Monthly Archives: September 2024

Family

30 Monday Sep 2024

Posted by in Opinion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

I started to trace my dad’s family tree using Ancestry.com, and discovered far flung dynasties, originating from one Irish descendent and his wife leaving Cork in 1801 for the industrial clangour of Leeds, in England’s county of Yorkshire. Joshua Mayne flourished in that city, but his sons were restless. One emigrated with his wife to the United States in 1822, and another in 1849 taking his young family to South Africa. Both of these emigrees sparked vast, and I mean vast, dynasties of Maynes in two different continents. Other family members moved away from Leeds to Canada and Australia to establish other branches of the family.

Looking at my mum’s family, it seemed very much like they were firmly rooted in England’s county of Devon, concentrated around a couple of villages close to Okehampton, and in Kingskerswell in the south of the county. But I discovered the Canadian connection. In the latter half of the nineteenth century there was a steady flow of my mum’s relatives heading to Guelph in Ontario, then fanning out across that Province. None started a big dynasty like the Maynes did in the USA and South Africa, but their descendants live on in Ontario. Then I found John Cater, a Great-Great-Great Uncle, who moved to Newfoundland at around 1855-56, and married a local girl in St. John’s. He sparked another dynasty, one that centred itself in Grand Falls/Windsor, but had connections around the island. I’m certain that I have many, many living relatives who are “Newfies”, and that makes me immensely pleased.

I’m very happy that I have followed the footsteps of all those descendants of mine who crossed the ocean to start new lives. For me it was immeasurably simpler to leave England, but for those nineteenth century Britons branching out around the world, it must have been daunting and exciting in equal measure. Ironically, when I set out for Canada I had absolutely no idea that I was following others in my family, nor that I was joining many, living, members of my family in the New World.

Family, who knew how vast they could be?

The Internet and the Advertising

17 Tuesday Sep 2024

Posted by in Opinion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

I may have been here before, but I was reminded of the scourge that is Internet-based advertising when a letter dropped into my real, physical, mailbox inviting me to join the Nextdoor app. Being the introvert that I am, the idea of joining some social media corral filled with neighbours immediately put me on the defensive. I didn’t think “What is this?”, I thought “Who’s making money from this?”.

Nextdoor, as the blurb goes, is a way of using social media to connect with your neighbours. It’s not like a Facebook group in that it’s limited to a set range of people, most of whom have been invited. They touted one of the benefits as “Finding lost pets”, which to me seems a bit of low priority, even for pet owners. Anyway, back to the meat of it. I Googled it, of course, and once I’d sifted through the glowing testimonies (sorry, no “free” app is that good), I came to what I wanted to find, that is who is making money from it.

Of course, revenue is derived from advertising, broad-based and local.

The thing is, no matter how many pets I want finding, I think I already get far more advertisements through my computer than I need, and I take significant steps to prevent them, too. The Nextdoor app is Android (or Apple) based and therefore not as well shielded from advertisements as things on my PC, so should I wish to avail myself of the app to find my lost pet, I’m going to have to suffer an onslaught of advertising.

Yes, I’m aware that much of the good stuff on the Internet is funded by advertising, and I’m sure lots of people get lots of good information from commercials. I’ve even responded to one or two Internet ads myself, but it’s their volume and their relative intrusiveness that bothers me. A few fewer ads, sorry many fewer ads, and I might feel differently, but there are apps out there that are virtually unusable thanks to the advertising overkill. Less is more, people.

I also understand that living in North America now that there’s a different culture around advertising, and by that I mean people are far more tolerant of it. I mean, seriously, how can anyone get excited by advertisements at the Super Bowl? Some will tune in to the game just for the commercials. It’s madness. I went to a summer soccer match in Ohio between two teams from the English Premier League, and they were even sponsoring the damned corner kicks! I know that’s not Internet advertising, but I am pointing out that North Americans clearly have a higher advertisement threshold.

Anyway, I won’t be using the Nextdoor app, mostly because I get too many ads already and I genuinely don’t need any more. As I said in an earlier paragraph, perhaps instead of chasing revenue with higher volumes, which in my case have a negative effect, they could do fewer but make them less intrusive and more interesting. Did I say interesting? Given that North America is the home of modern advertising, I really think ad agencies should be looking at quality before quantity, because right now it’s all quantity and no quality.

More Grave Thoughts

16 Monday Sep 2024

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

It occurred to me that I hadn’t noted down any details of our trip last August to Fairfield County, Ohio, and the grave of Washington Franklin Mayne. We were in Columbus for the weekend on another matter, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit old WF’s last resting place.

Why? You may well ask.

Washington Franklin Mayne was the third child of Henry Collins Mayne and his wife Anna Robinson, and was born in Loudoun County, Virginia, in 1826. Henry and Anna had arrived in New York from Leeds, in the English county of Yorkshire, in 1822 and made their way to Northern Virginia to set up a farm. Henry’s father, Joshua Mayne, is my great-great-great-Grandfather. Not only was Washington Franklin the third Mayne born on US soil, but he was the last to be born in Virginia as the family moved westwards, to Perry County, Ohio, after his birth.

Not much is known about Washington Franklin as he grew up in the Zanesville Ohio area, but we do know that he studied at Ohio Medical College to become a Doctor and started a practice in the village of Basil, Ohio. As well as being a respected doctor, Washington Franklin acquired a lot of land in Basil and was a well known figure in the area.

The land acquired by Washington Franklin Mayne was on the original lands of the Shawnee, Mingo and Delaware peoples, and their ownership of that land is fully and respectfully acknowledged.

Washington Franklin married Eliza Jane McNeill of Ross County, Ohio, in 1865 and they became the parents of four children while living in Basil.

All that is by way of background as to why I would want to visit a small and very pretty little village in rural Ohio. Washington Franklin died in 1884 at the age of 56, and was buried in Basil Cemetery, just yards from the home and doctor’s office he built in the village. Eliza Jane died in 1924 at the home of her daughter Gertrude, in Piqua, Miami County, Ohio. Although buried in Piqua, Eliza’s name is engraved on the handsome stone memorial that marks Washington Franklin’s final resting place.

As we motored south from Columbus, it’s only a 35-minute drive, we both remarked on how similar this part of Ohio was to our part of Ontario; the same crops in the fields, the same buildings on the land. As we arrived in Basil we came across a town parade, an annual event for the people of Baltimore Ohio, the larger town that swallowed up old Basil. I thought perhaps they were out in my honour, but alas, no. We found Washington Franklin’s gravestone easily, stood and soaked up the atmosphere, and I felt really quite humble to be there at the place were one of the founders of the Mayne’s American dynasty had built his life, and the lives of his family.

Washington Franklin and his siblings were the start of a vast family network covering a good portion of the USA, from Indiana to Tennessee, to Kansas and to Colorado, and many places in between. There are many more graves for me to visit, particularly in Indiana, but for now the is trip to see old WF’s grave and the village he made his mark in will have to do.