MAIN OFFICE--OF THE 367 ACRE ALBANY RURAL CEMETERY, MENANDS (COLONIE), NY, USA. FOUNDED 1841.
The one thing mum loved best to do--short of being a librarian--was research her family tree. Though totally untrained, mum spent over twenty-five years researching her family tree....and yours truly has a large part of the paperwork to prove it. Several boxes of it, as a matter of fact--all handwritten notes, for the most part.
Yes, over two decades of handwritten notes and photocopies and genealogy charts--and I've not a clue where to begin. Not a bit of it.
Now mind, I've done my share of historical research, myself--also untrained, starting when I was in my late teens. My specialty was one of our three neighbouring cemeteries, the Albany Rural Cemetery. My interest was sparked when a historian came into mum's library, to research the cemetery for the National Register of Historic Places. You know, it just started out that I was merely curious, about this really beautiful park-like place that I grew up near...and the more I found out, the more I wanted to know--and eventually, I not only learned the entire history of the cemetery--from the time before it even was a cemetery--the Dutch days of the 1600's--all the way to the 1940's or so.
I found out the name of a lovely little stream--Moordenaerskill--that Moordenaer was a Dutchman who'd been murdered while crossing a bridge over the stream near the banks of the Hudson River. But I found so very much more--the histories and stories of the men, women and children buried there...some tragic and horrific, some heroic, some just plain weird and ironic, many touching stories, as well. And the stones themeslves, in many cases were and still are, works of art--some by a famous Albany, NY sculptor of then international reknown. One of the first ever grave monuments, to portray an angel as totally masculine, is in the cmeetery--the "Angel of the seplucture"...it sits by itself on a knoll overlooking the Upper Hudson Valley, just in back of Cemetery Pond (aka: Cypress Waters). It would be featured in a well-known Paris art journal of the day, later on. There are slaves buried there and a US president and another US president's son.
THE ANGEL OF THE SEPULCTURE BY E. D. PALMER
Oh, I could tell all sorts of stories about that place--both in the historical context, and my own life experiences--for I'd spent hours and hours in there, all through my life, playing, learning, just enjoying nature and stuff like that--but also, spending time with mum, exploring my family's past. You see, a good many members of my family are buried there--including mum herself, now. The oldest dates, that I'm personally aware of, date from the 1700's. So, she and I, either together or alone, spent a good many hours there. Mum even taught me to drive the car in there! (At one time, the cemetery boasted over 32 miles of roads.)
Incidentally, they even filmed a Hollywood movie in there, I believe the movie was Ironweed. Yes, I was in the cemetery that day, but was unaware of the filming as I wasn't in that part at all, and was waved around by a security guard, anyway. Mind you, I know that place as well, if not better than, my own room at home, (I was a bit of a messy-bessie roomwise, back then, ashamed to say) so if I'd really wanted to, had I known about it, I could have easily sneaked by for a look...but only out of curiosity, as I'd never seen filming before--all my experiences are with friends and aquaintences who've worked as extras, and a friend's sister who's been a long-time a P.A. in Hollywood (she also used to be film star Al Pachino's and the Gong Show's Chuck Baris' secretary--and incidentally, I answered the phone once at their home, when it was Pachino calling for his secretary, and well--the guys a total jerk, okay? I'm serious. And he hooked her into cocaine-yes, Al Pacino is, or at any rate was, a cokehead. She was back home on our street, trying to sort her life out and get clean, and the stupid arse is ringing her up and bugging her. I guess you can tell that this is one movie star who doesn't do anything for me...and never will. Anyway, he was incredibly rude to me--just because I didn't know right off who he was...not that that would have made any difference, in all honesty.
Mum raised me to believe that it's not who you are that matters, or what you look like, or where you come from (although where one comes from can very much matter, on a deeply personal level)--it's what you are inside, how you behave, how you treat others, what you do in your life, that's what matters. And I thank her for teaching me that, every single day, bless her.
Okay, now I'm completely and utterly off the main subject, aren't I? How'd that happen? I try to avoid jumping all over the place when I'm writing--I sometimes do that--much to my familiy's and friend's utter dismay--when I'm speaking, as well. I think it's partly the manic-depression--my mind will make this leap--but my words won't neccessairly follow--I mean, the segway from one subject to another, may simply not always exisit. And it can fustrate the listener---I work really hard on not doing that...but sometimes it just happens, and I don't realize I've done it again, until it's too late. Then I have to back up the engine to so the rest of the cars of my train of thoughts can hook up again. Not easy, let me tell you.
Anyway, I have all these paper's of mum's just lying all about my bedroom still in their boxes. Some paper's went missing when I lost our home and had to move in a hurry (seems I always have to move in a hurry this year). But, still have all these tons of papers and no clue where to start. There's the Featherly thing: is it "Featherly" or "Vedderly" or "Vedder" or "Fetterly?" There's the "Clackners" or "Clickners"...There's the Cole's, the Weaver's, the Cooper's, Bouck's, and the mysterious odd "Mc Leod" that's buried in the family plot and no one has a clue about. There's the Hursts and the Hughes...and so many more, it just plumb makes me dizzy thinking about it all!
So where to begin...haven't a clue. I'm afrid the boxes will be sitting there, when it comes time to bury me, quite frankly. I have neither the time, the transport, nor, most importantly, the resources to do this. Mum had contacts, she had years of knowlege of where to go and what to look for...me.. I've been with her to the state library in Albany, to local libraries and town halls, to the cemeteries and the Morman chruch (the MC in the USA keeps extensive genealogical records on file). But, I just don't have the time, the energy and the cash outlay for such a big undertaking--besides which, what for? My sister is adopted, and has little interest in the family tree, outside of idle curiousity. For all intents and purposes, I'm nearly the last of mum's family tree. It directly ends with me...and trust me, not going to be having any kids in this lifetime. My biological clock is not only slowed down, it stopped--years ago. So, why bother, ey?
I've a few distant cousins in the Featherly line--never met 'em, but they're around down south somewhere's, North Carolina, I think...but mum was really the last direct decendant, so that makes me truly the last.
There's actually loads of Featherly's out there--some marginally distant cousins (in the ancestral sense only) and some no relation at all, far as I know. There's a Featherly Creek somewhere, and, in California, a Featherly Park. Some of the NY Featherly's migrated to Michigan, and those are some of the one's I'm very, very, very, distantly related to. But, as far as mum's line goes--the buck, as we yanks say, pretty much stops here. Truth to tell, I've more relatives buried in the Albany Rural Cemetery, that I've got living.
CEMETERY POND (CYPRUS WATERS)
