When researching a family, one can quickly become focused on names, birthdates, and death dates. It is easy to get caught up on going as far back as possible until reaching the metaphorical brick wall, and being left with a “well, what do I do now?” mentality. Seventeenth-century immigrants can be incredibly difficult to trace and track, but learning about them in public records can help add meaning and information about their lives. Continue reading Middlesex County court records
[Editor’s note: Alicia’s series begins here.]
The inventory
Two important dates to remember to note are the date an inventory was taken and the date it was filed with the court. There are many instances where these dates can give clues to the date of death or reveal irregularities such as delayed proceedings. On the top of the first page of John Dickson’s inventory is the date 27 June 1737, which looks like it is the date the inventory was taken, but on the back of the second page is the date 30 March 1737, which is more likely when the inventory was initially made. Because of the delay caused by the contested will it was not filed until June. The inventory may also have been updated before being made official, as there are noticeable corrections made in a darker ink, including the date. Continue reading Probate records: Part Four
I’ve already written about Mrs. Gray’s dismay at her friend Mary Coolidge’s engagement to Mr. Reed.[1] The Grays and the Coolidges were close – Mrs. Gray writes on 23 January 1860 of having had “a few minutes racy chat with Mary C.”; in fact, as was usually the case in the Gray diary, Mary Coolidge was also a Gray family connection (as the younger sister of Mrs. Gray’s stepmother’s brother’s sister-in-law).
Boston, 16 April 1860: “An unusually full meeting of the ‘circle’[2] at Mary Coolidge’s, and a very entertaining one too. She was full of spirits and kept us on the broad laugh with her droll way of telling things.” Continue reading “An elderly groom”
In lineage societies, the frequently-used term ‘gateway ancestor’ refers to an ancestor who has a known lineage which can be traced back to a person of prominence. Proven lines to gateway ancestors can result in descendants being accepted into many hereditary societies. In the following piece, I will be using my own ancestor, Robert Abell, as an example. Born about 1605 in Stapenhill, Derbyshire, Abell came to Massachusetts in 1630.[1] Through Robert Abell, I was able to trace my ancestry back to individuals such as Eystein Glumra (born c. 805), Amadeus of Oscheret (born c. 790), and Fulcois, Count of Perche, a tenth-century French nobleman.
I began my research by first confirming my connection to Robert Abell through my great-great-grandmother, Jennie Luther, daughter of Edwin Sanford and Jennie H. (Connolly) Luther. Using works including The Luther Family in America and The Luther Genealogy, as well as vital records, probate records, and other widely available resources, I was able to confirm the following ancestry of Jennie Luther:[2] Continue reading Finding royal roots
I have been reviewing Baltimore city directories with a view to better understanding the movements of the William Boucher Jr. household during the nineteenth century. In 1860, the year of the Federal Census, my great-great-grandfather Wm. Boucher Jr., musical inst[rument] maker,[1] appears in Woods’ Baltimore City Directory with a shop at 38 East Baltimore Street and a residence at 77 Cathedral Street.[2] The Census gives a little more information on the Boucher household in that year: William Bucha [sic], 37, music dealer and native of Baden [one of the German States], was living in the Fourth Ward of Baltimore with his wife Mary A., 29, and their children Sophia, 11, Frank, 6, and Victoria [sic], 8 months.[3] William and Mary Boucher would have nine children in all, and these three were the longest-lived: Elizabeth Sophia Boucher (1849–1876), Francis Xavier Boucher (1853–1927), and Victor Emile Boucher (1860–1878). Continue reading Mining Baltimore city directories
In my previous blog post, I wrote about my Irish great-grandparents raising their children in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Yet as I began sorting through my genealogical research in preparation for NEHGS’ upcoming Irish Family History Day on March 6, I began to think more about their decision to leave Ireland in the first place.
My Nana’s parents, Julia and Edward Deane, left their home in the village of Geesala in County Mayo for America in 1909, when they were 28 and 31 years old. Julia would often recall her difficult journey across the Atlantic, plagued by terrible sea-sickness, travelling on the Titanic as she used to say. “Mama, it was the Teutonic! The Titanic sank!” my Nana used to correct her. Continue reading Family traditions
[Editor’s Note: Alicia’s series began here and continues here.]
Contested will
It is not often that a will is contested, but in the case of John Dickson, we have a nice, brief example.
John died on 22 March 1736/37, and by 4 April 1737 a formal petition had been submitted to the judge of the probate court by Samuel Carter, John Green, and Joseph Holden claiming that “their Father in Law Mr John Dickson late of Cambridge Decd Died Seised of an Estate Worth About four Thousand Pounds and his three sones namely John, William & Edward have Presented to your honr an Instrument in Writing Call[ed] their Father John Dickson[‘s] Last Will & Testament for Proof.… Continue reading Probate records: Part Three
Long before I loved genealogy, I fell head-over-heels for oral history. My great-grandfather, Everett Eames, died in 2005. By that time, I was nineteen, and had been regaled with stories of his years in the logging camps of northern New Hampshire and Maine for over a decade. Everett had a long, colorful life. After working in the lumber camps, he opened Eames Garage in Errol, New Hampshire, before working in the shipyards of Bath, Maine, during World War II. Continue reading An untapped genealogical resource
Have you ever played the game telephone? If you don’t know the game, it is when one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. If you have, then I am sure you discovered that it is almost impossible to keep the story intact from beginning to end. The game is an interesting teaching tool, as it shows children (and adults) how easily and unreliably gossip can spread.
As a historian and genealogist, I often reminisce about the telephone game, because it was my first encounter with record assessment. Even as a young child, it was clear to me that the closer one was to the original source, the more reliable the information. And, as I grew up and began working with historical documents, this lesson continued. Continue reading A game of telephone
A recent Google search brought me to a page of links to various Baltimore city directories, and I thought it might be useful to make some notes sorting out my Baltimore great-great-grandfather William Boucher Jr. (1822–1899) and his father, E. W. Boucher. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my mother’s stories on the Bouchers tended to dwell on their descent from the court painter François (1703–1770), but in fact the Baltimore Bouchers were musicians before they were painters, and the mid-nineteenth-century father and son were businessmen as much as they were artists.[1]
In 1845, Wm. Boucher’s music store is found at two addresses on Holliday Street, but it appears (from the directory’s “Removals, Alterations, Additions” page) that the reference is to one man, first at 11 and then at 4 Holliday Street. Continue reading “On the most reasonable terms”