Welcome to the Lewin/Westgate/Quimby blog.  This is where I am sharing some of my research on our ancestors.  For me, genealogy started as an unsatisfactory list of names and dates, exactly what used to put me to sleep in history classes.  But now that I know, for example, that my ancestor Littlefield Nash, who could not read, was a skilled scout in the woods around Lake George during the French and Indian War, that history has come alive for me.  I hope it will for you, too. 

My work over the years has been guided by two goals: to fit our people into their historical contexts, and to fill in the life stories of the women in our lines as best I could.  Of course, the thrill of discovering an unknown fact was always the best treat, like when I found out that forebear Elizabeth Osgood Quinby was sentenced to be “whipped thirty stripes for fornication” by Salisbury Court in 1654.  That sort of discovery spiced up the time spent under the shadow of the Jesus statue in my local LDS Family History Center. 

For the foreseeable future, I plan to zoom in on the upper Connecticut River Valley, where many of the five generations before Marguerite Lewin and Arthur Westgate Quimby lived for over 200 years, starting with the earliest ancestral settlers.  Dan Hertzler has kindly let me use one of his photos of Mt. Ascutney, which looms over the area, in one of its many guises.

I welcome questions, comments and corrections – if you prefer, you can send them to me at gayauerbach@hotmail.com.  With best wishes to all, Gay