The Great Ferriter Family

During the 1950s and 1960s, my family lived in a house with a formal sitting room, across an entry hall from a formal dining room. The sitting room was something of a repository for certain heirloom items, and a number of family portraits hung upon the walls. In the far corner of the room stood a walnut étagère, with graduated display shelves, largest on the bottom, getting smaller higher – five shelves total. The middle shelf was the most prominent, and upon this shelf were several items of family historical importance: a small flat stone, a chunk of peat with a green silk ribbon tied... Read More

It is Christmas Evening, and feeling somewhat reflective, I am writing. Over the past month or so, I have written a couple of historical notes, and will so again. My next backward-looking piece will be about myself, but not now. Right now, I am writing in thanksgiving for all I have and have had. The Birth of the Son steers us all back to light, and in this world, this Holiday marks the advent of longer days, and a return to warmth, sunshine, spring and summer. Remember this now, and always. O.K., one more thing. About us Ferriters. I have a sense that every Ferriter... Read More

I am writing somewhat early of a holiday weekend morning, and if a certain fuzziness or haze extends into this essay, that must be the cause. I wish to write about our collective family, in the extended sense. By result of English predations, we have a family with what seems to be an identifiable common root. Not only are we identifiably one family by virtue of our surname, but the genealogy suggests that we extend from an identifiable ancestor, or few ancestors. By virtue of a sustained familial oral tradition, we have maintained a certain sense of identity with that common ancestor, and this has... Read More