Letters to an Emigrant

I have at last finished the transcriptions of the letters written to Joseph H Cree who migrated from England to America with his family in 1844. I have been planning to publish these letters for about 18 years(!) ever since I discovered transcripts of some of them in Derbyshire Archives Office here in England.

The letters were written from 1844 to 1870, the early ones mainly by family members back in England. Through them we can learn about the conditions in England which led Joe and Martha to leave Derbyshire and seek a better life in the "land of milk and honey." We also learn much of what happened to them as they settled in New York State and the children grew up and moved "out west" to Iowa.

The transcripts in Derbshire Archives were made by Ellen Lawson. She put me in touch with more of Joseph's descendants in the USA, Ellen's mother, the late Ruth Langeheim, who sent me facsimile copies of the letters, and Ellen's cousin Ed Leavitt who had given me much support and encouragement in publishing the letters.

Now here they are at last. Click on Letters to an Emigrant to start and then keep clicking the Continue links. I hope you enjoy reading them.

Thank you for all the emails you have sent over the last few months. Using the details you have sent, I have made a number of additions and changes to the Cree Genealogy Database. If you have provided information about Cree genealogy in the last few weeks, these should now show in the Database Section of the web site.

Please note that details about living individuals are not included on the online version of the Database. Also bear in mind that only those bearing the name Cree and their immediate families are included. As this is a one-name study it's rather different from a conventional family history site and we have to draw the line somewhere.

Best Wishes,

Mike Spathaky