Steve Bunker’s presentation at the Maine reunion dinner was so very interesting. Steve and Sharon run the China Sea Trading Co. shop in Portland, Maine (http://www.chinaseatrading.com) and have some very interesting things in it.

Some are made by Steve. He collects all kinds of “stuff” and looks for more all the time. If you are interested in Maine stuff, coastal or maritime stuff, Bette Richards recommends contacting Steve and Sharon. Steve will look for things that you are especially interested in and maybe he can even find some Bunker stuff. Steve is from the Cranberry Island Bunkers, descendants of James Bunker of Dover, New Hampshire.  The e-mail address is:  chinasea@chinaseatrading.com

The picture below is St. Nicholas Church at Tingrith, Bedfordshire, England. The date on the church is the year 1300, and it was was remodeled in the 1500s.

This photo, taken in 1983, will be the cover art for Bette Richards’ Bedford Bunkers CD, currently in process. The Bunker Family Association hopes to have this CD ready before Christmas 2008.

Doug Detling, BFA website coordinator, has posted photographs from the Bunker Family Association’s 95th reunion, held June 11-14 in Portland, Maine.

The Bunker Family Association’s shared photo gallery has been moved to a new web address due to a change in ownership of the previous site. The new address for the photo gallery is:

https://douglasdetling.smugmug.com/BFA.

Although in the future visitors may not be required to enter a password or register, for the time being visitors will need this password to enter the BFA’s photo gallery: CND_BunkY!

Nathaniel Winslow, husband of Elizabeth Williams (daughter of Sobriety Bunker), was age 74 in the 1850 Census, listed as living in household of son Stephen Winslow, along with wife “Betsey” at age 63. Nathaniel died in 1852, and was buried on a small hill in Letter E township (originally called Letter E Plantation), Franklin County, Maine.

Dan Earl, who visited the gravesite in 2005, provided this photograph and exact location: Nathaniel’s grave is located Twp. Letter E, near Madrid, Franklin County, Maine. Access is via a private paper company dirt road 6.6 miles off Route 4 (south of Smalls Falls), then down an old brush grown dirt road about 100 yards, thence 20 yards to the north.

Last Friday (June 13, 2008) Manuela and Doug Detling traveled to Farmington, Maine, and met up with Pete and Priscilla Ross, who graciously drove us up into Letter E and shared Franklin County history with us.  We were able to verify the coordinates of the gravesite, which is much overgrown just in the last few years. The timber company that owns the land has marked off the “cemetery” with pink and blue tree ribbons to prevent cutting in this small area.

GPS coordinates are as follows: 44° 50′18.54″ N, 70° 31′ 51.97″ W. The area is approximately 1675 feet above sea level.

There are two other graves, Nathaniel’s grandson Stephen F. Winslow and Joel W. Bryant.  Priscilla Ross says she has been unable to find any link between the Bryant family and the Winslows.

The Bunker Family Association’s shared photo gallery has been moved to a new web address due to a change in ownership of the previous site. The new address for the photo gallery is:

https://douglasdetling.smugmug.com/BFA.

Although in the future visitors may not be required to enter a password or register, for the time being visitors will need this password to enter the BFA’s photo gallery: CND_BunkY!

At the Bunker Family Association’s business meeting Saturday (June 14), the group tentatively settled on sites for upcoming reunions.

The 2009 reunion will be held in Omaha, Nebraska in late June 2009.

San Diego was the site tentatively chosen for 2010, followed by Philadelphia for 2011.

2012 site remains unidentified, but the group will return for its 100th anniversary to the Durham, New Hampshire area (there was substantial sentiment to use Portland, Maine–the site of this year’s reunion–for the 2013 site as it is only a 45-minute drive to Durham, New Hampshire).

More details to come.

The online photo management site used by Bunker Family Association web master Doug Detling has changed policies and once again is allowing access to photo albums through the following: http://albums.phanfare.com/greencity. The change restores a feature of Phanfare that was changed when version 2.0 was released.

We have posted a few photographs from previous Bunker Family reunions, and look forward to showing several after the BFA Reunion in June in Portland, Maine.

Recently, many states have helped in the cause of genealogical research by making their vital records available online.  Our website coordinator, Doug Detling, received an e-mail earlier today about an effort to have Pennsylvania records more accessible. Doug who has trolled the Pennsylvania records in search of Samuel and Sobriety Bunker Williams descendants. Making these records available on-line would be great:

Here is the link to the website about the grassroots effort to get older Pennsylvania state death certificates available online like they have started to do in other states: http://users.rcn.com/timarg/PaHR-Access.htm . I hope you will join in on this effort and if you would pass this information onto anyone you know who is into Pennsylvania genealogy and history including out of state residents. I’m sure you can appreciate just how helpful such a database would be in doing research.

Tim Gruber

This site is organized as a web log, and uses the xMark theme designed by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. The web log is powered by WordPress version 2.7.1. Anyone can read any page of the site, and may (after registering) comment. We reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments if detected as spam, or ones that are insulting, demeaning or otherwise inappropriate to a family history oriented web site. If you have suggestions or questions, feel free to send an e-mail to: webmaster@bunkerfamilyassn.org.

The BFA site is hosted by 1 & 1 Internet, and we are an authorized affiliate.

Please use the link above to get an updated BFA e-mail directory for July 2009.

As you know, we had posted photographs of the BFA reunion in Olympia, Washington, and plan to do the same for the Portland, Maine reunion in June. The hosting company has recently undertaken a major upgrading of its hosting services, and one change is necessary for individuals to view any of the
photo albums I’ve shared.

From now on, it will be necessary to log-in to the site. You can sign up for the BFA group (which will give you access to all related photo albums) by creating a user account at:

http://www.phanfare.com/group/1383530

Creating a log-in and password using the link above will give you access to all BFA photo albums created to date, plus any in the future.

Alternatively, for those who might like to see any of my photo albums, you will need to send me an individual e-mail (to doug.detling@gmail.com) and I will invite you to the “friends” category rather than the more narrowly defined BFA group. You will have to confirm your participation to have access to these.