states are currently experiencing a heavy snowstorm. Smyth county Virginia, home of the Davis' and Blakely families in the 1700's, is in the path of that storm and is currently blanketed in white. Travel in the area has become difficult to impossible and many holiday travelers have had to detour to hotels, motels and shelters in the area as roads became treacherous. An online, local newspaper, SW VA Today, posted a photo of a snow covered main street worthy of a holiday card. And another local website, SWVaNow, posted a slide show of picturesque snowscenes in the area.
(broken links removed - 8/7/2017)
So pull up a comfortable chair, grab a cup of coffee, tea or wine, check out the winter wonderland scenes in these links and imagine Charles and Margaret Blackley preparing for a holiday celebration with their family during the last quarter of the 18th century. Did they begin their celebrations of the Christmas season on December 25th (The Nativity of Jesus)? Did they have a horse-drawn sleigh for visiting family nearby? Did they gather together with neighbors and family to worship on Christmas Day or read the Bible to each other at home? Or did they, as many Scots-Irish did, celebrate "Old Christmas" on January 6th? What foods did they prepare for their feast -- ham? wild turkey? venison? Did they shoot celebratory rounds from their muskets? Did they end the day with a bonfire? If James, Alexander, Sarah, Jesse, Mary, Martha, Charles, Joseph, John or Agnes could tell us their favorite memory of Christmas, what would it be?
Wishing you special memories this Christmas!
