UPDATING FAMILY HISTORY

Listen up, all ye members of the next generation: Heidi and Lee have learned a whole lot more about the sources of your DNA!

We spent the morning with Abbie and Ross Hersey tooling around Port Maitland, Lake George, Breton and various points in between hunting down various sites associated with Martin Family history.  Both hosts proved not only apt guides but also great storytellers, full of anecdotes tied to various events and locations.

The Port Maitland house in which Heidi's Great Grandparents once lived still exists (although in a somewhat dilapidated state) as does the Salt Air Lodge where her Grandparents often summered together with Heidi's Mother and her Aunts.

HOME OF JACOB AND ELEANOR CROSBY, PORT MAITLAND, YARMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA

ONCE THE SALT AIR LODGE, NOW A PRIVATE HOME, SOON TO BE A BED AND BREAKFAST
PORT MAITLAND, YARMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA

The house in which Heidi's Grandfather was born, however, has disappeared, leaving only the remnants of a stone wall on the property near Lake George.

THE NOW DESERTED PROPERTY WHERE WILLIAM HENRY CROSBY WAS BORN NEAR LAKE GEORGE,
YARMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA

Two cemetery searches yielded no family tombstones but Crosby Hall (the funds provided for by William Henry Crosby -"Pup") still exists beneath the sanctuary of the Port Maitland Baptist church after all these years.

CROSBY HALL, BAPTIST CHURCH
PORT  MAITLAND, YARMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA

Both Heidi and Lee thought Port Maitland itself a charming and lovely Yarmouth area village and could well understand why Ross, for instance, never left, why Abbie returned in retirement and why, all those years, the Crosbys spent summers looking out over the Bay of Fundy.

WITH THE ARCHIVIST AT THE YARMOUTH MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES

 Our afternoon at the Yarmouth Museum and Archives yielded equally fruitful insights.  While Heidi tracked down some of the ancestors of her female relatives, Lee focused on the six generations of Eleanor Moses Durkee, Heidi's Geat Grandmother (who married Jacob Knowles Crosby), dating back to the arrival of William Durkee in Ipswich, Massachusetts, from the West Indies in 1663, likely as an indentured servant.  That endeavor added some twenty-six names (and potential sources of DNA) to the female side of the Martin family tree!

Staggering out of the Museum / Archives after several hours, we strolled around the Yarmouth historic district, once home to some 600 sea captains and their elaborate mansions.  Some of the survivors still look fantastic, but too many had "for sale" signs out front, indicative of the continuing decline in the town's fortunes (some attributable to the cessation of direct ferry traffic between Yarmouth and Bar Harbor, Maine).

In our continuing consideration of Canadian cuisine, this evening Heidi thought about ordering Lobster Poutine for dinner at the Austrian Inn until she found out it consisted of lobster in a cream sauce served over french fries and topped with melted cheddar cheese...

A BEAUTIFUL CANADIAN SUNSET,
YARMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA