May: a Month of Mishaps

 

Times like this compound challenges faced by those of us bloggers who have committed to posting on a daily basis. If you thought today—after missing my chance yesterday—would be the big reveal for the details on the will of the founding Ijams ancestor in my mother-in-law's line, think again. Yesterday? My mind was too befuddled to think clearly enough to read anything, let alone handwritten documents drawn up in 1703.

But that was yesterday's excuse. Today? Well, if I'm lucky, I'll escape from the Denver airport before midnight, if our connecting flight arrives to whisk us away to Kansas City. This time, thankfully, the event is a joyful one: the wedding of a Stevens cousin's granddaughter, a time for family from across the country to gather together for a family reunion of sorts. 

If we get there, that is. While our consolation prize is that we finally get a much-delayed plane to fly in, the drawback is that we still aren't sure the craft is mechanical-issue free. What a dilemma.

So, about that will: the last testament of the founding immigrant William Ijams—or Eyams, as Harry Wright Newman painted him—was supposedly presented in court in 1703. You know my first stop was to check for a copy through the FamilySearch Labs' Full Text search. Unfortunately, despite searching for all the spelling variations I've already encountered—Ijams, Iiams, Jiams, and even Eyams, and even just looking for a William with wife named Elizabeth—there was no sign of any such document. While my mother-in-law's seventh great-grandfather may well have died when Mr. Newman reported it in his book, it looks like I'll have to come up with some other creative search ideas if I am to find the actual will.

Meanwhile, we've bypassed the other side of two Ijams generations, the wives of the elder and the younger William Ijams. Since I've spotted information on their two families during my explorations, we may as well round out the month by noting something about the two Elizabeths who married those Williams: Elizabeth Plummer, wife of the younger William Ijams, and Elizabeth Cheyney, wife of the founding immigrant ancestor.