    |
  |
The Nims Family
Association is an association of individuals and families descended
from Godfrey Nims of Deerfield, Massachusetts. The association is
registered in Massachusetts as a non-profit, domestic corporation.
Membership in the Nims Family Association is open to any person
descended from, or married to, anyone of the surname Nims. The purposes of
the association are to collect, maintain, and distribute genealogical and
historical data pertaining to descendants of Godfrey Nims, to preserve and
display artifacts of the family, and to promote other activities relevant
to the Nims family.
We actively seek
contact with all descendants of Godfrey Nims through four of his children
who survived to adulthood: John; Ebenezer; Thankful Nims Munn; and
Abigail Nims Rising. We have completed a foundation volume titled
"The Nims Family: Seven Generations of Descendants from Godfrey
Nims". Our goal now is to continue publishing records in the files of
the association. Toward that end, we have purchased computer equipment and
are continuing the process of inputting data from the four family
branches. These records will be made available to association members for
nominal publishing and service costs. Eventually, copies of the files will
be placed in the LDS Church Ancestral File and at the Deerfield,
Massachusetts Memorial Libraries. All descendants of Godfrey Nims are
encouraged to participate in the Nims Family Association and in the
gathering of data and artifacts. If you are interested in joining the
nearly four hundred families who are already association members, contact
our secretary or treasurer at the address below. Dues are $10 per family
annually. We welcome your participation and support. Click HERE for further membership information.
Our President-
Betsy Wiscombe
Dear members of the NFA:
I
have always had a great interest in my heritage, as has my mother, Eleanor
Johnson, who introduced me to the Association in the mid-1980's. NFA
through the years has reached its members by its quarterly newsletters,
maintaining an active web site, and organizing meetings in Deerfield or in
other cities around the country.
My goals as
president would be to try to continue in this great work, following Ron
Graham and other presidents who have worked diligently to try and maintain
interest and to keep the Association moving forward.
I will try to ensure that material coming out in the newsletters will be of interest, report on the ongoing work of editing and publishing the files of Godfrey's progeny, and to organize the meetings as interest warrants.
Special thanks go to president Ron Graham, treasurer Nancy Garreaud, secretary Cynthia Smellie, Dave Nims who handles the web site, and vice-president, Brenda Babineau who has also edited the newsletter. Thank you to all on the board who have made contributions during this past presidency.
Betsy
Wiscombe
Greetings to the Nims Family Association Members
& FriendsDear cousins and friends of NFA.
2012 Reunion: We are happy to be able to announce that in 2012, we will be holding a Nims Family Reunion in the Montreal, Canada area with Lise Rochette-Menard and husband Louis Menard, serving as our reunion coordinators. It will be held in either September or October. They are in the process of soliciting input from the NFA Officers and Board and also from the Seguin Genealogical Society from whom we have many descendants from the Abigail line.
Passports: Lise has reminded us that those entering Canada from the States need a passport, so this gives everyone who might be attending the reunion ample time to get this in order. We are excited about this future event and as time goes on, we will add more information in future newsletters. Thanks, Lise and Louis.
Research: My husband, Allan Wiscombe, has been moving along with the proofreading of various files handed down from former historian, Susan Oathout, and making many additions to individual families by means of computer research, especially in gleaning what ancestry.com provides.
Your Help: Anyone who would like to assist Allan is welcome. Something that all of you can do is to check with him and see what he has about your own family, starting with yourself and/or you children and grandchildren. We need updates on your families (dates of births, marriages, deaths; names and places) and this would include your siblings and extended family who come down from the Nims. We also welcome stories of interest to include in the family history. We are not doing research on ancestors of non-Nims line; that is, people who have married into the family. However, those people are mentioned, such as “Mary Nims married John Smith, son of James and Susan Smith of Northampton, MA”
The Goal: The goal is to make files available to our membership so that they can access them for their own use and to add them to their personal family genealogy. As you remember from the last newsletter, David Nims has completed the work for the Ebenezer line that comes down through his ancestor, David Nims (1769.) As soon as his file and any others that become completed are up on the Nims web site, we will let the membership know.
Suggestions: If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to get in touch with me at any time at allanandbetsy@yahoo.com. Don’t forget that you can access the Nims Family Association online at www.nimsfamily.com.
Happy spring, everyone!
Betsy Wiscombe
Deerfield Descendants Reunion
2010Historic Deerfield has announced a “Save the Date” for the summer of 2010. “Join us and your Deerfield Descendant ‘cousins’ for the Deerfield Descendants Reunion on June 25, 26 and 27, 2010. (As Nims descendants, we are Deerfield Descendants.)
Share your stories with other Deerfield Descendants
Research your Deerfield genealogy
Relive the history of Deerfield through lectures, tours, and special activities
Enjoy the rural landscape, historic houses, and beautiful artifacts of your family’s past.
The registration form and preliminary schedule for the 2010 Deerfield Descendants Reunion has been posted on the Historic Deerfield website!
Please spread the word in your families and in your genealogy networks.
The link to Reunion information is: http://www.historic-deerfield.org/deerfield-descendants-reunion-2010
If you don’t have internet access, sign up (it’s free) to be on the Deerfield Descendant mailing list and receive descendant info by mail. Send your name and address to Karen Dionne, Assistant Director of Development, Historic Deerfield, Inc., P.O. Box 321, Deerfield, MA 01342 (Indicate that your Deerfield family connection is Nims.)
Hope to see you there!
Sally Phillips, NFA secretary
NIMS FAMILY BIBLE OBTAINED
Nims Family Association--“The purposes of the association are to collect, maintain, and distribute genealogical and historical data pertaining to descendants of Godfrey Nims, to preserve and display artifacts of the family, and to promote other activities relevant to the Nims family.”
July—2009. Our association has recently been involved in preserving and displaying just such family artifacts. One example occurred in Connecticut with the discovery of material connected to Lawrence Whitney Wright in a home undergoing renovation. As reported earlier, Roger Cyr, Jr. helped to salvage, from material and debris being discarded, portraits of Harriet Wright, John Bertram Wright, and Mary Belle Whitney, daughter of Lura Lind Nims and George Edward Whitney, among many other items. Most of the recovered material centered on college years at University of New Hampshire during the late 1920s for Lawrence Wright. Read the story of this salvage effort in the article Putting Some Pieces Together on our "Meet Our Family" page.
A second recovery concerns a Nims family Bible. The first contact concerning this Nims artifact came on July 8, 2009, from Charles M. Kester, proprietor of St. Wulfstan’s Books in Fayetteville, AR, to the Nims Family Association website and David Nims. Mr. Kester wrote, “I am an antiquarian book dealer, dealing mostly in religious books, so I occasionally come across old family Bibles. When they contain potentially valuable genealogical information, I generally try to find the ‘proper’ home for them before I list them for sale. I recently purchased a lot of books which contained a very nice pre-Civil War family Bible with 17 old (mid to late 19th Century?) photographs, all but 2 of which are labeled with family names. There is also included an ancestor chart prepared by Norris G. Nims, Jr., who lived in Copper Center, Alaska, at the time he prepared it (1980.) Some names on the chart are Asahel Nims, Jr., Elmer Asahel Nims, Sidney Asahel Nims, and Norris Gurnsey Nims, as well as spouses with the most prominent surnames appearing to be Gurnsey, Wood and Fry.”
We immediately recognized all these names as being connected with David Nims, first town clerk of Keene, New Hampshire, and among the nearly 2,000 descendants from David Nims included in a recently completed compilation.
A series of emails followed between Mr. Kester and me, in addition to a lengthy phone conversation regarding content and shape of the Bible, as well as a possible sale price to the association if we determined it to be a worthwhile artifact. Mr. Kester responded in detail concerning the family Bible (as a book) with the following: “Its full title is The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments together with the Apocrypha…The text conformable to the standard of the American Bible Society. Published in Philadelphia; Samuel D. Burlock & Co., J. Fagan & Sons, stereotype founders; Sherman & Co., printers. No date, (c. 1860.) Collation: Pp. 576, 22 pages of plates (with tissue guards.) Full leather binding with deeply pressed covers with gilt tooling on edges, spine and covers. Approximately 10 inches x 15 inches. Well preserved, light rubbing and wear at points. As a book, this one is notable because it is not recorded in Hills’ (arguably definitive) bibliography of American Bibles.”
Regarding Nims family information, Mr. Kester wrote: “There is a gift/dedication letter pasted to a ffep. There are various pages of family registers bound in with manuscript records. There are seventeen sepia-toned photos, sixteen bound into the book in album pages. There is one loose 4x6 sepia-toned photo that is not identified. The book and photos are in very good condition. There are also 2 pages of handwritten family information loose, a typewritten Ancestor Chart by Norris G. Nims consisting of two pages, and a curious printed text for “Twenty Years Ago” to be sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, printed Oct. 4th, 1871, at Keene, N.H.”
After approaching President Betsy Wiscombe with an explanation of the family artifact, she authorized its purchase. Agreement was reached on payment to obtain the Bible, for a price of $480, after Mr. Kester offered a 20% discount from the price he planned to list in his catalog. Funding for the purchase will be taken from the K. Godfrey Nims account, money used for special NFA projects and purchases. The Bible was mailed July 14, 2009 and received by David Nims on July 20, well wrapped for protection, and exactly as advertised. Photos are as follows: Roxanna Osgood Nims; Asahel Nims; son Elmer A. Nims and his wife, Ellen Maria Billings Nims; and 11 photos of 5 children, Sidney, Fanny, Arthur, Isabelle, and Rebecca. One unidentified photo of two men in their 20s-30s, might be Elmer Asahel Nims and one of his three brothers. A final photo is of an unidentified elderly gentleman, who might be Elmer Asahel Nims, his father Asahel Nims, Jr., or even the grandfather, Asahel Nims.
Roxanna Osgood Nims
The D. W. Nims who presented the Bible as a gift to Elmer Asahel Nims and wife was Dauphin White Nims, (1811-1886.) Dauphin married Augusta Osgood, sister to Rebecca Osgood Nims, mother of Elmer Asahel Nims, recipient of the Bible. Dauphin and Augusta, were, in fact, aunt and uncle to Elmer Asahel Nims, as indicated on the dedication/gift page. Two further notes: Dauphin and Augusta had no children, but their kind home in Keene, NH afforded shelter for many homeless children. Also, following Dauphin's death, a portrait of David Nims, an original proprietor and first town clerk of Keene, was presented to the city by his widow, and now hangs in the Keene Public Library. As a young child growing up in Keene, I always had the notion David had been scalped by Indians, causing him to wear a cap for the portrait. Later I came to understand it was a linen cap many men of that period wore. This portrait is the only one in existence of an original town proprietor. David was great-great-grandfather of Dauphin White Nims.
The family bible is now securely rewrapped, and will be taken to Deerfield, MA and the Memorial Libraries, to join other artifacts and family archives preserved there.
David Nims
Ashburnham, MA
August, 2009
Asahel Nims Ellen Maria Billings Nims
President:
Elizabeth Wiscombe, P.O. Box 186, Eden, UT
84310-0186
Vice-Pres: Ronald Graham, 5344 Hickory Ridge,
Virginia Beach, VA 23455-6680
Treasurer: Nancy
Garreaud, 921 East 100 South, Salt Lake City, UT
84102
Secretary: Sally Phillips, 104 Mechanic
Street, Shelburne Falls, MA 01370-1224
Directors:
George Babineau,
MA
Gordon Bean, Toronto,
Canada
Judy Graves,
MA
Judy
Nelson,
MA
David Nims,
MA
Patricia Potter,
MA
Lise Rochette, Montreal,
Canada
Newsletter Editor: Vicki Coutu,
MA
Publications Coordinator: Allan Wiscombe, UT
For further
information concerning the Nims Family Association and any of its
activities, please use the "e-mail us" link on the left or contact us at
the following address: Sally Phillips, 104 Mechanic Street, Shelburne
Falls, MA 01370-1224
| Membership Information | | N.F.A. Items for sale |
© Copyright 2001-2010. All rights reserved by the Nims Family Association |
