Nathaniel Bacon (c. 1621–c. 1673) married Hannah Mayo, dau. of Rev. John Mayo; settled in Barnstable, tanner, 8 children.
Joshua Holgrave (c. 1615–c. 1643), son of John and Elizabeth (––) Holgrave (covered in the Great Migration series, or GM), married Jane Conant (see below), to New England about age 18 with parents and younger siblings; settled in Salem, 2 children. Continue reading Early New England Families Study Project update→
To poke one’s head inside the Conservation Lab here at NEHGS is to observe a beehive of activity. This is where our Conservation Technician Deborah Rossi, part-time interns, and volunteers repair and treat books and manuscripts from the NEHGS collections. Last year, they repaired and treated over 250 volumes, documents, and other works on paper. A wide range of items (and condition issues) make their way to the lab, and we’d like to share a recent example with you. Continue reading Behind the scenes in the Conservation Lab→
Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, entries for 5-7 February 1864. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections
One of the mysteries of the Regina Shober Gray diary is why it came to be part of the NEHGS collection. It is an account of daily (or weekly) life, written between January 1860 and December 1884, and for many of the volumes Mrs. Gray is observant about the relationships of her friends and acquaintances, but far less interested, evidently, in the genealogy of the Shober, Gray, and Clay families.
On this Memorial Day Weekend every city, town, and village in America will have its commemoration. At NEHGS and AmericanAncestors.org, we are continually inspired by the annual Memorial Day installation that takes place on the nearby Boston Common, just blocks from our headquarters in Back Bay.
On a slope of the Soldiers & Sailors Monument, more than 37,000 flags are waving in a garden of red, white, and blue in tribute to the active duty military casualties from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts recorded since the start of the Revolutionary War. It’s a dramatic reminder that here in the U.S. we’re privileged to be living in “the home of the free – because of the brave.”
Whether in Massachusetts or throughout the nation, undoubtedly there’s someone on your family tree who will be remembered in gratitude on this Memorial Day. Continue reading A garden of red, white, and blue→
A century ago today, on 7 May 1915, the Cunard liner R.M.S. Lusitania was reaching the end of her latest transatlantic voyage. The Lusitania left New York on 1 May with 1,266 passengers and 696 crew on board, bound for Liverpool in England. While steaming eleven miles off the Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland, the vessel crossed the path of German U-boat U-20. The launch of a single torpedo into the hull of the Lusitania claimed the lives of 1,198 passengers and crew, leaving 761 survivors of an incident that lasted only eighteen minutes. Even though American lives were lost, it would be nearly two years before America entered the First World War in April 1917. Continue reading The centennial of the loss of the Lusitania→
Marietta Gazzaniga (1824-1884), perhaps dressed as Sappho. Published by E. Anthony, 501 Broadway, New York, from [a] photographic negative, from [Mathew] Brady’s National Portrait Gallery.Mrs. Gray and her family frequently attended the theater and the opera. When they did so, it was often in concentrated doses, presumably as the singers and actors performed their repertory for just a few days before departing to appear elsewhere.
Boston hosted most of the celebrated performers of the day, and Mrs. Gray saw many of them – and recorded her views, whether laudatory or critical. Within days of commencing her diary, in January 1860, she went to hear Frances Anne Kemble[1] declaim Much Ado About Nothing[2] and “felt the better for laughing heartily over her admirable rendering.”[3]
Saturday, 14 January 1860: Went on Tuesday to the Opera: Saffo.[4] [Marietta] Gazzaniga[5] was magnifique in it – [she] does act splendidly, and her deep tones expressing deep emotion are unsurpassed – some exquise music in it, too. Continue reading Mrs. Gray at the theater→
Bible record for the Ebenezer Berry family, 1835-1936. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, NEHGS.
Yesterday I wrote about substitute records that can be used to locate elusive modern vital records. These alternative records can be especially beneficial when an index to the civil vital records is unavailable. Using these alternatives, you can then contact the appropriate authority to provide a copy of the original vital record.
However, what do you do when a vital record simply does not exist? It’s a common problem, especially when documenting older generations, as each state legislated its own vital record compliance. Luckily you can consult several vital record alternatives that can be used to prove birth, marriage, or death. (Most will be accepted as proof by a lineage society.) Here are a few examples: Continue reading 8 More Vital Record Alternatives→
Both sides of a prayer card for Delia B. Carey, 13 January 1965.
A great way to begin tracing your family history is to interview living relatives, asking for relevant birth, marriage, and death information. These interviews sometimes yield specific information (or at least an estimate), and you can then contact the appropriate authority to provide a copy of the original vital record.
But what do we do if grandma’s information fails to lead us to a vital record? Surprisingly, this is more common than you’d think, as people often misremember facts or were told the wrong information from the get-go. In this case, grandma may lead us on a wild goose chase trying to track down the correct location and/or date of a vital record. This may be especially annoying if the record is more recent, as statewide indexes for modern vital records are less common. To locate these modern vital records (civil records), we must first look for an alternative record to point us in the right direction. Here are some examples: Continue reading 7 Vital Record Alternatives→
Frederick Wingdorf’s record in the Index to Revolutionary War Service Records.
Patriots’ Day—the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord—is fast approaching here in Massachusetts. This particular holiday makes many of us a little reflective. Was my ancestor involved in the American Revolution? If you have ever been curious about that, here are some great resources to jump-start your research.
One of the best places to start looking is Virgil D. White’s Index to Revolutionary War Service Records. Available in the NEHGS research library, this particular series is a transcription of the General Index to Compiled Military Service Records of Revolutionary War Soldiers, Sailors, and Members of Army Staff Departments, also known as M860, housed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. White’s transcription lists the rank, regiment, or company of each soldier, and is a fantastic resource because it includes every state of service. Consider yourself lucky if your ancestor had a rare name, such as Frederick Wingdorf. Frederick was a drummer in the 3rd Massachusetts Regiment, and—not surprisingly—was the only Frederick Wingdorf in the index. If you are not so lucky and your ancestors had very common names like Samuel Jones or William Moore or, worse, John Smith, you might need to consult secondary sources to help whittle down the long list of candidates. Continue reading Finding Revolutionary War Ancestors→
U.S. Army troops in Germany, 1945. Photograph by Herbert Gorfinkle. From the Papers of Herbert Gorfinkle, P-904 at the American Jewish Historical Society-New England Archives.
April 11, 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp. In commemoration of this day, the American Jewish Historical Society–New England Archives (AJHS–NEA) is honoring the memory of two men who were present at Buchenwald for the liberation, and whose papers are in our archives.[1]
As an archive with a very specific mission (to collect and preserve the records of the Jewish communities of Greater Boston and New England), AJHS–NEA has many collections that are connected by family relationships. Continue reading Crossing Paths: Two Stories of Buchenwald→
Five new sketches have been posted in the Early New England Families Study Project database:
