All posts by Zachary Garceau

About Zachary Garceau

Zachary Garceau joined the Research and Library Services team in 2014 after receiving a master’s degree in Historical Studies with a concentration in Public History from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and a B.A. in History from the University of Rhode Island. Zack also works for the Rhode Island Department of Health as the Chief of the Office of Health Regulation. Areas of expertise: Rhode Island, French-Canadian Genealogy and Sports History. He also enjoys working on heraldic and royal research.

“Speak, memory”: Part One

Family Stories, Research Methods
Fry 1963
Courtesy of Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

“Imagine listening to an elderly relative tell of her journey to America as an immigrant, her arrival at Ellis Island, and her first job in a clothing factory. Or imagine another family member describing how he worked on the family farm, learned to read in a one-room school house, and courted his wife at church socials. Such are the opportunities available to the family historian who draws upon the method of oral history.” So begins Linda Shopes’s poignant essay “Using Oral History for a Family History Project.” As Shopes movingly points out, oral histories are among the most useful and satisfying methods of compiling family histories. Continue reading “Speak, memory”: Part One →

Tracing ancestral paths: Part Two

Research Methods, ,
Garceau 4_2
My map of ancestral homes and work places in Westerly, Rhode Island

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, knowing where an ancestor was living within a town at a certain time can be extremely beneficial for a number of reasons. After listing all of the known locations of my ancestors in my hometown of Westerly, Rhode Island, I was able to plot all of these points on a map and see where they had lived and worked. One of the benefits of this knowledge is that, with modern technology, we can see the locations of many of our ancestors’ homes as they stand today. In many cases, the same houses they once occupied may still remain. Websites such as Google Maps, which offer virtual tours of locations around the globe, have greatly expanded the experience of discovering one’s family history. Continue reading Tracing ancestral paths: Part Two →

Tracing ancestral paths: Part One

Family Stories, Research Methods, ,
Garceau 1_2
Page from the 1910 Lowell city directory

Whether it is collecting, reading, drawing, or painting, maps have always been one of my greatest passions. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I consider maps an essential tool in my genealogical research. As a researcher, even if I know that some of my ancestors spent their entire lives in the same city or town, I can never assume that they always lived in the same exact location. There are a multitude of sources where an individual’s address at any given point can be found, including: Continue reading Tracing ancestral paths: Part One →

Double-dating

News, Research Methods, , ,
Charles I death warrant
The Death Warrant of King Charles I, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/rise_parliament/docs/charles_warrant.htm

Millions of British citizens and their colonial counterparts across the Atlantic Ocean went to sleep on 2 September 1752 and woke up on 14 September. This shift in dates was due to an Act of Parliament passed in 1750, known as Chesterfield’s Act, which put into motion a series of changes that fundamentally altered the way that many measured time. Continue reading Double-dating →

Solving a “mystery of baseball”

Family Stories, Research Methods, , , ,
Moses Walker
Moses Fleetwood Walker. Courtesy of bleacherreport.com

Ask any baseball fan who the first African-American major league player was, and nearly all will tell you it was Jackie Robinson. Ask anyone familiar with the game’s long and storied history before Robinson’s debut in 1947, and they’ll tell you it was Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Weldy, who broke into the game in 1884.[1] Very few, if any, would tell you that it was a man named William Edward White who became the first African-American to play in a major league baseball game in 1879. Had it not been for a few keen researchers, William Edward White’s name would have been lost to baseball history, perhaps forever. Continue reading Solving a “mystery of baseball” →

Red Feather Farm

Family Stories, Research Methods
Red Feather Farm
Red Feather Farm, Little Compton. Courtesy of The Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission

Yesterday, I wrote about the mystery suggested by two distinct gravestones for one person: Sally (Almy) Briggs of Little Compton, Rhode Island. My research story continues:

While searching an anthology entitled Little Compton Families, a tome which chronicled the family history of many of the town’s most well-established clans, I found one fact which had not been mentioned in any previously examined sources. According to this source, Sally Almy’s gravestone “is at the F.W.C. Almy Place.”[7] Continue reading Red Feather Farm →

A tale of two gravestones

Family Stories, Research Methods, ,

Zachary Garceau gravestone 1This Thanksgiving, I spent the holiday at the home of my girlfriend’s family in Little Compton, Rhode Island. It’s a beautiful home that dates back to the eighteenth century.  Among the many historical elements of the place that fascinated me, there was one which left me curious. In the backyard, leaning up against a stone wall, is a well preserved gravestone which reads:

In/Memory/of/SALLY/Wife of/Jeremiah Briggs, Esq./Who died/Feb.y 27th 1809,/In the 23d year of/Her age.[1] Continue reading A tale of two gravestones →

Historic occupations

News, Research Methods, , ,

Cordwainer imageWhile writing my blog focusing on archaic medical terms a few months ago, I began thinking about other aspects of everyday life that appeared in records used by genealogists. One element of an individual’s life which appeared on everything from wills to land deeds to town records was occupation. While some of the occupations listed on records throughout the last four hundred years still exist today (farmers, blacksmiths, and wood workers, to name a few), many of these jobs either are known by a different name or are entirely obsolete in modern society. Continue reading Historic occupations →

A legacy of witchcraft

Family Stories,
John Hathorne
Engraving by S. S. Kilburn. From The Poetical Works of Longfellow (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1902).

The legacy of Salem-born author Nathaniel Hawthorne is that of a great American writer, one whose tales of New England life and Puritanism were a focal point of the Romantic literary movement. His 1835 short story “Young Goodman Brown” became one of his most well-known works. Inspiration for this work was derived from a family history that haunted Hawthorne throughout his life and resulted in a number of literary classics that dismiss or re-evaluate this legacy. Continue reading A legacy of witchcraft →

“Saloon Man Routs Amateur Gunmen”

Family Stories, Research Methods, ,
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle 4 August 1920
Click on images to expand them.

Some family stories are so fascinating and memorable that they are passed down through multiple generations, becoming a well-known piece of lore; others, while equally interesting, get lost in the shuffle. The latter truism might explain the story of Christopher Taylor.

My role in this story began when my girlfriend asked me to help her work on her genealogy. As is often the case, the first several generations proved easy to determine through personal knowledge and well-kept documentation. However, upon reaching her great-great-grandfather, a man by the name of Christopher Taylor, some creativity was required.

Knowing that his children were born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, while he himself was born in Ireland, we were able to locate census records which provided us with some key information. Continue reading “Saloon Man Routs Amateur Gunmen” →