St. Thomas; John Thomas Carre

I took a few days vacation from both work and genealogy and spent a long weekend visiting friends on St. Thomas. Both couples bought condos there upon retirement.I have never been a Caribbean traveller, but found St. Thomas both beautiful and full of interesting history. The book I am currently reading is about the slave rebellion on neighboring St. John--four miles away. It is visible even on a cloudy day, it is so close. The histories of the two islands and of the slave rebellion on St. John are closely tied together. It was fascinating to be reading the book while there! We didn't get to go to St. John as their were high winds during my entire visit. It was too rough for my friends to take out their sailboat, so we just had lunch on it safely ensconced at its dock in what is known as a "hurricane hole." My Carre ancestors (Sophia Carre married john Sanderson) were involved in the later slave rebellion in the Dominican Republic. Sophia's father John Thomas Carre owned a large coffee plantation on Santa Domingo. He and his family managed to escape alive; the same can't be said for his neighbors. I am anxious to learn more about this rebellion. I only know John Thomas' story which I suspect may be embellished a bit. At least I have the story in his own words, not just subsequent family stories.

Rockland Families

I have been spending moat of my time of late working on DAR applications for others, mostly remote (6th cousins) collateral relatives in northern Rockland County. I mhardly knew Rockland County existed before I joined the Phillips-Knapp Family Association. I am fast becoming an expert on the inter-relationships of the old families, a very interesting sociological study. I find it amazing how many families are still there who settled in the part of Orange County now known as Rockland County in the 1750s or so. Many still live on land purchased by their settler-ancestors. I try to put these families on my Phillips-Knapp website, but have fallen sorely behind as of late. Hopefully I will be able to catch up soon! One result of this project is that I joined the Stony Point, Rockland County, DAR Chapter. I am always looking for more sixth cousins to join! I have at least three Revolutionary War ancestors from Rockland. All I need is time to do supplemental applications for these lines. My paternal grandmother joined the DAR through Ebenezer McKenzie. Eli Phillips and Richard Dykens are my other two known Rockland lines. Right now I am following the Brooks and Rose lines. I am quite certain that none of the Brooks are in my ancestry, but the Rose family may be. The problem is the usual one of re-use of the same names over and over. Church, cemetery and funeral home records are the best sources for tracing families in Rockland.