It has been more than two centuries since my Bennetts left Gloucester, Mass., where they’d been for some 150 years.

The houses I see from a particular view of the sand dunes in Gloucester weren’t there then, but this postcard fascinates me nonetheless. Another postcard shows the Fishermen’s Memorial, and a third the Half Moon Beach.

I found these postcards online on Joy Fisher’s USGenWeb Archives site on Penny Postcards at www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/special/ppcs/ppcs.html, forwarded to me by Mike Gleason of Bangor.

The first thing I would say about using this Web site is: Know your counties.

I knew that Gloucester was in Essex County, and Minneapolis is in Hennepin County, but what’s the county for Sauk Centre? I looked it up in my Funk & Wagnalls World Atlas – an atlas being vital to genealogical research – and found it in Stearns County. From there I moved on to a nice old postcard view of Sinclair Lewis Avenue in Sauk Centre, the Minnesota town where one of my Maine sons got married.

Where else did I “travel” on this Web site?

I looked at a charming early 20th century view of the New York town of Cairo (Greene County), where my great-great-great-grandmother, Mary (Payne) Bray Jenks was born in 1832; and a postcard of the Soldiers Monument in the Rhode Island city of Pawtucket (Providence County), where she was the first woman’s police matron in the late 19th century.

My hope is that this site will grow over time. In the Maine section, I didn’t find much that was new to me.

For old photographs of Maine online, I recommend the Maine Historical Society’s Maine Memory Network at www.mainememory.net.

St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church will hold its first Celtic Festival March 16-18 at the church on the corner of North Main and Holyoke streets in Brewer.

An Irish supper of corned beef and cabbage will be held at 5:30 p.m. Friday, March 16. Tickets are $7.50. Afterward, there will be a performance by the Anah Shrine Highlanders. Concert admission is $10. Tickets are available at the church or at the Anah Shrine office, 586 Main St., Bangor, by cash or check only, and pre-purchase is highly recommended.

“A Walk with Celtic Spirituality,” a “quiet day,” will be held 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, March 17. Bring your own lunch; tea and coffee will be available. Preregister by calling the church at 989-1308.

A Celtic Eucharist, with sermon from St. Patrick, will be held at 10 a.m. Sunday, March 18.

The next meeting of the Wassebec Genealogy Society will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 8, at the Mayo Regional Hospital Conference Center, Dover-Foxcroft. After the business meeting, guest speaker Dick Brown of Dover-Foxcroft will talk about his ongoing Irish ancestor search.

Brown will be joined by his brother Charles of Massachusetts and they will discuss their research of pilot Dale Beasley.

The Browns’ father was a member of the 446th Bombardment Group when his plane was shot down in March 1945 during the Battle for the Bridge at Remagen, Germany. Because of the sacrifice and skill of pilot Beasley, three members of the crew survived.

Charles Brown has been in contact with the Beasley family. A footlocker, which has remained unopened for the past 60 years, was opened and the contents will be revealed to those who attend the meeting on March 8. The remarkable story of courage by the pilot and his crew will be told.

For more information or directions to the meeting, call Estella Bennett at 876-3073.

3393. HERRICK-HANNAN-ROBINSON-NASON. I corresponded with Everett H. Nason of Orono, a Herrick descendant, in the early 1980s. He died in 1996 at age 93 in Brunswick. He had been a teacher in Windham, Oakland, Brunswick, University of Maine and other places. He said he had a letter or letters from Melinda (Herrick) Hannan to her sister, his ancestor, Olive Jane (Herrick) Robinson. Melinda is our ancestor, whose husband, Martin V.B. Hannan, hung a scythe in a tree in Montville when he went to fight in the Civil War. The scythe was never retrieved, and the tree grew around it. These many years later, the tree is in bad condition, with all parts of the scythe either in the tree or gone. I would like to find out where Everett Nason’s vast research is, and if it would be possible to obtain copies of the letters from Melinda to Olive Jane. God bless. Isabel Morse Maresh, 169 Howard Road, Belmont, ME 04952; mareshme@fairpoint.net

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor, ME 04402; or familyti@

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