Facebook has helpful pages you may not know about!

Have you spent time exploring Facebook? I love keeping in touch with my children, grandchildren, cousins, nieces, friends, colleagues, and others via this social media tool. High school graduating classes have pages as do families, historical societies, family organizations, surname groups, newspapers, school reunion groups, libraries, genealogical organizations and businesses, restaurants, plus even dogs and cats.

Some pages require that you ask to join and be accepted into the group. Others simply hope that you "like" the page. Whether you are on Facebook now or will be joining, be sure to click on that cog wheel in the upper right hand corner and then on settings where you will be able to set various privacy and notifications parameters.

I am learning and also having fun with some of these pages. I love the pages about St. Paul history. Most of my life was spent in St. Paul. A few of my favorite Facebook pages:

• Old St. Paul Minn : www.facebook.com/groups/190978714441142/

• St. Paul Revisited:  www.facebook.com/SaintPaulRevisited

• You know you're from Roseville MN when. . . .www.facebook.com/groups/187655801277036/ [All the cousins on my Stuart side grew up in Roseville, my family has shopped in Roseville forever, and I now live in Roseville.]

• Mountain View Historical Association:  www.facebook.com/MVHistory [My oldest son was born in Mountain View, California when we lived there for a year.]

• Rawdon Historical Society:  www.facebook.com/groups/162120912771/ [My Copping ancestors settled in Rawdon, Quebec, Canada in the early 1800s.] 

200th anniversary of the Coppings leaving London

Two Hundred years ago today, May 5th,1811, my ancestors left London and sailed for Canada on the SS "Lively." George and Elizabeth (Saggers) Copping and the four children they had at that point arrived in Canada on July 2, 1811. The first lived in Quebec City, then Montreal, and lived out their lives in Rawdon, Montcalm County, Quebec, Canada. George kept a journal and portions survived. Today the remnants of his journal are on the McGill University (Monteal) website.

They added seven more children and among those was my Great Great Great Grandmother Clarinda Copping. Elizabeth was said to be Irish, George was a staunch Anglican. Several of their children and grandchildren married French-Canadian Catholics. George did not always speak favorably of the Irish or of the Catholics.