14/28 Scrimshaw

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Being retired, I can now attend some lunchtime talks. Today was about scrimshaw and I took along a pair of whale teeth my father had been given by his foster father who was a friend of his mother. We don’t know the history of the teeth but they might have been handed down from my great great grandfather who was a whaler in the 1870’s and 1880’s.

14/16 Family history

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While my car was in for service, I walked down to the Maritime Museum. Read a thesis on whaling written in 1989 with lots of sources and an index of people. My great great grandfather was in the list. So I read about him and wrote down sources to find at the state archives. Had lunch while walking to the archives (uphill) then four hours checking microfilms. Found a log book written about a whaling voyage where my relative was commander of the ship. Allowed to take digital copy of all 80 pages of the log. Will read once I get more time.