The Nims Family Association

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.

I trust you have enjoyed summer and have been able to work in some genealogical research. I am writing this in Iowa, where we have traveled to help my mother celebrate her 96th birthday. As we drove through central Illinois, we stopped at Fondulac Cemetery in East Peoria and located the grave of a great-uncle, then stopped near Des Moines, Iowa, and in northern Iowa to exchange genealogical information with kin who are genealogists—the type of thing that some of us get all excited about, but 90% of Americans don’t enjoy and even wonder how one can actually enjoy going through old cemeteries and courthouse and library records; but neither do they experience the excitement that comes from a discovery. Years ago at the Daughters of the American Revolution library in Washington, DC, I got so excited when I found Sir Winston Churchill was kin that I had to get a drink of water. You folks know the feeling.

This issue will be reaching you much faster than some of the previous ones. The US Postal Service admits they are slow in processing the newsletters through the Washington, DC area, which includes the Virginia Beach area where the newsletters are printed. Our editor, Brenda Babineau, puts a lot of effort into the newsletters. They ought to be delivered promptly, so your Board of Directors decided to mail them first class. An example of the ‘speed’ of the US Postal Service is that newsletters sent overseas were delivered sooner than many in the US. The dues cards included in this newsletter provide you a choice of receiving the newsletter by either first class mail or by email.

The seven-generation books of The Nims Family: Seven Generations of Descendants from Godfrey Nims are all sold. However, Allan Wiscombe, Bob Haner and Dave Nims have been editing Nims material, assigning every person a number (even ones who died young and left no offspring) and have expanded the original book. The finished work will be too huge to put into one volume, but it will be available in three formats. Allan has written an article, found in the latest newsletter, explaining the project. People have babies, die, get married, and divorced all the time. With the new format it will be easy to insert new material at the appropriate place. For you who are familiar with computers, you will see what a benefit this is to us.

The Nims Country Store will have two new books for next fall’s reunion: Children of Deerfield, which will be of interest to children, and The Pocumtuck Housewife, which has colorful recipes starting with 1805.

These thoughts from E. W. Winstead I share with you:

    In Autumn’s breeze leaves tumble down
    Vermilion, crimson, bronze and brown.
    The shim’ring oaks along the lane
    Wear rainbow halos once again.
    Against the arching blue-hazed sky,
    The smoke-curled wreaths of bonfires fly.
    Brown nuts drop to the leaf-strewn ground
    Where orange pumpkins now abound.
    Full harvest moon-gold glazes all;
    Night echoes crickets’ farewell call,
    We sing to God our hymn of praise
    For His glorious gift of bright Autumn days.

    Ron Graham

When The Nims Family: Seven Generations of Descendants from Godfrey Nims was published in 1990, the index showed approximately 21,000 entries in the book. It was a beginning, but Nims Family Association knew at the time there were many more generations and names to compile. Work has steadily progressed over the intervening years, and we are now planning additional publications of family members, with volumes concentrating on the grandchildren of Godfrey Nims and their descendants. At last count, NFA files showed over 93,000 names in our data base from the four branches. The John line leads with over 31,000 names. Thankfuls number just over 26,000, Ebenezers account for 19,000, and Abigails now list 16,500.

One example of our additions involves the families descended from John Jay Nims and Julia Robinson. John Jay Nims’ line of descent from Godfrey Nims is through Ebenezer, Moses, Ariel, Joel, and Albert Sanford Nims. This branch was brought to our attention first by NFA Historian, Ellen Mary Nims, even prior to the publication of the 1990 Nims History. Although Ellen Mary had met and visited with family members, the story was not complete enough to include at that time. In the late 1980’s, Brenda Jeanne Cornwell, daughter of Shirley Nims Cornwell, came across some NFA information in Yankee Magazine. Around the same time, Shirley’s sister, Louise Johnson, visited Deerfield, MA on a bus tour and was surprised to see and learn about the Nims House there. Soon after, Brenda and her new-born infant Cameron, along with Terry Cornwell Rumsey and her son Billy attended an NFA reunion in Deerfield. Following attendance at a regional NFA meeting in Virginia Beach, VA, Terry joined the NFA Board of Directors. As her term ended in 2000, Terry gave a presentation for NFA at Deerfield, MA accompanied by her mother Shirley, aunt Louise, and cousin Sarah Montgomery. Over the past several months, Terry, Shirley and Louise have compiled a record of over 160 descendants, a wonderful example of what can be accomplished in filling out the portrait of descendants from Godfrey Nims. Here is Terry’s opening comment to introduce this line. From time to time we will highlight individuals within this branch.

AN AMERICAN STORY

A Triumph of Love, Courage and Determination
John Jay Nims & Julia Robinson

INTRODUCTION

“It always gives me a great deal of pride and enjoyment when I reflect on or speak about the beauty, devotion and strength of my remarkable family, a branch of the Godfrey Nims family. Our story is a story of triumph of abiding love, amazing courage, and fierce determination in the face of unspeakable adversity. It is also a story that is uniquely American, because it highlights the important role that diversity and inclusion play in permitting us all to live up to the American creed of ‘Liberty…the pursuit of happiness…and justice for all.’ With these opening words, Terry Cornwell Rumsey began the narrative of her special branch of descendants from Godfrey Nims at a meeting of the Nims Family Association at Deerfield, MA in 2002

Terry continued, “Our branch of the Nims family had its inception when John Nims, a white southerner met Julia Robinson, an African American woman in Tallahassee, Florida. We are not sure, but we estimate the date to have been somewhere between 1875 and 1880. To fully appreciate the enormity of this occasion and the events that followed, one must first be reminded of what was occurring in America at that time. The Civil War had just ended. The previous lifestyle of affluence and comfort for some, which had been a way of life for well over 200 years, had been devastated and forever altered. American was going through a period of enormous tensions. Reconstruction, the period following the Civil War from 1865-1877, was a time of painful readjustment, for there were major economic, political and social challenges which had to be overcome. During the time that the southern states were restored to the Union, much resentment, confusion and bitterness between the North and the South prevailed. It was, indeed, a period of great change and upheaval.
Terry Cornwell Rumsey

Terry Cornwell Rumsey and her mother, Shirley Nims Cornwell

“It was against this backdrop of fear, ignorance and repression that John met Julia. This couple decided that their love transcended it all! We know little about her except that she was described as ‘strikingly beautiful’, very petite in stature, refined in manner, with lovely long black hair. She was affectionately known as ‘Miss Lovey’ and completely captured John Nims’ heart and his life-long commitment. Because of the difference in their skin color, man’s law dictated they could not love or marry each other. Despite what must have been incredible social pressures of that day from the community and his family, Johnnie Nims and Miss Lovey lived together, openly, as man and wife and successfully raised to adulthood eight productive children, 7 boys and 1 girl. There are now at last count over 160 descendants from that union!”