Category Archives: American History

‘Business without change’

American History, NEHGS Collections, ,

Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
As it happened, Mrs. Gray[1] was too late to reach her brother’s deathbed:

Philadelphia, Sunday, 4 December 1864: One week to-day since our precious brother[2] died – died to earth with all its torturing pain, its long drawn weariness and waked to peace and rest – “the rest that remaineth to them that love the Lord” in Heaven.

He was seized with convulsions on Friday p.m. about 6 o’c. and they lasted with intervals of two or three breathings – and once of 2 hours, till about 3 p.m. on Sunday, when he sank, with a few sobbing breaths, ever fainter and fainter into the everlasting stillness … Continue reading ‘Business without change’ →

JSTOR.org

American History, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, Technology, ,

In days of yore, when I was in college, locating published articles on historical topics required hours sifting through library stacks and individual journal indexes, then laboriously photocopying each page of each article. Thankfully, in today’s digital world, we have JSTOR.org, with instant access to full indexes of every journal in their collection (not limited to historical titles) and the ability to download PDF files of the articles to our desktop and print at home. Continue reading JSTOR.org →

JFK’s birthplace

American History, Family Stories, News, , ,
Photo courtesy of Sharon Inglis

One hundred years ago today, on 29 May 1917, Rose Kennedy gave birth to the future president of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in a charming three-story Colonial on a lovely street in Brookline, Massachusetts. That same house was restored at the personal direction of Rose Kennedy, and today it evokes the happy memories of a busy young mother raising an ever-growing family. While unimaginable tragedies strike in the years to follow, life was good for the Kennedys of Beals Street in 1917. Continue reading JFK’s birthplace →

New Englanders in the South

American History, Genealogical Writing, , ,
Kimberlys of North Carolina

Earlier this month I went to the National Genealogical Society conference in Raleigh, North Carolina; it was my first time in the Tar Heel State. While I have many southern ancestors who started out in Virginia and Maryland before heading west, none of them – as far as I have found – lived in North Carolina or further south. However, through some of my New England ancestry in Connecticut, I have a brief connection to North Carolina in the late seventeenth century. While not necessarily the “normal” migration, there are several cases of New Englanders going south rather than west, many times settling there permanently. Continue reading New Englanders in the South →

A sense of place

American History, Family Stories,
William Dunn with his sisters Helen and Hope in the background, ca. 1922. Photos courtesy of Kathleen Kaldis

The town of  Lee, Massachusetts holds special meaning to my maternal side of the family. My grandmother, Hope Elizabeth Dunn, was the daughter of William Jordan Dunn and Helen Veronica Maloney. She was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1911, the oldest of three children. Her siblings, Helen and William Dunn, were also born in Bristol County, Massachusetts during the 1910s.

When their father died in 1918, Helen Veronica Dunn was left to raise three young children on her own. Continue reading A sense of place →

‘For a wolf to an Indian’

American History, Research Methods, ,

I have just received the last volume in Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs’ Plymouth Colony town records series – see my earlier post on the records of Sandwich and Eastham. The Town Records of Duxbury, Bridgewater, and Dartmouth during the Time of Plymouth Colony, 1620–1692, like Sandwich and Eastham, is published on-demand through Lulu.com. Jeremy also has two other volumes available through Lulu.com: the town records of Marshfield and Plymouth Colony Records. Deeds, &c. vol. II, 1651–1663. I have these latter two on order.

The arrangement of this new volume is identical to that of Sandwich and Eastham, with names indexed to the dates of records in the Records Calendar that includes abstracts from both town and colony sources. The Calendar, in turn, then refers to the page number of the original transcription in the Records Transcriptions section. Continue reading ‘For a wolf to an Indian’ →

Indians in the basement

American History, Family Stories, ,
Frank White Lee

My mother’s dad Frank White Lee (1908–1988) was a quiet man. He worked hard, and his silence was a mode we were taught to give all due consideration. Once, when my sisters and I were a bit too raucous, my grandfather told us that we needed to be quiet, or the “Indians in the basement” would hear us – and come after us for misbehaving. Because Grandpa rarely spoke, we weren’t sure what to believe. (P.S. – Grandpa did not mean to be politically incorrect – it was 1965.)

Grandpa was born in Wyoming, but said little about his family. His mother Dora Ono Wilcox (1880–1916) had died from complications in childbirth, and his father died when he was sixteen. Continue reading Indians in the basement →

Correcting an error

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Technology, , , ,

Recently, I’ve started visiting the cemeteries of my ancestors. Fortunately, most of my maternal ancestors stayed in the Boston area after immigrating, so it hasn’t been too difficult.

A few months ago, I visited St. Joseph’s Cemetery in West Roxbury in search of the headstone of my great-great-grandparents, John Henry and Anna K. (Ulrich) Hampe. After searching for some time, I finally came to the Hampe plot. Listed on the headstone are John and Anna, as well as their children Joseph M., Bernard J., Anna M., and B. Ernestine Hampe. Though I was happy to take a few pictures, I couldn’t help but feel a flicker of disappointment. With the exception of Joseph, the other Hampes buried at St. Joseph’s Cemetery only list their birth and death year, rather than the full dates of those events. Continue reading Correcting an error →

‘The last was wonderfully effective’

American History, NEHGS Collections, , ,

Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
The last months of 1864 marked the beginning of the end of the Civil War, as well as the final illness of Mrs. Gray’s[1] beloved brother John Shober. An effort at economy – by giving up a resident seamstress – left the diarist feeling uneasy as she prepared to go to her brother’s bedside in Philadelphia.

61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Sunday, 20 November 1864: …Friday evg. I took the children to the “Sailor’s Fair,” where they met a crowd of young friends, and had a good time, though they had but little money to spend. Their Aunt Sallie Gray[2] presented them with the entrance tickets, very kindly. The whole theatre was a glare of heat & light & blazing colour, very gorgeous, but very wearying; and after walking round with Morris [Gray][3] for 2 hours I was glad to come home, leaving the older boys to stay as long as they liked. I made but 2 purchases – one of Barnum’s Self-sewers for my machine – it seemed to me a very good thing; and some shells for Morris’s Christmas gift. Continue reading ‘The last was wonderfully effective’ →

A hint of personality

American History, Collections, Research Methods, Technology, , ,

Behind the scenes, the NEHGS web team is hard at work preparing the searchable version of our Roman Catholic Archdiocese records. As part of that process, our volunteers create spreadsheets that associate information with a specific image file. I proofread these spreadsheets as part of our quality control process.

I’ve recently encountered some confirmation records and was intrigued by their potential value to genealogists. Most confirmation records do not contain parents’ names – they usually just consist of a last name, first name, date, and maybe a sponsor. Continue reading A hint of personality →