Saturday, September 22, 2007

Introduction

Hi,

thank you so much for inviting me here. I have looked over most areas and find this very interesting. I am especially pleased to see some photographs of the siblings of my great, great, great grandmother, Margaret P. Sanchez.

My late aunt Anna had an old photo of Margaret P. Sanchez who married her great grandfather, Woodbridge Sage Olmsted. I don't know what happened to it but I will attempt to talk my cousins into sharing (assuming they have it).

On your page showing the descendants of Francisco Sanchez there is listed my great grandmother, Anna Olmsted.

I would like to offer here some additional information about the Olmsted descendants of Francisco Roman Sanchez.

Margaret P. Sanchez married Woodbridge Sage Olmsted who came from a large old Connecticut Yankee family. As your genealogy shows, they had many children. My great great grandfather, Henry Martyn Olmsted was one. He worked as a machinist and manager at the Morse Twist Drill Co. of New Bedford Mass. Henry M. Olmsted married Anna Robbins, the daughter of Eliphalet H. Robbins (a Capt. in the 3rd Mass Cavalry) and Anna Lucas Chase (dtr of a sea captain lost off Australia). Anna Robbins died after the couple's second child and Henry Martyn Olmsted never remarried.

Their first child Margaret who was known to us as aunt Maud. She married sometime around 1900 but never had children. Her husband was a vet of the Spanish American War. Their second Child was Anna Willis Olmsted. She was born around 1872 in New Bedford MA. She attended Welesly College and became a school teacher and midwife. She married John Anderson Phinney around 1898. They had 6 children:

Margaret Eunice Phinney b. 1899 Harwich MA d. March 1967 Hyannis MA.
Marion Phinney b. 1901 d. 1969.
Henry d. 1943 (actually he disappeared presumed drowned off Chatham MA)
Frank
Priscilla d. around 1990
Anna b. 1914 d. 2002.

All six had children, my grandmother Margaret had five children and twenty-nine grandchildren and altogether probably has around 100 living descendants. Too many to list here and I don't recall half of them off the top of my head.

All five of her younger siblings had some children.

Amongst the descendants of Anna Willis Olmsted
now or recently living were:

a captain of the U.S. Navy
a judge in North Carolina
a librarian at the Boston Public Library
two Navy seals
several school teachers
comptroller of a major Boston university
a Fulbright Scholar
a dentist
several artists
several merchants.

Growing up my father used to joke about how he would tan darker than my Irish mother. He would always say it was the Spanish in him. In actuality, he was not terribly dark. His New England Yankee blood had diluted the Spanish down quite a bit. It was this and nothing else, until I was well into my adult years that made up the sum total knowledge that I had about my Sanchez ancestors. Then about 15 years ago, while helping my mother clean out her house I came upon some papers that had once belonged to my grandmother which showed our descent from Francis Roman Sanchez. It seemed that my grandmother had done some genealogical research in the 1950s. About ten years ago I came upon Double Cousins and that added to my knowledge. I am so glad to see distant cousins and others have added to what we know and certainly to what I know about the Sanchez family.

When I get my new box of wires, er, computer, I will scan some pics of the family. I have Pictures of Henry Martyn Olmsted, His two daughters and other descendants. I will only be posting people who are deceased unless I get permission otherwise. I know some people do not like their pics on the net. I even have some early twentieth century pics of some of my relatives visiting Florida. Hopefully I can gain access to the photo of Margaret P. Sanchez.

By the way, my aunt Anna thought that the P. in Margaret P. Sanchez stood for Ponchetta but we never saw a document to confirm this. Is this a correct guess?

David Bartlett

1 comment:

Tom Santa Cruz said...

Welcome David, that is a great introduction.

We will have to figure out where to include your additions to the descendant charts, and make some name correction to our charts.

I sounds like you may have some good stories to tell us about your side of the family.