NALF - President's Message

Archivist's Report

OFFERINGS

Dear cousins,

As this writing of the president's report is by a new hand, those of you who were unable to attend our reunion at Sturbridge Village now know that an election of board members took place at that time. Roland put in a fine four years as president, but he decided to let someone else take over the job. As the vice-president, I was nominated to take over the position, and thus was duly elected.

And now on to the report:

Despite the nearly daily rainfall we had in June, the Saturday skies were all clear for us attendees of the reunion at Sturbridge Village. I had not been there before, and did not realize how much there was to see. Unfortunately, as I had only planned on being there for the one day, I missed out on several of the attractions that ran at a specific hour, such as the working saw mill and the cooper shop. The latter, which was the trade of making barrels, was one a Leavitt ancestor of mine did, and I sure would have liked to see the procedure on how one was made.

As I reported during the business meeting, a volunteer from the Israel line participated in our Leavitt Y-DNA project, and came back as a match to the other test members who are descended from the Samuel, Nehemiah and Josiah brothers. The volunteer was more than ecstatic with the results, as those who have taken a test in the past can likely relate. The paper trail leading back to your Leavitt immigrant ancestor is only as good as those who first recorded the information. There are several hundred years in between where any kind of event, such as an adoption or a name change, may have taken place. Even something as simple as an error in the compilation of our original books, such as someone in Nehemiah actually belonging in the Thomas volume (as we now know to be unrelated lines), may go unnoticed until a descendant is tested. Any male with the Leavitt surname is more than welcome to join our project. If we have any members who joined NALF not knowing their particular line, this would definitely be a way to do so! We have a page set up on the Family Tree DNA website.

I'll finish up my report by saying that the new Nehemiah volume continues to move forward strongly. Back in August 2005, when I printed out a rough draft to begin the research and editting process, I never realized how involved it would be. Not including spouses, nearly 800 new descendants have been added since that time. Many more are still on paper waiting to be typed in. Dozens of others sit unconnected for the moment, while several of us continue our search for a proper connection, leaning towards a Nehemiah placement but lacking solid sources. The work continues...

Enjoy the summer!

Steve Dow, President

President's Message