Here is a table to help sort out where to look for your seventeenth-century ancestors in the publications associated with the Great Migration Study Project and the Early New England Families Study Project: Continue reading The Great Migration Study Project: a primer, Part Three
Category Archives: Family Stories
Organizing a family reunion: Part Six
William Boucher Jr. had children born over a period of forty years (1847–1887); his grandchildren were born between 1877 and 1925. Boucher’s great-grandchildren span more than a half century: the first was born in 1911 and the last, so far as I can tell, in 1965. I am a great-great-grandchild, born in the 1960s, and I think it quite likely that a few more of us will be born later in the 2010s. This generation will span something like seventy years.
Organizing a family reunion: Part Five
My maternal grandmother kept stationery boxes stuffed with letters and calling cards from the guests at my parents’ wedding in 1959. It’s interesting to see who was invited, since my mother’s wedding album only hints at who was there. Among the RSVPs is one from my father’s step-grandmother, who said she was coming from Florida: there is no hint of her in the album, but perhaps she was at the wedding. (I only met her once, unfortunately, although she died as recently as 2000.) Continue reading Organizing a family reunion: Part Five
Further thoughts on preparing your genealogical project for publication
In a recent blog post on preparing a project for publication, Scott Steward targeted that essential shift in thinking that must occur as you translate your research project into a writing project. And he pointed out how important it is to write a table of contents . . . and a title.
After talking at length with attendees at our Writing and Publishing Seminar about their projects, I realized that TOCs and titles figured large in those conversations. So here are three more thoughts on the topic: Continue reading Further thoughts on preparing your genealogical project for publication
Traditional research techniques – and new ones
Robert Frost’s famous poem, The Road Not Taken, begins with his contemplation of “two roads diverg[ing] in a yellow wood,” and his indecision about whether to follow one path or the other. In the end, the author chooses what he deems “the path less traveled by.” Yet one must wonder whether another option was available? What about a possible third (or fourth or fifth) road? What about roads that have yet to be created? Sometimes, when conducting genealogical research, one must be aware of the possibility of other roads, as the mechanisms for knowing whether they exist may not yet have been developed. Occasionally, then, one must be willing to get off the known path to explore other, hidden roads. Continue reading Traditional research techniques – and new ones
An enhanced Early New England Families inventory
Readers have asked for a more detailed inventory of the Early New England Families Study Project sketches. The following list includes all sketches that have been uploaded to the website: Continue reading An enhanced Early New England Families inventory
The Eliot Snider Papers
The AJHS–NEA archives are filled with stories of individuals and families who have affected the Jewish communities of Greater Boston and New England. Eliot Snider is the focus of one such collection.
Four years before Eliot was born, his father – Harry, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania – founded the Massachusetts Lime and Cement Company, later re-named Massachusetts Lumber, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Continue reading The Eliot Snider Papers
Organizing a family reunion: Part Four
Patrilineage
One of my sisters recently asked me if we might be related to a friend of hers named Boucher, and I explained that we almost certainly were not, as the surname died out with our great-great-aunt Florence Estella Boucher (1879–1972). Our great-great-grandfather Boucher had eleven sons, only three of whom married. The youngest, Emile Gabriel Boucher (1886–1950), had no children, while the son of Louis Albert Boucher (1871–1914?) changed his first name and adopted his stepfather’s surname; only Francis Xavier Boucher (1854–1927) had Boucher sons, Milton and Edward, and only Milton married. I am unaware of any descendants of either brother. Continue reading Organizing a family reunion: Part Four
Trust in a reputable firm
I own some shares in mutual funds and have a basic understanding of the stock market, but I am in no way, shape, or form the person you want to talk to about investing your money. When I am trying to figure out how to invest my money, I face the same kind of information overload that a beginning genealogist faces. In both industries there are cautionary tales about not trusting everything that one reads. So who does one trust?
One piece of universal advice is to trust “reputable firms.” In the case of investments, that might be called an oxymoron, but in genealogy we soon pick up on names of researchers and authors who have good reputations. As human beings, none are perfect, but because of their “best practices” some have gained our trust. Continue reading Trust in a reputable firm
Early Charlestown companies
The “Great Migration” of as many as 20,000 people to New England during the 1630s was, in its long-term effects, the most important event in English seventeenth-century history. It has been depicted as a farther-reaching extension of an already mobile English population, though I have argued elsewhere that many emigrants to New England came from long-settled backgrounds. What distinguished the Great Migration was its family nature, as compared to the settling of the Chesapeake or the Caribbean, where individual young men predominated. Moreover, many arrivals in Salem, Charlestown, or Boston were members of “companies” – interrelated clans, or followers of gentlemen or ministers. Continue reading Early Charlestown companies