Very nice review David. Larry L. Sisson ----- Original Message ---- From: David A Sisson <dsisson2@rochester.rr.com> To: Sisson List <SISSON-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, July 5, 2008 4:47:41 PM Subject: [SISSON] Notes from the 2008 Gathering 2008 Sisson Gathering Notes taken by David Arne Sisson This is our 8^th Gathering, held this time in Springfield, Illinois. We are a Sisson Gathering, not a reunion. We report on serious research, and have fun too. We were reminded of the Sisson website at _http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dasisson/_ Presentations: Joan Sisson: Joan's father recorded the story of his life on audio cassette tapes. Joan transcribed them, and Dave suggested that she turn it into a book. It became "A Life in Each Decade of the 20^th Century." The book is available from Xlibris http://www2.xlibris.com/. They print books on demand. Many of us have memories or research that should be made available to others, and Xlibris's service is an economical way. Others recording their family histories can put those the written notes in a binder as a computer file on a CD. They don't have to go to the expense of publishing a book. Joan and Dave will donate a copy of their book "Descendants of Richard and Mary Sisson" to a library of your choice if you will pay $4 for postage. Joan added that she can send both the original "big book" of the of New England, and the supplemental update of the book for $5 postage. The book/s will be sent by media mail. Wayne Sisson: Wayne told of a Sisson man he met. He had come to the USA from Russia. After the 2006 Gathering Wayne stopped in Ithaca, NY, to visit a third cousin once removed, Robert Wehe, a descendant of Wilson Crandall Sisson. Malcolm Sissons: Malcolm is from Alberta, Canada. He has researched the question: Does the Sisson or Sissons surname have a French origin? He concluded that a French connection is as much myth as fact. He found several names and places that seemed to point to a French origin: the Suessiones (a Celtic tribe), a man named Guy de Soissons in Coventry, England; and the Comtes de Soissons, France. He related some of the history of French Huguenots (Protestants) in England. Malcolm told of his descent from _two_ Sissons ancestors, his grandparents, Herb and Lissa. Each was born a Sissons. (Note the final "S"). Herb's grandfather William came from Horncastle, England, and Lissa's grandfather Thomas came from Sutton-cum-Lound, England. Malcolm thinks William's father might have come from Sutton-cum-Lound also. These clues from Malcolm's ancestry may be clues to the origins of the English ancestors of Richard or Robert or Thomas Sisson, immigrants to 17th-century Rhode Island and Virginia. Malcolm discussed the French Huguenot families with variations on the Sisson name, Soissons among others, but he has come to the conclusion that the name is probably an English one, not a French. Carol Sisson Regehr: Carol showed a map with the English counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, the counties with the highest 19th-century concentrations of Sisson/s families. Then showing a map of North America, Carol indicated how families with Sisson-variation names migrated from New England and Virginia to the Midwest and South and eventually dispersed across the USA and Canada.                                                        She pointed out that in modern phone books of the USA, Canada, and Britain, the variations of the name have different proportions. In the USA, the name is spelled Sisson by 98% and Sissons by 2%. In Canada, however, 65% spell it Sisson and 35% spell it Sissons. In the UK, it is a 50/50 distribution! We wonder whether this spelling is a clue to our origins. Susan Ashley Blake: Carol Sisson Regehr introduced Susan as a second cousin once removed of David Arne Sisson. His grandfather and her great grandfather were brothers. Susan related how David and Carol wrote her about 18 months ago, about the possibility that Robert Sisson of Virginia came from Horncastle, Lincolnshire, and Richard Sisson of Rhode Island came from Sutton-cum-Lound, Nottinghamshire. Horncastle and Sutton-cum-Lound are about 50 miles apart (according to MapQuest for the United Kingdom at http://www.mapquest.co.uk/. Use postal codes DN22 8PP for Retford, near Sutton-cum-Lound which doesn't seem to have a code, and LN9 5AD for Horncastle).** Susan did some research in parish registers. They were kept by the state-established Church of England, beginning in 1538, recording  baptisms, marriages, and burials. There was a one-shilling charge to have names entered in registers, so many names were never recorded, and Quakers boycotted the registers. (But Quaker beliefs and practices did not become common until after both Richard and Robert had come to America.) Susan has found many Sisson entries in the registers of both Horncastle and Sutton-cum-Lound, but none that definitively establishes either Richard's or Robert's English connections. There are 40 villages within five miles of Sutton-cum-Lound, and their parish records should all be searched. Very few are available online. Early parish registers are in 16^th -century script which is very difficult to read. In the early years, many parish register were transcribed for their bishops, and the Mormon indexes are based on those transcripts. They can be seen online at http://tinyurl.com/5dwv89. (This address is easier to reach than by clicking through the http://FamilySearch.org <http://familysearch.org/> site.) Susan noted that the highest concentration of religious dissenters occurred in the Sisson areas of eastern England, and especially in "the heartland of Mayflower origins." Despite modern belief, the Pilgrims were mostly willing to conform to church and king. Virginia Company emigrants/immigrants are listed with their Virginia home places. They needed to be attending a Church of England parish, to recognize the supremacy of the king, and owe no taxes. Tammie Sisson Higginbotham:     May Sisson represented Bath, Illinois, in an historical pageant in Bath, England, in 1909. Tammie displayed many pictures and documents of the event. Carol Sisson Regehr: There is a Sisson connection with Abraham Lincoln. Pages 59-62 of the book "Lincoln's Melancholy" by Joshua Wolf Shenk (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), relates how Dr. Daniel Drake, founder of a medical journal, was himself subject to spells of "Melancholy." Dr Drake's wife, Harriet Sisson (1787-1825), a 4^th generation descendant of Richard and Mary, fell into a "mental depression" when her sister Caroline burned to death in 1828. Mental depression was then considered a "medical problem," but the various natural remedies Dr. Drake tried for his wife's condition did not work. Later, in the 1840s, Abraham Lincoln, then an Illinois state senator from Springfield, wrote Dr. Drake about his own history of depression. Carol wonders whether they ever met, or if they only corresponded. The letters between them have been lost. Albert Sisson: Albert spoke of his Civil War connection, Francis M. "Frank" Sisson (1842-1921) (descended from Richard, through George, Thomas, John, and Alanson, to Frank). When Lincoln called for 300,000 troops for three years' service in the Civil War (comparable today to three million troops for Iraq) the draft affected nearly every family, including Frank's. When Lincoln appointed General Grant as head all Union land forces, Grant's "hammer" was the Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac, Uncle Frank's Corps. Frank served from 1862 to 1865, spent five months in hospital from April to September 1863, and was wounded at Reams Station in August 1864. He saw action from Washington to Richmond and a little south by rail. Albert related much of what Frank would have seen and heard, and touched, tasted, and smelled, most of it horrifying. Frank was promoted corporal just before his discharge and had a corporal's pension after he returned home in July 1865. He married, had two children, and adopted one. He owned a dry goods store in Wells Bridge, New York; was postmaster there for two years; taught Sunday School in the Baptist Church; sold the store to his son and moved to Unadilla, NY; where he had a business with Fred Joyce. Frank helped build the Sisson & Bundy Block in Unadilla, and had a store there. He died in 1921 and was buried in the Sand Hill Cemetery, Unadilla Carol Sisson Regehr: An Update on DNA Project Carol reminded us that the Y-chromosome (usually) travels with the surname. When the Sisson DNA Project was begun, we hoped it would help us find out if all Sisson/s families are related and whether we could use it to find our ancestry and cousins in England. By 2004 it was clear that the Richard, Robert, and Thomas lineages are unrelated. The Thomas line matches a man from Penrith, England. Carol wonders if the Penrith man can trace his ancestry back to a common ancestor with Thomas? As things stand now, we know that six Thomas descendants know their lines back to the immigrant, and 35 participants descend from Richard (or one of Richard's ancestors). In 2008 Malcolm Sissons was found to match the Robert group of Virginia. Malcolm knows his ancestry back to the Sissons immigrant, but the immigrant isn't Robert. Malcolm descends from an ancestor who was also an ancestor of Robert. Malcolm also descends in a female line from the Richard group, or rather from an ancestor of both Malcolm and Richard. Carol has drafted an article for /New England Ancestors /(a publication of the New England Historic Genealogical Society) about the Sisson DNA Project, partly to amaze readers with Malcolm's descent from two Sisson lines! Tom Sisson, on Lieutenant Paul Sisson: Paul was B29 co-pilot in the Second World War. Carol Regehr is Paul's niece. Paul's mission was to help fire-bomb the main islands of Japan, especially within a ten-mile radius of Tokyo. His plane was shot down on Paul's thirty-fifth mission. He and the crew baled out. Their Japanese captors charged them with high crimes. A day after the official surrender of Japan, Paul and the crew were executed and thrown in a mass grave. Paul's remains were discovered by an American follow-up crew and returned and reburied at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, but he actually received only two lesser medals. Carol wrote Congressman Jim Ryan who arranged for the DFC to be awarded posthumously. All who have served in the military were asked to stand as a reminder of what many Sisson men and women have given to our county. Gary Ward: Gary's great-great grandfather was Otis Sisson, of Lockport, Illinois. He was buried in a family cemetery which fell into disrepair and was prey to grave robbers. The cemetery was half a mile off the road, but in 1998 a road was proposed which would cut the top off the cemetery hill. The family was asked to help with the removal of the burials. The work demanded blasting and use of a back hoe, but when a stain in the earth came in sight, such extreme measures stopped and the remains were exhumed. Otis' remains were laid out on a table in an old restaurant nearby. Gary saw buttons, Otis' broken wrist and false teeth, and coffin handles and shards of wood. The 2010 Gathering: All former Gatherings have been in the East or Midwest, but except for a Gathering in Kansas City, Missouri, not west of the Mississippi. A consensus was reached for a western meeting in 2010. We heard of a Sisson Reunion held in the same years as our Gathering, in Alberta, Canada, and remembered another in Unadilla, NY. We decided to meet in 2010 in Denver. Two couples volunteered to help coordinate the gathering there, and their planning has already begun. Some thought was also given to a 2012 Gathering in London! We could organize a tour, rather than going separately, or alternatively, we could send a subgroup from the 2010 Gathering, and tour English genealogical sites in 2011. More discussion of this possibility will take place at the 2010 Gathering. David Martin presented a certificate of appreciation and a hanging basket of flowers to this year's hosts, Donna and Marcus "Marc" Sisson. Donna expressed her high appreciation of many members of her family who helped. Jane Frazier of the Havana (Illinois) Public Library, spoke after dinner on "Sisson Connections in Springfield, Illinois." She is a native of nearby Havana, Illinois, and  descends from a Revolutionary War soldier. She likes to look for ancestors, hers or others'. Marc Sisson's ancestor Marcus Lafayette Sisson came to Illinois in the middle of the 18^th century. The family was easy to research, making use of cemetery and census records and atlases. Jane presented many records relating to Marc's ancestry: census records; property, marriage, birth, military, mortician, and probate records, obituaries and biographies from county histories. Jane advised: Don't stay wedded to name spellings and always question census records. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SISSON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message