Category Archives: Family Stories

ICYMI: Puritan Pedigrees

Family Stories, ICYMI, News, Research Methods, ,

[Editor’s note: This post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 22 August 2014.]

Robert Charles Anderson_June 2014_1Now that my book on genealogical research methods (Elements of Genealogical Analysis) is out, I have turned my attention to the series of lectures I will be delivering in October and November [2014]; these, in turn, will form the basis for a future book entitled Puritan Pedigrees: The Deep Roots of the Great Migration to New England.

In most of the Great Migration volumes, I have been able to examine the motivations of the migrating families only in the context of events at the time of migration. A few years ago, while working on The Winthrop Fleet, I began to get a better feel for the deeper connections and influences which had been developing for decades and for generations leading up to the migration decision.  Continue reading ICYMI: Puritan Pedigrees →

“Brought to ‘attention’”

American History, Family Stories, , , , ,
FJB and Barbara for VB
My mother and her father, Frederick J. Bell, in Falls Church, Virginia.

The recent gift of some family photos reminds me that, well as in some ways I knew my maternal grandfather, there will always be things one cannot know, save by lucky chance. My grandfather was a career Naval officer, one who later went into business and then, in retirement, was ordained an Episcopal minister. A native of Norfolk in Virginia, Frederick Jackson Bell (1903–1994) was appointed to the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1919, when he was 16, and for the next 28 years he led a peripatetic existence, from Scotland and the Mediterranean to California, Hawaii, and the Pacific Theatre during the Second World War. Continue reading “Brought to ‘attention’” →

An 1890 census substitute

American History, Family Stories, ,
William Boucher
William Boucher Jr. (1822-1899)

As we are missing (most of) the 1890 Federal Census, the value of city directories for the years around 1890 is all the greater. Looking at the Boucher family of Baltimore, the 1880s proved somewhat chaotic, with the family shop and household changing location (or perhaps just street address) more than once. As the Boucher sons grew up, they joined the family business, William Maria Boucher (1867–1921) in 1885 and Louis Albert Boucher (1871–1914?) three years later. As in 1888, Wm. Boucher Jr.,[1] “mus[ical] inst[rument]s,” appeared in the Baltimore city directory with a shop at 414 East Baltimore Street and a residence at 716 West Lanvale Street in 1889, 1890, and 1891.[2] Continue reading An 1890 census substitute →

Mining Baltimore city directories

American History, Collections, Family Stories, ,
William Boucher
William Boucher Jr.

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 →

Family traditions

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Julia and Edward Deane 1955
My great-grandparents, Julia and Edward Deane, ca. 1955.

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 →

Probate records: Part Three

American History, Family Stories, Research Methods, ,

[Editor’s Note: Alicia’s series began here and continues here.]

Dixon ContestContested 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 →

Updating “My ancestor was born … where?!”

Family Stories, Research Methods, , ,
Saint Helena map 1906
Map of Saint Helena, 1906. Courtesy of britishempire.co.uk

In September of 2014, I wrote a blog posted entitled “My ancestor was born … where?!” about my family’s unexpected ties to Saint Helena, a remote volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean. My great-great-great-grandmother, Charlotte (Sears) Legg, was born on the island of Saint Helena in 1808. She married Henry William Legg, and after his death, settled on Martha’s Vineyard with her children. This discovery fascinated me, and since then, I have resolved to learn more about Charlotte and her family. But ultimately, I hoped to learn why my ancestors had settled in such a far-flung locale. Were they soldiers of the British military or members of the East India Company? Sailors who tired of the sea? Or did they simply settle here seeking a better life? Continue reading Updating “My ancestor was born … where?!” →

An untapped genealogical resource

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Courtesy of The Patten Lumbermen's Museum
Courtesy of The Patten Lumbermen’s Museum

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 →

“On the most reasonable terms”

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Full monument_2
The main monument in the Boucher plot at New Cathedral Cemetery in Baltimore County. Photo courtesy of Constance Burch McGrain

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” →

Crawley root tea

American History, Family Stories, , ,
Winifred Sturgis Lee Church
My grandmother Winnie

Whenever I, in another frenzy of research, dive into the bins of my family documents, artifacts, heirlooms, and memorabilia, I usually know what I’m looking for with little idea of what I’ll actually find, like my paternal grandmother’s herbal “recipes.” While there are more musicians in my family than medicine men or women, no one ever sang “A spoonful of sugar” to me as a child when I had to swallow my grandmother’s concoctions, decoctions, teas, infusions, tonics, and “prescriptions.” That I now remember crawley root tea in particular is evidence that it has indeed scarred me for life. Continue reading Crawley root tea →