Workington is town of (currently) more then 20,000 residents located on the Irish Sea coast of Cumbria (formerly “Cumberland”), a short train ride from Carlisle and Scotland. It’s on the western edge of the legendary mountains of the “Lakes District” which is now a national park in the northwest corner of England. The western edge of Hadrian’s Wall started not far from Workington which has something of a Roman history as well. The town sits at the mouth of the river Derwent but back from the actual shoreline where a number of railyards, warehouses, and a small port separate the town center from the sea.
The Records Room at the Fauquier County Circuit Court
One of the fun things about visiting the Fauquier Co., VA Courthouse in Warrenton was to see a room filled with bound copies of property records: wills and deeds.1 One of the services our government provides is the to collect and validate how our property is to be transferred when we cannot do so for ourselves, and who owns what land at any moment now or in the past. Considering that all citizens agree that these records control the ownership of vast amounts of wealth it’s a wonder that these documents are so easily accessed, and the offices that maintain them often operate with less security than a bank or jewelry store in many cases. The most valuable property these offices hold, in my opinion, is stories.
Herein is the story of a son of the second son of JJR, the first born on this continent after his father and mother and older brother left Siegen in Germany to immigrate to colonial Virginia with thirteen other families. Henry lived a long life, dying at 84 but surviving four of his children including his son Spencer who is the next link in our line.
Who knew feather beds were so valuable that they are mentioned right up front, just after land and money? Apparently so, as Henry specified that son Elijah would get SECOND choice of feather beds, while daughter ‘Caty’ is offered FIRST choice:
Frank, age 86, and Wilda, age 82, in Tempe, AZ 2006
In or about 1996 Brian gave Marc Rector the basic genealogy of the Rector clan in the US going back all the way to “1666 in Truppich, Germany 2 kilometers east of Siegen.” Brian had stumbled onto the “Rector Records” book and other documents and copied out our line. Given that both his parents had died, this inspired Marc to write to his Rector uncles and aunts for additional information:
Son Brian has been bugging me again about the RECTOR genealogy…Seems he found a book on RECTOR in the New York Public Library a while back and wants to know more…me too.
The following is the Genealogy in a direct line, taken from a much broader genealogy that Frank sent me a few years ago. That one ended with MARCUS CLAY being the son of MARCUS in the mid 19th Century. I have continued it to the best of my knowledge…Many gaps need filled and specifics filled in…PLEASE FILL IN AND RETURN THE COPY TO ME.
There followed is the first outline of our Hilltop lineage that we’ve now added to and compiled in The Begats.
I’ve recently come upon the folder in which Marc stored this information. I have found (so far) responses from Frank Hodgson Rector, as well as Jane Rector Breiding. Jane glossed the MARCUS CLAY outline that Marc had sent her, including the addition of sister Margaret who died tragically (as you will read below) at age 1 1/2. Frank, however, wrote a four page single-spaced letter describing his knowledge of the family background. It was so informative, and colorful, I thought it would be good to add it to this archive:
John Jacob Rector 1773 Estate (partial) from Fauquier Co. Courthouse records
It was with great interest that I pulled Book 1 of over 100 bound records in the Fauquier (“It’s pronounced “Faw-KEER”) County, VA courthouse after placing all my electronic devices (including my fone) into a locker once I passed through the metal detectors in the lobby of the courthouse. Unfortunately I arrived with only 30 minutes until closing time on a Friday in May of 2022 so I had to dive in quickly. I had started with the Index book for all wills and estates recorded before 1925, and when I reached the “R” section, there were Rectors galore. I chose the earliest record I could find, which was for John Jacob Rector, the first son of the immigrant Johan Jacob Richter, who died in 1773. Bingo!
Here are (some of!) the spoils of our holiday visit to the Bay Area — Ratto’s own White Wine Vinegar and California Olive Oil sparkling — sparkling in the Maine winter sun.
In Maine we say that summer has peaked and is now coasting downhill toward the dark valley of winter when the goldenrod heads erupt in a spray of gold the sun’s light that has blanketed our fields and pastures since the end of Spring’s rain.
Our last “foodie” stop on our trip was in another mountain area, north west of Coonoor and back in Karnataka state but right on the Kerela border, referred to as “Coorg” although that seems to be a colonial era term and is not found on any maps. Significantly we would be entering a dense chunk of the Tata Empire as guests of their hospitality division surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of their agricultural division which they proudly announced that they sold most of their coffee production to Starbucks. Continue reading “Plantation Pundit”→
The view from the upper bungalow at Acres Wild Farmstay, Coonoor, Tamil Nadu
Our journey after Melkote began with being picked up by a driver and his car as we said our goodbyes to the Kouragi family and thanked them for hosting us. We had arranged through a travel agent that specialized in culinary focused travel to visit a cheese maker, and to visit a coffee plantation before we had to leave India. We had four nights left, and two of them would be spent at Acres Wild, a “22 acre, family-run organic cheesemaking farm and farmstay” according to their website. First we had to get there. Continue reading “Acres Wild”→
Sambar in the cup, pepper pickle, mint coconut chutney, and a stir-fry veg main dish surround a Finger Millet cake (Ragi Roti) on my plate at one dinner.
Some of you may know that the title is NOT an invitation to dance (though, feel free…) but to eat a lentil-ish soup/stew that is served throughout the South India areas we visited on our trip. In fact it seems to be a central dish to the local cuisines, served all day in a little (often metal) cup beside your roti (bread) and/or rice, and the main dish (vegetable or meat). I found Sambar SO satisfying that I was often tempted to consume multiple cups of it in one sitting, though the local consumers appeared to treat it as a complement to the main dish and primarily for moistening and flavoring your bites of bread and rice in combination with the main dish. Continue reading “Everybody: SAMBAR!”→
We traveled by train and car from Bangalore to Mysore to Melkote to Coonoor to Coorg and then back to Bangalore. Mostly we were in the southern end of Karnataka state, but Coonoor is just over the border in the southern-most state of Tamil Nadu. In Coorg we stayed less than 10 miles from the Kerela state border, and less than 40 miles from the Arabian Sea coast.
There are several large reservoirs in southern Karnataka which allows for constant irrigation, even in the dry season of crops like coconut and rice and sugar cane which are major cash crops in the area.
The agriculture was just so different than anything I’ve ever experienced I kept a list of all the food crops I saw being grown, followed by a few crops I did not see being grown but saw offered at the markets. Continue reading “Crops Seen In South India”→
RectorSite 