Many discoveries in life are the result of serendipity – wandering around until one falls over something one wasn’t looking for.
I pulled an all-nighter this week while working on the Early New England Families Study Project sketch for Jonas Clark of Cambridge. I had noted that his son Samuel Clark, baptized in 1659, was “living 1705,” but had not included any proof of the claim. Ruffling unsuccessfully through the stack of reference material at four a.m., which is my normal bed time, I still decided to take one more stab at the problem. Continue reading Serendipity→
Researching family history takes us to many places: libraries, museums, various genealogical repositories (New England Historic Genealogical Society, of course!), cemeteries, and . . . driveways. An historical archaeological adventure is the sort of research that happened when I wasn’t looking!
The dooryard and then the driveway of my old Asa Williams house had always been hard-packed dirt, until in 1979 my father had the chance to have it paved, making it easier to plow in winter and eliminating the usual signs of mud season. If asphalt improved the look of things, it also covered a multitude of landscaping sins. Continue reading Well be gone→
[Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 4 February 2015.]
Bonus note: Vita Brevis bloggerPenny Strattonis retiring from NEHGS today after ten years on the Publications team. In honor of her departure, I asked her to pick a post to run again. The finalists involved one about apostrophes; one aboutchanges in technologyduring her career; one abouther late father; and the one here—about family names. Penny will continue to do occasional work for NEHGS and promises to contribute more posts to Vita Brevis, and to continue to correct grammar and punctuation in whatever publication she is handed.
The first Emma, Emma (Byrt) Powell.
When my daughter was born, we chose the name Emma for her. Like many first-time parents, we considered and discarded many names. But we kept circling back to Emma because it’s a family name, and it follows an interesting pattern:
I am fortunate in having photographs of many of my relatives, and more fortunate still in that I can identify so many of them. Often the work has been done for me, as to names; sometimes my work is cut out for me in terms of fitting them into the family tree. I have photos of all four of my grandparents as children, in the early years of the twentieth century, so I’m also lucky that my great-grandparents (or other relatives) took the trouble to take them to a professional photographer to be recorded.
My paternal grandfather, Gilbert Livingston Steward (1898–1991), was photographed by Scheur of New York – I think! It is one of the photos in my paternal grandmother’s album, and I like to think it was a present from my great-grandmother[1] at the time of my grandparents’ engagement in 1927. The photo shows GLS at about the time he went off to St. George’s School in Rhode Island. Continue reading Another day at the beach→
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236By this period of the Gray diary, the month of June was generally a month in which Mrs. Gray visited her surviving siblings in Philadelphia and Pottsville, Pennsylvania. In 1873, the diarist’s invalid sister died while Mrs. Gray and her son Frank were hurrying to her bedside; in 1874, Mrs. Gray paired a sojourn with her sister Sallie in Pottsville and a visit to Dr. Gray’s niece Fanny in New York. A year later, the Grays were hosts to a Baltimore cousin, whom Mrs. Gray found “real Baltimore-y”![1]
Boston, Sunday, 25 May 1873: A sorrowful telegram last evg, summoning me to St. Catharine’s [in Ontario]. Mary Shober[2] had a severe relapse last Wednesday; typhoid symptoms have set in and I fear she is sinking. I know Sallie [Lewis][3] would not bid me come unless she felt it very necessary, for we both dread the agitation my quick return will cause our precious sister, though I think she has long felt convinced herself she should never get well. Continue reading “Some very satisfactory items”→
Every family has a story about its origins, particularly about how the immigrant(s) came to the New World. Often these stories can seriously stretch credibility, but we can accept them as folklore if not fact. We do not often think about tracking down the origins of the stories, themselves, or that such an exercise may be valuable to our research.
For example, how would one track down the origin of the story about how Deacon Thomas Dyer of Weymouth ended up on this side of the Atlantic? Continue reading Origin stories→
[Author’s note: This series beganhereand continueshere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236In June 1871, Regina Shober Gray[1] was in Pennsylvania, and her omnibus diary entry for 9 June covers the first ten days of her visit. Her account of the journey is interesting in that, year by year, it became easier to travel from Boston to Philadelphia; in 1871, it was still an overnight trip.
Mt. Carbon, Friday, 9 June 1871: We left Boston, Morris,[2] Stephen Bullard[3] and I, by Hartford & Erie line & Norwich steamer, City of New York, in which I shall in future avoid the communicating staterooms [as] they are all over the boiler & furnaces; ours was 53 & 55, shut in by wheel houses & noisy with incessant shovelling of coal, which effectually banished sleep.
Took the 8½ train to Philad. after a breakfast at Taylor’s; reached Aunt Catharine’s[4] at about 10’c & were most cordially welcomed. A heavy rain with thunder cooled us off p.m. We spent a quiet evg. with the dear old lady, and all retired early. We left Boston Tuesday p.m. May 30th. Continue reading “Most cordially welcomed”→
Map showing the area around Errol. Courtesy of the University of Texas Library
When most people learn that I grew up in a town of three hundred people, they’re amazed. Some aren’t aware such small places still exist. Others want to know if we have electricity or modern appliances. (The answer to both questions is yes.) Inevitably, the same criticism arises: “I bet everyone knows everyone, and everything that they’re doing, too.”
I won’t deny that I knew everyone in the town when I lived there. In fact, I still know the majority of the population. Small towns have positive and negative aspects, as do cities. Everyone may know you by sight, and they may know more than you’d like them to about you and your family, whereas cities give you a sense of anonymity. I don’t recognize everyone I meet on the streets of Boston. The same can’t be said of Errol, New Hampshire. Continue reading Grassroots genealogy→
Figure One: Sample genogram, courtesy of National Society of Genetic Counselors, http://nsgc.org/p/cm/ld/fid=143, accessed 30 May 2016.
Twenty-first century genealogists enthusiastically debate the relative merits of different types of DNA testing: autosomal (atDNA), Y chromosome (Y-DNA) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). But how often do you hear discussions about a medical family history or medical pedigrees? And yet knowing one’s medical family history may the best predictor of your risk or a relative’s risk of developing specific but also preventable or treatable diseases. Continue reading Medical genealogy→
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236Continuing my occasional series on the month of May in Regina Shober Gray’s diary,[1] I thought it might be interesting to look at the first five years after the end of the Civil War. One can generally guess where Mrs. Gray will be at any given moment, but the year 1866 breaks the pattern, and we find the diarist visiting her cousins in Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia, Wednesday, 23 May 1866: We had a very successful day at Tom K’s.[2] and enjoyed our visit, spite of its unavoidable fatigue. It is a very pretty farming country there – low rolling hills – and from every summit the river winding away through wood and wold. He came up yest’y mg. to escort us down, though we assured him it was quite unnecessary – we would find our own way &c.
When here we offered to release him of the whole matter if he wished to remain in town on acct. of this news of disastrous financial panic in Eng’.d, received by telegraph from Halifax. Continue reading “What utter madness it seems”→
Many discoveries in life are the result of serendipity – wandering around until one falls over something one wasn’t looking for.
