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Updates, Additions, and Corrections
DateChange
August 2020 Fine-tuned the row of navigation links on each page so that one is never more than a click away from the front page of the Section containing my personal history, Such A Life.* Inasmuch as (Item:) apparent egomania has led me to devote the considerable bulk of this, my life’s work to this, my life, and (Item:) that page displays not only me at my best ever but also arguably a masterwork of both my fathers, Pappy and Heavenly, I’ve seen fit to bestow upon it all possible accessibility.
*In such a title, does one properly capitalize the central article? italicize the title? present it between double quotes? somebody help me!
January 2020 Brought my personal history up to date. Beginning with 2020, the annual entries to “SuchALife” qualify, for the first time, as reports of reasonably current events.

I’ve also sought commentaries and counsels from those of my intended audience who’ve become vulnerable by virtue of being already born. Especially from my beloved firstborn, Rick, who has just this year been appointed University Librarian at the Harold B Lee Library of the Brigham Young University.

From here on out (next February will see my eightieth birthday; Providence will determine from which side of the Veil I shall view it) I’ll try to keep the record up to date and to refine its content and organization as it may seem to require. Please fall in love with our amazing family, if you haven’t already.
3 August 2014 Completed and posted the indexes of Sections, People, Places, and Updates.
21 May 2014 Completed the first version of the white binders, now including a printed version of all the current Sections, more or less consistently formatted. For the moment, Alfa’s Big Neff Book occupies its own binder.
23 January 2014 Ported into HTML the PowerPoint presentation that Brent displayed at a commemorative gathering (18 May 2013) for the hundredth birthday of our Pappy, H Duane Anderson. Installed it as a new Section named “ Pappy,” printed a hard copy, and added it to the white binders.
Fall and Winter, 2013-14 Brought my Final Report, (the “Such a Life” section) up through 2006, completing Chapters 3 and 4 and the first four years of Chapter 5. Refined the links, prepared subchapter page indexes, and reformatted it for printing. Printed a hard copy of the whole thing and installed it in large, white, 3-ring binders, with sheet protectors.
5 April 2012 Updated the Mayflower Connections section to include a better image of the site of Appleton Stillman’s homestead in Colebrook. Also the codicil to his will.
20 December 2011 Completed Chapter Three: College, Marriage, and Missions, 1958-1971 in “Such a Life,” and extended Chapter Four: Raising the kids, 1972-2002 through 1978.
14 September 2010 Initiated discussions with John Murphy, Curator, L Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B Lee Library, Brigham Young University which led to the execution of a Deed of Gift transferring ownership of “my papers” to that Department. I have done so in the prayerful and confident expectation that BYU will extend to the preservation of the record of my life and labors the care that posterity will judge it merits.
10 October 2010 Incorporated “Such a Life,” my hypertext personal history, into this collection as a section. Moved it off my iDisk, in response to Apple’s decision to discontinue the web-hosting facility that had accommodated this material.
22 June 2010 On Leola Seely Anderson’s 100th birthday, 19 June 2010, at her birthplace in East Mill Creek, Utah, we presented a printed copy of the Leola section to Betty Chamberlin, the current owner of the house. We’ve continued to expand and correct this hypertext version, as new material has come to hand recounting her life in prose and photographs. This update documents the birthday party.
21 June 2010 Expanded the Caroline section with some material on our recent research in Cattaraugus County.
13 June 2010 Completed the Leola section: A Gedenkschrift, prepared for the occasion of Leola Seely Anderson’s 100th birthday, 19 June 2010.
17 December 2009 Updated the Mayflower section (Buried Treasures, Volume 1), incorporating what we’ve learned on recent visits to Sandisfield and Colebrook, including Appleton Stillman’s will and pulling together some fragments of the story of his son Jason. Reorganized this section and the Sandisfield-Colebrook section (Treasure Cities, Volume 4) for less redundancy and better cross-reference.
8 December 2009 Added the Caroline section, documenting progeny and pioneering kin of our (4G) Aunt Clarissa Caroline Wheeler Sawyer of Salem, Farmington, Freedom, and Michigan, clarifying a century-old family mystery.
7 February 2009 Added the Sandisfield-Colebrook section (Treasure Cities, Volume 4). Repeats, updates, and expands some of the material in the Mayflower Connections section
11 November 2008 Major revisions and expansions in the Mayflower Connections section, updating its format and extending it through a section on my Mammy, Leola Seely Anderson, as our proximate connection to the Pilgrims.
29 September 2008 Major revisions to the Isaac Decker section, updating its format and incorporating a report on the completion of our project to erect a monument at his grave.
29 September 2008 Revised format and content of the This Is The Place section.
21 September 2008 Over the past nine hundred years or so, our grandchildren (currently ten of ’em, as of 2008) have had a startling variety of interesting uncles. Either by blood or by marriage, these men are part of our heritage. Hugely diverse: some famous, some obscure; mostly admirable, some debatable, and a couple just regrettable. But all interesting. The Book of Uncles presents life sketches of several of them. I’ve prepared a personalized print version of the book for each grandchild.
4 March 2008 Buried Treasures, Volume 4: Hillsborough Center Cemetery, New Hampshire. Formatted the Granny Hepzibah section for printing. Hard copies available to those who prefer such to hypertext. Relatively minor changes to the on-line version.
5 February 2008 Buried Treasures, Volume 3: City Cemetery. Formatted the Salt Lake Cemetery section for printing. Hard copies available to those who prefer such to hypertext. Relatively minor changes to the on-line version.
23 January 2008 Buried Treasures, Volume 2: Ancient Little Neck Cemetery. Formatted the Little Neck section for printing. Hard copies available to those who prefer such to hypertext. Relatively minor changes to the on-line version.
10 January 2008 Buried Treasures, Volume 1: In Old Cambridge, Massachusetts. Revised the New Towne section, formatting it for printing and incorporating material on our people who lie in the Harvard Square and Old Lexington Burial Grounds. Hard copies available to those who prefer such to hypertext.
21 December 2007 Formatted the WilliamAndMary section for printing. Hard copies available to those who prefer such to hypertext.
7 November 2007 Formatted the Salt Lake Cemetery section for printing. Hard copies available to any who may desire a guidebook for a visit to the Cemetery.
26 April 2007 New section: WilliamAndMary. My eighth great-grandfather William “The Immigrant” Munroe rescued Mary Ball from real peril, married her, and built a triumphant family story out of woeful beginnings. The consequences continue to unfold today. As a grateful descendant, I present their dramatic story hypertext, backed up by extensive 17th-century court records.
31 December 2004 DO YOU KNOW? Reorganized the site around a long and growing list of questions and answer-links. Maybe more of Grandpa and Grandma Seely’s descendants will now find it easier to locate and enjoy our fascinating family stories.
11 July 2004 New section: OliverIII. After three years of searching, I finally have enough on Four-Greats-Grandpa Oliver Wheeler III and Grandma Hannah Ashby to justify a separate section. He’s been a mystery, mainly because his famous daughter Harriet Page Wheeler Decker Young always seemed anxious to conceal her origins, to the point of fabricating accounts of them.
24 June 2004 Lexington Old Burying Ground: Our earliest Munroe ancestors in America, a touching group of probable cousins named Child(s), and some more Child(s) tombstones in Groton and Lancaster, Massachusetts.
14 September 2003 Little Neck improvements: Re-worked the Little Neck section to give the user the option to view each page in turn, in the manner of a slide show.
6 February 2003 Guinea pigs! From the New York State census for 1835, new insights on the life of Oliver III and Hannah Ashby Wheeler in upstate New York. Helping to understand, perhaps, why their daughter Harriet, who had something to say about nearly everything, seems to have been silent about her parents and wrong about her heritage.
17 August 2002 Munroe and Russell immigrant homesteads in historic Lexington. Proximity to Timbaloo. New research results. I’ll be pulling scattered Lexington material together into this new section, probably mostly via links to other sections.
9 August 2002 More progress on the Watertown section. Turns out we have at least SEVEN ancestors on the Founders’ Monument. Just made the connection to John Prescott, distinguished founder of Lancaster in Worcester County, Massachusetts.
4 August 2002 Updated and reorganized the Watertown section, incorporating details about the separate settling parties of Roger Clapp and Sir Richard Saltonstall, with connections to “Elmwood” and Elbridge Gerry (a signer of the Declaration of Independence).
28 July 2002 Wheelers in Upstate New York... After a lot of blind alleys, finally filled in the gaps in the life story of Oliver Wheeler III and Hannah Ashby Wheeler. Turns out they had three or four kids in Salem, went broke, lost their home, and “removed” to upstate New York. Where daughter Harriet met and married Isaac Decker.
5 July 2002 Wheelers in Acton and Carlisle... The homestead of Oliver and Abigail Wheeler sits in a Carlisle location that used to be in Acton, and before that in Concord. This new material traces the political boundary changes and shows how they have confused the ways we refer to some of our forebears.
20 June 2002 Portraits of Matthew and Abigail Bridge... in the Buckman Tavern on Lexington Green, upstairs where the tourists don’t normally go, in the chamber where John Hancock forgot his trunk on April 18, 1775, hang fine portraits of our 1C10R Abigail Russell Bridge and her distinguished husband, Lexington founder Matthew Bridge. Recorded this connection by the kind permission of the Lexington Historical Society.
18 June 2002 Corrected Wheeler story at Lexington/Concord Visited the Acton Historical Society and resolved some questions about the participation of Oliver Wheeler in the Lexington/Concord Alarm.
15 June 2002 Reworked Carlisle Updated the large and diverse Carlisle section with the results of a visit on June 7. New pictures showing precise locations of Wheeler, Munroe, and Russell homesteads, where we’d had only neighborhood shots before. Also restructured the section so that you can follow it all the way through with consistent “back” and “next” links. It had grown like Topsy, with detours and loops that you might never find. Its main sections now begin at these links: Map, History, Ancestors, Homesteads, Adams, Munroe, MinuteMen, Russell, Wheeler, Acton, Plantagenets, and Carolingians.
30 May 2002 Plantagenets and Carolingians Wove into the hypertext tangle a first installment on our heritage from the Plantagenet and Carolingian dynasties. Lots more to be done with that, of course.
27 May 2002 Highlights and Connections: Added to the home navigation page a collection of hyperlinks leading to various topics.
29 Apr 2002 Acton and the Wheelers: added context and detail to the 25 April 2002 account of our people in Acton’s old North Cemetery. Incorporated the Acton material into the Carlisle section (there’s really no separating them).
25 Apr 2002 The graves of seventh great-grandparents Oliver Wheeler I and his wife Abigail Woods Wheeler in the peaceful old North Cemetery in Acton, Massachusetts on the Carlisle line.
3 Apr 2002 Major discoveries in Carlisle, Massachusetts. Where, as it turns out, our Munroes “of Billerica,” our Wheelers “of Acton,” and our Adamses and Russells “of Concord” lived as neighbors, intermarried, and prepared a lineage for us. Also a fairly concentrated look at some of our Russell connections in Concord, Cambridge, Lexington, and Menotomy.
9 Mar 2002 Added a picture of Corporal Joe Munroe’s house in Billerica/Carlisle, with new biographical data from the helpful folks at Carlisle’s Gleason Public Library.
21 Feb 2002 Updated the Revolutionary credentials of Oliver Wheeler.
20 Feb 2002 Added biographical material on Oliver III and Hannah Ashby Wheeler dug up thus far in continuing Salem research.
19 Feb 2002 Added the text of Thomas Willett’s footstone inscription.
18 Feb 2002 Added two vignettes to Isaac Decker’s chronology:
  • Richard Bentley’s 1841 mention of Isaac as “ Mayor” of Warsaw
  • William Winterton’s 1864-66 account of Isaac as a rancher near Heber City.
17 Feb 2002 Added a few annotations to slides in the BrighamCity section
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