Games (and Songs) Your Ancestors Played

William Wells Newell was the founder of the American Folklore Society. He is best remembered for his 1883 book, Games and Songs of American Children, which catalogues 160 games and rhymes enjoyed in the United States and abroad. Some of the games are familiar to us: “London Bridge is Falling Down,” Virginia Reel,” “London Bridge is Falling Down,” and so on. The majority, like “Bachelor’s Kitchen,” “How Many Miles to Babylon,” “Stealing Grapes,” have faded from memory. In each case, Mr. Newell explains how the game is played (or song is sung), it’s origin and variations, and how widely it is or was enjoyed.

For the genealogist, the pleasure of Games and Songs of American Children is imagining one’s nineteenth- or early twentieth-century ancestors as youths taking part in one or more of these activities. Certainly, one or more of the games or game-songs would have been familiar to them. Following are discussions of two of those games, “When I Was a Shoemaker,” and “Here We Come Gathering Nuts of May.”