Family History

The Discovery Channel reports on an 18th Century store evacuated in the Fort Edward area in the Hudson River region near Albany.

A five-year-long archaeological project has unearthed the 250-year-old site of a merchant’s establishment that sold wine, rum, tobacco and other goods to the thousands of soldiers who passed through the Hudson River region during the French and Indian War, when Fort Edward was the largest British military post in North America.

Sutler, derived from the Dutch word for someone who performs dirty work, was the name given to the merchants who arrived on the heels of the British army and sold what the redcoats wouldn’t — or couldn’t — provide at a frontier outpost. With the permission of military officials, sutlers set up shop near a fort’s gates, taking advantage of the isolated location to do a brisk trade with off-duty soldiers and officers.

The archaeological dig in the area began in 2001 and they continue to uncover artifacts including coins, clay pipes, and glass fragments from bottles of alcohol, making it one of the richest digs in the Fort Edward area, the article reports. They’ve dug down deeper and uncovered fireplace bricks and a charred staircase and beams in what was the dirt basement of the sulter’s store structure.

According to the article, Native American Indians called the area the “Great Carrying Place” due to the nearby water falls forcing “travelers to make a 15-mile portage to reach the southern end of Lake George to the north.” This made the area a prime location for a store and tavern.

Many traders, soldiers, and travelers using the Hudson River would have passed through this area in the 1700 and 1800s, making this modern archaeological dig a find for many genealogists.

Kimberly Powell of About Genealogy offers “Creating a Family Cookbook”, a good guide to creating a cookbook that represents the history of flavors and meals in your family to pass down to your descendants and share with other family members:

A wonderful gift for family and friends, a family recipe book is a wonderful way to combine favorite family dishes with memories of treasured family moments and members. But how to turn those family culinary favorites into an actual family cookbook?

Start by sending a letter to your relatives, asking everyone to send back one or more of their ‘specialties’ by a particular date. In the letter, be sure to encourage the submission of recipes that have been passed down from earlier generations, along with a story or photo of the family member best known for the recipe. Ask for memories of times spent cooking and/or eating together, as well as photos of holiday and other family get-togethers.

For best results, and to cut down on your workload, include a sample recipe format for submissions to follow. For example, you can ask family members list the ingredients in order, together with the quantities. A fill-in-the-blank recipe form can be useful here, because it helps remind people not to leave out important information like the cooking temperature, and you can also add spaces to encourage submitters to include a brief story about the recipe’s creator or a favorite family memory. You may also want to ask family members to explain why they chose the particular recipe.

With all the good cooks in your family, why not ask them to share family recipes as well as stories of memorable meals with the rest of the family. It’s a gift that will give forever.