While I was doing some computer work this morning, I came across a file I hadn’t read for years. The document, A Genealogy of the Sedgwick Family in America Since 1635, is the first ‘book’ about our family I read.
I remember it from years ago when I was a child and either my grandmother or great grandmother came across it amongst things belonging to my grand aunt Helen. Helen was sort of the family genealogist of her day and for the most part had a great deal of family history committed to memory. Her original document came from the genealogist, Francis Sedgwick. They met at sometime in the 30’s and, on the back of a Maple City Dairy letterhead, made a rudimentary family tree, while the front of the letterhead contained Francis’ notes.
These notes and family tree created the basis for Sedgwick2Graham.com. Years passed between the time I saw this information as a child and revisited many years later at Dennis Sedgwick’s wonderful site, Sedgwick.org. During one of my many, many trips to the site, I pilfered the 1934 Sedgwick documents and skimmed through it. I remembered the old copy of this document my family had. It has been lost to time or is relegated to a dusty corner of an attic, somewhere.
As I looked through the document last night, I thought it would be good for it to be searchable. While it is but a smattering of the family tree, it is a great resource for those interested in the family history and the notes and thoughts of earlier researchers. Sadly the old typewritten copy is far from being able to be OCR-ed into a computer. Adobe Acrobat is also not able to create a properly searchable document with it. So, I have decided to make a project of the document.
I will begin typing it, in between web and family tree updates. It will take some time – I am not the greatest typist in the world – but I think the end result will be worth it.
