Saggers Family Collection - Day 12 - 21 Day Family Connections Experiment

Today is Day 12 of my 21 Day Family Connections Experiment.

Since I mentioned my Stray Postcard and Photograph Collection yesterday, I thought I might say something about my Saggers Family Collection - and my Saggers Surname Study.

Sarah Frances Saggers was my paternal grandmother. I always knew a little about her family who had all come here to Vancouver from England. I think she coached my dad so he'd remember a few things! 

As far as my Saggers Family Collection goes, it's very small. I've written already about a few of Grandma Sarah's books that I have,  And in the 'Rogers' box dad gave me were some papers relating to her father's estate which Grandpa Joe Rogers (Sarah's husband) helped with. Inside the box was Grandma's photo album, and some loose photos. As well there were school photos and a few papers about my dad and his brother, David. 

Photographs above I believe were taken at Burton End, Stansted, Essex. The ones below say "Dad's Old Home", Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire, England.

Last year, I rescanned the photo album and all of the photos in it. Many are of Saggers relations here in Vancouver. A few must have been sent from England, like the ones above which apparently show the family's last home at Burton End. And my Great Grandpa David Saggers 'old home' in Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire.  

At some points, Grandma organized most of the photographs onto pages. Many photos are glued down; some are held in with photo corners. On some pages she wrote a descriptive heading. Not always. And it does not appear she kept any of the letters I believe she received from England which may have explained some of the photos. Nor did she note any of her family members, except for one school photo. And a few people might be relatives from Grandpa's side of the family? (Rogers/White)

Unidentified; but I can see Grandpa Rogers there, and Grandma in the front row, I think. Possibly taken in Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC. 

If anyone looks familiar, please do contact me. Last year, I put all these photos in a virtual album and I sent links to some relatives. If you'd like to see them too, let me know. 

I hope that all these stay in the family, but all the information on my Saggers families also is in my Saggers One-Name Study, along with data on all the other Saggers families I've researched up till now around the world. All this surname study information, I hope, will have another 'custodian' someday soon. But in any case, it will be preserved by the Guild of One-Name Studies as I am a member. The Saggers Surname Study is part of the Guild's Member Website Project, currently 300 strong! A photo of Grandma Sarah appeared in the latest Guild newsletter in an article about Guild members blogging and mentioned her Christmas cake recipe. 

For more about the 21 Day Family Connections Experiment, see my first Experiment article here.

Bonne Année! New Year, new genealogy plans.

Bonne Année, postcard mailed in 1909 to Nimes, France. 

From my 'family tree' postcard collection. Carte Postale; publisher's mark "H. K. C."

For me, it has been a very slow start to 2015 as I have been sick, although even while too ill to work or even read, it seemed I had a lot of plans going through my mind. Once I woke up determined to officially change my name (an idea that lingers); another time I decided to swap rooms (I think as both my room and the library are full of  `stuff`).  

I`ve given up that last idea but if some young`un turns up soon I may ask to have some furniture moved around. Once I was getting better, that swap idea did seem to make Thomas MacEntee`s 2015 Genealogy Do-Over 13 week plans more appealing. People are adapting this to their own situations, so I will do that too.

Just before Christmas, after reading quite a lot of how-to-dos, I had set up a brand new set of geographical and family computer folders and a new (still empty) Legacy software database for my recently launched SAGGERS surname study. 

I then spent a few happy hours adding new-to-me newspaper stories (mainly to do with WW I) and I had also set up a SAGGERs community on the Lives of World War I website.  And I had double checked my marriage information for my known Canadian Saggers families, intending to submit this to the Guild of One-Name Studies. 

Oh, yes, I had also decided to start using Clooz for the study and Evernote too and planned to spend a day learning more about using each of these two programmes. 

This all came to a crashing halt - now I really need to get myself going again. 

So, for my `2015 Genealogy Do-Over` I will concentrate only on the above. This should give me a good start to the study but will no doubt enliven my other family history work, especially in Legacy, as since I started in the olden days `before PCs and Macs`, I have never gone back and added media to my older entries. That could be my next do-over, but not quite yet :-)

Thomas`s  Genealogy Do-Over has certainly struck a chord with many. Have a look at his plan for the 13 weeks. I particularly like that he`s built in time for thinking and planning. And yes, there is a Facebook group and already lots of posts and additional activities.

Interested? There`s still time for you to join in. Now I'm off to sweep up my desk. And to slot my new SAGGERS study folders into Dropbox so there won't be any excuse not to file even when I'm away from home.