INVITATION FROM THE PRESIDENT

      The Corson family newsletter has some thoughts which I share with you.  A volunteer organization such as ours operates on the strength of its members' contributions.  The more members who participate, the more interesting and diverse the organization tends to be.  Officers can encourage participation by recruiting new members and working on family reunions but just to a certain point and only for so long.  Donor fatigue can result from being asked too often to do a job.  There can also be officer burnout if too many jobs are put on too few members.

      If you have an interest in finance, publishing newsletters, arranging for reunions, you can count on a job.  Our family association needs folks for those positions and thanks you for offering your services.  It can be for two or for four years.  The term would start this fall.  All positions are open.  The newsletter editor would be happy to have articles on your branch of the Nims family.  A one-page story about your family history would be great.  Also newspaper clippings could be used.

Please send your name, address, and area of interest to:

         From David Nims, Ashburnham, MA

During the last year or so, I have been working on a compilation of the descendants of Godfrey Nims’ grandson David, first town clerk of Keene, New Hampshire, and my direct ancestor.  The result will be ready to present at the October, 2008 reunion of the Nims Family Association members in Deerfield, MA.   Building the compilation has been a labor of love, for I have come to learn so much about my many ‘cousins.’  The work encompasses some 450 pages, nearly 100 photographs, and almost 2,000 descendants of David.  One idea sticks out above all—I feel lucky to even be here, as I have told my children and their families, due to the heavy rate of mortality encountered.  Consider:  Godfrey Nims had a total of 15 children and step-children with two wives, Mary Miller Williams and Mehitable Smead Hull.  Of those children, only five, John, his step-sister (and wife) Elizabeth, Ebenezer,  Thankful, and Abigail survived to adulthood.

Look at Ebenezer for a moment.  He and wife Sarah Hoyt had five children: Ebenezer, David, Moses, Elisha, and Amasa.  Elisha was killed in an ambush near Fort Massachusetts in 1745 at the age of 26, leaving no children.  Move to Ebenezer’s son David, the subject of my compilation.  David and his wife Abigail Hawkes had a total of 10 children: 6 boys (David, Jr., Asahel, a second named Asahel, Eliakim, Zadok and Alpheus; and 4 girls (Sarah, Abigail, Ruth, and a second Abigail.)  Infant mortality is brought home to us in a concrete manner as we read of repeated name choices given to more than one child.  Of the 10 children, 5 left no descendants.  One of the six boys, Alpheus later had 6 children with his wife, Abigail Briggs, but early mortality claimed all 6. George lived 6 years; Abigail (Nabby), 15 months; Eliakim, 16 months; Josiah, 7 months; Alpheus, 2 days, and a second George lived 20 years, 6 months before dying while seeking a cure for tuberculosis in Petersburg, Virginia.   If you have a surname of Nims and descend from Ebenezer and David, you will be found in the line of descent from either David, Jr., or Zadoc.   But also from David, Jr. or Zadoc descend families named  Beverstock, Chapman, Davis, Hubbard, Mason, Mather, Rawson, Smith, Spaulding, Towns, Whitney, Wright, Bolles, Brooks, Durkee, Houghton, Johnson, Morse, Spaulding, Wilder and Wilson, among others. 

Sarah Nims is tied to families named Cooke, Gilmore, Ormsbee and Hiland.  A listing of descendants from Sarah and husband Ebenezer Cooke runs only about ½ page; Ruth Nims and husband Joshua Lawrence have many descendants under families named Lawrence, Osgood, Wadsworth and Wiswall, etc.  That descendant listing gives us 4 & ½ pages.  Abigail Nims with husband Benjamin Kemp have descendants named Hawkes, Kemp, Sherman, and Smith, etc., yielding a descendant list  of 3 & ½ pages.  Zadoc Nims and wife Elizabeth Brown give a descendant list running 14 & ½ pages.  David Nims, Jr., and wife Jemima Carter give us 34 pages of names descending from that union.