The Big Project: The Abinah Wood Descendant Project

For about a year now, I have been working on what I have come to call "The BIG Project."

I have an UPDATE HERE!!!

The book was finally finished and info about purchasing the book can be found here!


What I am doing is this:

There is a book called History and Genealogy of the descendants of Abinah Wood and Susannah Humphreys. It was written by a few of their descendants after a family reunion in 1903 - that's right, I said the book was written in 1903. I have a nice photocopy of it in my genealogical collection. There is an online copy of it at Archive.org as well.

Image of the actual cover

Anyway, to get back on subject - the book listed all of the known descendants of Abinah Belford Wood and Susannah Humphreys in 1903....of which my great-grandfather was listed as well. I am taking that info and updating it, adding 110 years worth of info and trying my best to get as many descendants as I can before January of 2013. 

Why January of 2013?  That's when I hope to have a new book made with the findings of my research.  I still don't know if I am going to publish that as a real book, or just as a PDF book that Abinah and Susannah's descendants can print on their own.  But I am hoping to have as many descendants in it, as well as biographies of the children and maybe even some of the grandchildren!

EDIT HERE:  The book was finally published in July of 2013.

John Devender Wood and family, c. 1880s

It is a frustrating job!

First of all, I have to comb through pages and pages of database info online just to find the right families - sometimes finding one branch with just four generations takes all day. Second Abinah and Susannah had FOURTEEN children, of which only three died as children, and over ONE HUNDRED grandchildren alone so that means I have to find several families. It's a tedious job, and has taken me many months to do, and I've only scratched the surface.

Add on to that the family squabbles, the nitpicking of data, the general stubbornness to share info and the headache of having to be diplomatic with people (which is a trait my mother takes credit for giving me!)and you have my day. I should mention also that I am not getting paid for this and must schedule this around my normal job as a substitute teacher AND around my day-to-day chores and family life. Not to mention keeping up with info that I find on my other branches, since I still have "oooooh shiny!" moments and find stuff that pertains to my mother's branch or my husband's several branches.

And still, I trek on, with the help of countless others, some who offer up their entire research, others who give me what they can and help me find new info, and then others who give me moral support and the much needed pats on the back (I love my husband!)

William Clifford Wood and family c. 1930s

Shameless promotion plug here:

If you are wondering what surnames I am looking for in this project, here are just a few in the tree:

AREHART, AINSWORTH, BOZIC, BYERS, CABLE, ESPLEN, FOWKES, GILMORE, GREENE, HUNTER, JORDAN, LOCKE, LYNCH, MARMEE, MILLER, MCDAVID, MCGINNISS (and its various variants), SCHAFFER, STRICKLER, TATEM, VANDEN BOSCHE, and of course WOOD.

If you think you might be a part of this family, there is a group that was started years ago on Yahoo! Groups called The Abinah Wood Descendants.  The purpose of the group is the promotion of any and all discussion regarding the couple and any of their descendants.  This group has been a big help to me and to those who have joined it.

And as always, if anyone has info they would love to share with me, contact me!

And so people know off the bat - Charles Wesley Chapman Wood, who is listed in the book, was my great-grandfather.