Did your ancestors work  the sea? What immigrant ship did your ancestors arrive on?  Tell family stories with accuracy to detail, with a visit to a nautical museum or website. Here are some places to begin your voyage of discovery, the family stories from the sea.

The whale boat above, is an image from Mystic Seaport, in Mystic, Connecticut.  A visit to the seaport is always a treat and an educational wonder. If you can’t make the trip, check out their extensive website. The website includes an educational portal that will help you learn about voyages, people, ships logs, passenger lists, and equipment, use this information to bring realism to your story.

The Mystic Seaport; Museum of America and the Sea website: ( in the direction bar at the top of the site “Learn” will open the educational portal)

http://www.mysticseaport.org/

Mystic Seaport is home to the Charles W. Morgan the last wooden whaling ship. The Morgan was recently restored and went to sea on an educational voyage. The home port of the Morgan was New Bedford, Mass. They have a wonderful museum as well, they endeavor to tell the story of the whaling industry, from ship to shore. They also have an archival library for the research enthusiast.

http://www.whalingmuseum.org/

Are you possibly a Mayflower Society member? Does your family tree trace directly back to the passengers on the Mayflower? If so you will want to make a visit to Plimouth Plantation and the Mayflower. A web link will help you plan your adventure;

http://www.plimoth.org/

Here is the Mayflower in dry dock for repairs, the winter of 2015 at Mystic Seaport. She went home for the summer/fall tourist season and will return, for completion of her rebuild, during the 2015-16 winter.  If you believe your family was on the Mayflower here is the link to the passenger list from the voyage to the New World!

http://mayflowerhistory.com/mayflower-passenger-list/

Your family stories may be a more current vintage. Be sure to learn as much as you can about the connection to the sea. Ships names, jobs while at sea, voyage dates, storms on the journey. Military action seen during the voyage. Whatever the family relationship was ask these three questions to get your family story started:

1.) What was happening in the world, and at sea during the time my family member was connected to the sea?

2.) What role did my family member play while at sea? ( passenger, military, slave, crew, fishing)

3.) What was the port of entry, or home port of my family story?

Battleship Cove, in Fall River, Mass. can help your military story!

http://www.battleshipcove.org/

As a teen my father helped on a Lobster boat, they sailed out of Rye, New Hampshire. He had many memories of the hard work and good friends he had there. Luckily, I can still talk to those who lobster out of Rye. I can discover what the work is like and savor the fresh catch, at the end of the day!

I have other blog posts related to the sea, for more information you might look at these:

https://www.carolynstearnsstoryteller.com/ties-to-a-shipyard-story/

https://www.carolynstearnsstoryteller.com/where-do-fish-stories-come-from/

https://www.carolynstearnsstoryteller.com/a-ct-maritime-story-from-geneology/

https://www.carolynstearnsstoryteller.com/whale-of-a-tail-or-is-it-tale/

Thanks for visiting my blog! I hope you share it or return to find out more about Family Stories!

The post Ancestors at Sea appeared first on Carolyn Stearns Storyteller.

I was inspired by Mark Kurlansky’s book Cod to delve further into the world and history of fishing and fishermen. Then an opportunity presented itself to construct a story for performance to  third grade children around the  topics of  Wildlife, Water, People and more specifically immigration and the ecology of the sea. Cod would be the perfect vehicle to  help tell this story. At the outset I was not even aware of the children’s version of this book and was so excited to find it! Here is a look at that version from Amazon .

http://amzn.to/Q4xdcL

That was just the beginning, a story is a complex intertwining of facts from multiple sources. Cod gave me my background knowledge. Then I needed characters, I found mine on the list of passengers on the Mayflower voyage to the New World in 1620. Here I researched the children of the Ancient Time as it was called and selected two. The characters themselves required more research as they are historical not fiction. My characters are Remember Allerton and Richard More, each have left a long lineage and a place in the history of the founding of our nation.

My next question to answer was, What does Cod fishing look like? How do you fish for Cod in the old ways and the new?

I journeyed into the realm of salt water fishing and the life and habits of Cod. Here is where You-Tube came in handy to give me some visual reference. Here is a link to a story about the decline of Cod populations.

http://youtu.be/cLE56imBjJs

This next link is a moving video full of the visuals I needed to be able to tell my story with an accuracy and  true representation.

http://youtu.be/Git-48_CPww

From you-tube it as a long read in several nautical history books and a visit to  Mystic Seaport.

http://www.mysticseaport.org/

I also visited the Essex Shipbuilding Museum.

http://www.essexshipbuildingmuseum.org/

I got to know the Cod itself by drawing and painting them so I would remember their distinctive fins and chin barb.

Cod Watercolor on textured paper by Carolyn  Stearns ’14

This is heavy material and  my focus audience for the premier of this story is third grade. I need a way to take the  depth of history and content and make it memorable and fun to hear and retain. I have added music to the story, interspersed to introduce new sections of the story and as a culminating piece to  spark conversation about the ecological and financial damage done to the Cod legacy by over fishing the waters. The music I chose for this is an old sea chantey “Cape Cod Girls”, hear a version at this link;

http://youtu.be/VQ_rFz9djz4

As with all chantey music there are many versions and arrangements so I took the liberty of adapting this song to fit the story a bit more and have our sailors/ fishermen bound for a “New World”. The music to close this piece is one verse of a sea ballad called ” Peter’s River”  by Mary Garvey (c) 1995 and used with  her permission. The sheet music and lyrics are available here:

http://www.timberheadmusic.com/disc/boatspetersriver.htm

I heard this song  a few years ago and it haunted my mind but in a weekend filled with music I could not remember the melody. Then in June 2012, I shared the stage at Mystic Sea Music Festival with Mary Garvey, it was from that meeting that I learned the song that has become one I hum often when working.

Spring of 2014 this story will debut and be added to my regular repertoire of stories to tell. The story has such depth I will be able to offer an adult version with more content as well.

My review in 2013 of the book Cod is here:

https://www.carolynstearnsstoryteller.com/rape-of-the-sea-book-review-cod/

Interested in booking this story and other sea tales?

email:  carolyn@carolynstearnsstoryteller.com

The post Where do Fish Stories Come From? appeared first on Carolyn Stearns Storyteller.