The George Wold Stephenson Bible

George Wold Stephenson

George Wold Stephenson was my great-great-grandfather.  He and his wife Agnes Catherine Hamilton immigrated from England to the United States in 1844, living first on Long Island, New York, before settling in St. Johns, Michigan.  One of my prize possessions is his family Bible where the family carefully recorded  marriages, births, and deaths.  This Bible was passed down to my great-grandfather Edward William Stephenson, then to my father, and finally to me.  Pictures of the Bible and the inscribed pages are shown here.

George Wold Stephenson's Bible.

Deaths recorded in the Stephenson Bible.

Agnes Stephenson

Shown below are pictures of two very old bookmarks which were found in the Bible.  The bookmarks are in needlepoint on perforated paper, one worked in silk, the other in wool.  The silk bookmark has the words “Faith Hope Charity.”  The wool bookmark says “Simply to Thy Cross I cling.”  We don’t know who made the bookmarks, but perforated paper embroidery being popular in Victorian times, it is easy to picture Agnes stitching the bookmarks for George’s Bible.

Bookmark: Faith Hope Charity

Bookmark: Simply to Thy Cross I Cling

Stephenson Update

George Wold Stephenson

During the past week, I have been in contact with two of my Stephenson 4th cousins.  My 3rd great-grandfather was George Stephenson (1774-1846), who lived in Lincolnshire, England.  He and his wife Elizabeth Wold (W0uld) had 12 children.  My ancestor was George Wold Stephenson (1813-1896), who immigrated to the US and settled in St. Johns, Michigan.  Most of my records follow this line.  Another son of George and Elizabeth was Absolam Wold Stephenson (1798-1854), whose son John Absalom Stephenson (1840-1921) immigrated to Australia.  His descendant Frazer Stephenson has established a family tree The Stephenson Family Tree- Australia on Ancestry.com.  Another son of George and Elizabeth was David (1802-1875), whose family remained in England.  His descendant Patrick Stephenson has set up The Stephenson Family Tree, also on Ancestry.com.  Much of the Stephenson information and pictures  from my blog are now also available on these two trees.  

 To make it easier to collaborate, I have now up-loaded my Stephenson data and have a family tree George Wold Stephenson Descendants on Ancestry.  We are working to combine data on these three trees to form more complete records on the Stephensons.  If you are not a subscriber to Ancestry.com, please respond in a comment to this post.  I can add you as a guest on Ancestry.com and you can view what information is available. 

St. Mary's Church, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England

This summer Sandra and I will spend time in Europe, including a brief visit to Horncastle and Hogsthorpe.  I will share our findings when we return.  Since we are traveling using airline miles, our itinerary is determined  by available flights, rather than the time we would like to spend.  Three days would be more appropriate.  The good thing is that Horncastle and Hogsthorpe, where our Stephenson ancestors lived, are very small and have few cemeteries and churches.  Hopefully, we can cover a lot in the short period.  I have communicated with Pat Stephenson, my 4th cousin mentioned above, and we will try to make contact during our brief stop in England.

A few months ago I wrote a blog, comparing genealogy in my father’s time and in mine.  Thanks to resources such as Ancestry.com, three distant cousins on three continents can now easily collaborate on virtually a real time basis to build an extensive genealogical data base.  How times have changed!