In my post earlier this year, regarding preliminary research into the future Duchess of Sussex’s matrilineal ancestry, I indicated that I had ordered several additional twentieth-century records that might lead to corrections or additions. Fortunately, none of the new records seriously affect the lineage I presented, but obtaining one record was not so straightforward. Continue reading Challenging modern records
[Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series of interviews with David Allen Lambert.]
Question: You joined NEHGS in 1993 and currently are its Chief Genealogist. What roles have you held in your 25-year tenure?
Answer: When I first joined NEHGS in 1993 I had been a member for seven years. My first job was in Enquiries Services, which is now known as Research Services. When the circulating library had an opening on the fourth floor, I began working with our members who requested books to be sent to them as a loan. It was like Amazon.com for genealogists – pulling orders and shipping. The circulating library gave me a strong understanding of our collections. Continue reading A genealogist’s development
Kate had questions. Her father’s family history, with its many connections to the Stone family of Hollywood, had been shrouded in mystery for years. She explained that it had been covered up through old family rifts, and, as happens to many of us, become surrounded by proverbial brick walls.
I didn’t know Kate all that well, but as she spoke about her father and grandparents, and the few things that she could recall, I could see her family history start to take shape – in part, out of what she only thought she couldn’t remember. I sensed that for Kate, as for many of us, all those secrets, all of that family history, lay just beneath the surface. Continue reading Kate’s questions
The 31 October edition of NEGHS’s Weekly Genealogist ran a quiz asking readers whether they had any ancestors who participated in organized sports as adults. It reminded me that this past Thanksgiving marks one hundred and twenty years since my great-grandfather first played in “The Big Game” between the University of California (Berkeley was its only campus at the time) and Stanford – this year’s game will be played tomorrow.
Fred Athearn played a variety of sports at Pomona College, and when he transferred to the University of California he was urged by both students and faculty to be part of their football team. Cal had never beaten Stanford, but they’d just hired a new coach from “Back East,” and hoped that this – plus new blood among the players – would yield better results. The stakes of this rivalry were now higher than ever, since U.S. Senator James D. Phalen had just offered to place a statue on the campus of whichever university won two successive games. Until that happened, the statue would remain on display in Golden Gate Park. Continue reading “Grandfather Mustache”
Not long ago, when two names popped up on my Churchill family tree, they had the ring of familiarity. I probed my memory as to where I might have encountered them but just couldn’t place them until I noticed that this husband and wife are buried in Hingham’s High Street Cemetery. Then, it all came back to me in one of those Really? moments that makes one wonder how often, because the timing isn’t right, we cross paths with something relevant to our lives but pass it by unknowingly and obliviously. Continue reading Deep roots
Every few months, we have a “Staff Research Night” at NEHGS, where staff members stay in the library after closing and work on their genealogy. Several of the staff genealogists assist staff members in other departments who might be new to genealogy or would like some guidance. Awhile back I worked with Rachel Adams, our Database Services Volunteer Coordinator. She was interested in learning more about her mother’s Jewish ancestry in Connecticut and New York. While we found several items, the ancestor who surprised us both was her great-grandfather, Albert Goldberg (1886–1932) of the Bronx. Continue reading Stolen identity
Sometime in 2014 in eastern Finland, Toivo “Topi” Pränny was researching his great-great-grandfather, Juho Matalamäki. As a boy, Topi lived in what was once Juho’s house and had heard many stories about him, passed down from his grandmother, Lempi (Saksa) Riihimäki. Googling Juho’s name, Topi saw a photo he had never before seen, showing a white-haired man with a straggly beard sitting on his front stoop, wearing traditional boots called lapikkaat. The photo accompanied an English-language article by someone searching her Finnish roots.
Juho was my great-grandfather, and I am the author of that article, which appeared in American Ancestors magazine in 2013. Continue reading Finding Lempi’s ring
When the time comes for me to plunge into my Boston Irish Catholic ancestry – my Tierneys, Quinlans, Sweeneys, and Kellards – I intend to make full use of the Catholic parish records that are currently being digitized by the historic collaboration between NEHGS and the Archdiocese of Boston. Until that time, I am comforted in knowing that these precious records are safely ensconced online, for all eternity, ready at the click of the mouse.
Which doesn’t mean that I haven’t already been dabbling in a few things Catholic. Indeed, my current project took me to Braintree, Massachusetts, to the Archives of the Archdiocese of Boston (www.bostoncatholic.org/Archives) in search of answers about my Protestant grandfather, John Osborne, he of stern Puritan stock, who, we were always told, had been orphaned at a young age. Continue reading Divine intervention?
In extending my research on the Trottier family (Cousins of St. Casimir), I discovered in a genealogy of St. Casimir families that Marie Trottier’s eldest sister, Athanaïs, became a Sister of Providence, an order of nuns founded in Montréal. The genealogy provided no other details on her subsequent life. Seeking to learn more information, I wrote to the Archivist of the Sisters of Providence with the certainty they would possess her necrology, an account of the sister’s life written after her death. These documents are more akin to a spiritual profile than facts recounted in an obituary. What I received—a photograph, a list of her dates and places of service, as well as the necrology—exceeded my expectations. Continue reading Religious necrologies
As we mark Veterans Day, I think of my ancestors who fought for our country. During my family search, I found that most of my ancestors didn’t arrive to the United States until 1870; we don’t have any early American soldiers in our family tree who fought in the American Revolution or World War I. I do have two great-uncles, on my paternal side, who were in the military during World War II. These two men are the individuals I want to honor this Veterans Day.
My grandfather, Leo Napoleon Dery, had a brother named Gerard Ovila Dery who was born in 1920. Gerard, pictured in uniform, enlisted on 2 February 1942 at the age of 22 and was stationed at Fort Benning in Georgia. Continue reading Two souls