23 January 2010

Fighting the rainy day blues

Forced inside by three days of pounding rain, I started fiddling about once again with a graphing program called GenoPro. I took a snippet of my tree project, the Fletcher and Bennett families of Philadelphia, and added the partnership (red) and business (green) connections between the various members. 




(click on image for a larger view)
Unfortunately, image size limitations make it hard to get too elaborate with the information presented or lay out a more polished presentation, but I think it still makes a pretty interesting visual web of activity. I wonder how many football fields I'd need to map out all 5,540 makers?

21 January 2010

It never fails

I put up a new build and ten minutes later I find some nice tidbit to add. Today, it is an interesting piece by two New York City silversmiths, Gerritt Onckelbach (the pan) and Jesse Kip (the lid).

which was loaned from a private collection for the 1956 exhibition Colonial Silversmiths, Masters & Apprentices at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.


The pan is engraved P over I C above a fleur-de-lys for Jean and Catherine (Carre) Pintard and L P over 1733 for their son, Lewis Pintard. And this brings me to a real regret I have with the structure of the web pages I build. The whole point of my little study has been an attempt to discover overlooked family connections and this is a perfect example of the site's failure. In this case, Lewis Pintard married Miss Susanna Stockman in 1759. Her sister Hannah married Elias and her brother Robert married Annis, both children of the great Philadelphia/Princeton silversmith Elias Bondinot, but how can I display this interesting merging of lines and makers? I have uncovered many similar gray interconnections, but how to set them off? Simply putting up all the pages in the tree (setting aside the time it takes to code and upload 250,000+ files) does not make obvious these crossing threads in the web, no matter how copious the notes I add. I have looked at just about every program around and none have an easy way of graphically displaying all the convoluted crossings and re-crossings I have traced out. The closest I have found is Genopro, but it requires hours of manual fiddling to produce useful charts and then can't produce a usable set of htm files or much of anything else past my own monitor display.


Oh well. . .

5,540 as the rain comes down

Another new build and another 50 craftsmen, including:
Amidon, Luther -- Merchant
Amidon, Luther Shumway -- Merchant
Bailey, Joseph -- Clockmaker
Ball, George -- Silversmith and jeweler
Ball, True M. -- Silversmith
Bentley, Burr S. -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Blanchard, Harrison -- Silverplater
Bowen, Chauncey Thomas -- Merchant
Bowen, George Stephen -- Merchant
Bowen, James Henry -- Merchant
Brabrook, Alfred -- Manufacturer
Brabrook, George -- Manufacturer
Brabrook, George Hale -- Manufacturer
Claggett, Thomas -- Clockmaker
Cornell, Walter -- Clockmaker
Cunningham, Erastus Brainerd -- Silversmith
Cutter, Henry P. -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Dodd, Stephen Baldwin -- Silversmith and watchmaker
Dorrance, Edwin Frink -- Jeweler
Dorrance, George E. -- Jeweler
Durkee, Franklin Denison -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Durkee, Lewis Purse -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Emmons, Martin W. -- Silver refiner
Fairbanks, Sewell Whitcomb -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Field, Ambrose Spencer -- Watchmaker
Forman, Benoni Bradner -- Silversmith
Gilchrist, Charles A. -- Jeweler
Kidder, Albion O. -- Jeweler
Lamb, Elam Merritt -- Silversmith
Mershon, Ralph Smith -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Munson, John -- Pewtersmith
Noyes, Leonard W. -- Clockmaker
Payne, Thomas -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Poor, Nathaniel C. -- Silversmith
Quinby, Henry Clay -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Rawson, Erskine Ebenezer -- Jeweler
Robinson, John West -- Jeweler
Sargent, Frederick Herbert -- Silverplater
Sherman, Martial -- Clockmaker
Smith, Martin Snyder -- Jeweler
Smith, Samuel L. -- Silversmith
Sylvester, Joseph Burnall -- Clockmaker
Tyler, Charles Russell -- Silversmith
Uffington, Thomas Spoone -- Gold beater
Warren, Leonard -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Warren, Lorenzo D. -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Weaver, Devalson G. -- Jeweler
Whiting, Gamaliel Bradford -- Clockmaker
Whitney, George Carpenter -- Silversmith
Winslow, Almerin Henry -- Merchant
Woodward, Joseph -- Silversmith

18 January 2010

Research update

Some additional names; time for a new build
Amidon, Luther -- Merchant
Amidon, Luther Shumway -- Merchant
Brabrook, Alfred -- Manufacturer
Brabrook, George -- Manufacturer
Brabrook, George Hale -- Manufacturer
Dorrance, Edwin Frink -- Jeweler
Dorrance, George E. -- Jeweler
Forman, Benoni Bradner -- Silversmith
Kidder, Albion O. -- Jeweler
Munson, John -- Pewtersmith
Robinson, John West -- Jeweler
Smith, Samuel L. -- Silversmith
Whitney, George Carpenter -- Silversmith

10 January 2010

Research update

Craftsmen added since the last site build of 25 December:
Bailey, Joseph -- Clockmaker
Ball, George -- Silversmith and jeweler
Claggett, Thomas -- Clockmaker
Cornell, Walter -- Clockmaker
Cunningham, Erastus Brainerd -- Silversmith
Cutter, Henry P. -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Durkee, Franklin Denison -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Durkee, Lewis Purse -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Emmons, Martin W. -- Silver refiner
Field, Ambrose Spencer -- Watchmaker
Gilchrist, Charles A. -- Jeweler
Mershon, Ralph Smith -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Noyes, Leonard W. -- Clockmaker
Quinby, Henry Clay -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Rawson, Erskine Ebenezer -- Jeweler
Sargent, Frederick Herbert -- Silverplater
Sherman, Martial -- Clockmaker
Smith, Martin Snyder -- Jeweler
Sylvester, Joseph Burnall -- Clockmaker
Tyler, Charles Russell -- Silversmith
Uffington, Thomas Spoone -- Gold beater
Warren, Leonard -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Warren, Lorenzo D. -- Jeweler and watchmaker
Weaver, Devalson G -- Jeweler
Whiting, Gamaliel Bradford -- Clockmaker
Woodward, Joseph -- Silversmith

31 December 2009

And quickly, as the clock ticks down. . .

Two more directories:
Boston 1823
Philadelphia 1843 
Now, where's that champagne. . ?