Category Archives: Genealogical Writing

ICYMI: Italian emigration to one Rhode Island town

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, ICYMI, , ,

[Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 22 July 2016.]

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

Growing up in Westerly, Rhode Island, a town in which more than 30% of residents identify as having Italian ancestry, I was always surrounded by Italian culture.[1] To this day, many people from other towns are surprised to hear that my high school offered Italian language courses, a fairly uncommon option. Even fewer had heard of Soupy, the nickname for soppressata, the cured meat which originated in Calabria that hangs in the basements and attics of Westerly residents during certain times of the year. (The meat curing process requires outdoor temperatures of 45 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit.)[2] Continue reading ICYMI: Italian emigration to one Rhode Island town →

Pulling it all together: Part Two

Genealogical Writing

Continuing with my assessment of The Phelps Family of America:

Scope: The work traces Phelps-named males through the ninth generation as well as some female descendants born with the Phelps surname to their children, and occasionally further through a grandchild with a non-Phelps surname. An effort was made to trace the Phelps family in Europe, presented in the form of 70 pages of transcribed, but not analyzed, correspondence with parish rectors and individuals named Phelps. The methodology was limited, but the scope deserves a score of 7. Continue reading Pulling it all together: Part Two →

DNA and a brick wall

Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, Technology, ,
Click on the image to expand it.

Recently I’ve been playing around with DNA Painter. It is a colorful, easy-to-use tool for understanding the chromosome segments you received from an ancestor. This free program lets you map DNA segments and assign or “paint” them various colors on your different chromosomes.

I created the chromosome map above by first determining a common ancestral couple between myself and a match. Then I download our shared segments and added them to DNA Painter. You can do this for any results found on 23AndMe, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, or GEDMatch. For each match I assigned them a color based on our most recent common ancestors. Continue reading DNA and a brick wall →

Pulling it all together

Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , ,

Over the past weeks I have been defining 10 categories to use when assessing the value, or lack thereof, of a genealogy. The question is not “Where do I find a list of the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ genealogies,” but “How do I judge whether a genealogy is good or bad?” For the experiment, I am assigning a maximum of 10 points per category with the idea of coming up with numbers that may allow us to compare thousands of genealogies. This is purely my subjective opinion, of course, and numbers by themselves have little meaning without the reasoning behind them, which is why I have included a good deal of reasoning in the examples below – which means it will take me several posts to complete my report. Continue reading Pulling it all together →

‘Marry me’

Family Stories, Genealogical Writing,
From Susanna Howard’s estate papers

Oh, Susanna, will you marry me? And she said yes, three times, maybe four! I knew about the first three husbands, but who was the fourth, if indeed there was one?

The Susanna in this question is Susanna Johnson,[1] who married first in 1770 Lieut. Samuel Cony and had five children. After his death in 1779, she married Captain James Howard, a man forty-five years her senior with four children: John, Samuel, Margaret, and William. Then James and Susanna’s two children, Isabella and James, came along, creating a scandal and generations of legal wranglings over inheritance. After James’ death at age 85 in 1787, Susanna said yes again to a marriage proposal from William Brooks,[2] Husband Number Three. Continue reading ‘Marry me’ →

Three Eatons of Watertown

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, Technology, , ,
Dr. John Eliot Eaton (1756-1812) of the Reading Eatons.

After my recent post on my Eaton ancestors, my aunt e-mailed me, curious to know if “those Eatons” were related to our “other Eatons”? The quick answer is yes, but I don’t know how! Let me explain.

Through my great-grandfather, I descend (in two unique ways, including via the Eaton family of the last post), from the immigrant John Eaton (ca. 1605–1659) of Dedham, Massachusetts. Through my great-grandmother, I descend from Jonas Eaton (ca. 1618–1674) of Reading, Massachusetts (see chart below).

Here is what we know on each Eaton man. Continue reading Three Eatons of Watertown →

Accessibility

Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, ,

Until very recently, the vast and rich world of genealogical publications was limited to those who could visit a library with a specialized collection, such as NEHGS. Most genealogies are, as one would expect, privately published by the author or client in limited numbers. Sometimes only a handful of copies were made and distributed to a few, select libraries, plus a small number of relatives, and that does not even begin to cover manuscript material of all those genealogies that never saw print, or collections of multiple family research by noted genealogists.[1]

The good news, of course, is that this is a case where the Internet has had a positive influence, with nearly every book in the world being digitized and made available online and exploding access to digitized manuscript material from every library and archive to boot.[2] Continue reading Accessibility →

‘Lovely lady’

Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , ,

Many posts ago, I bemoaned the fact that I had (and have) many photographs of unknown people, animals, and landscapes. I have always been lucky enough to have all these albums and bins, even if I can’t put names to faces, or labels to albums. I’ve learned a little about how to date clothing and surroundings, hairstyles and hats, and poses and props.

So it was with smug satisfaction and great glee years before reality set in that I retrieved a negative from its tightly curled state. Knowing who it was, I had it developed, and a safety negative prepared. Continue reading ‘Lovely lady’ →

Completeness and restraint

Genealogical Writing,

It is one thing for the author of a genealogy to have the goal (or scope) of publishing everything about all the descendants of [blank], and a much, much different thing to achieve that goal.

Clearly, there is no such thing as “everything” and “all.” The author has to decide what information she wants (or is able) to include, how much detail of that information to provide, and whether the same standard will be applied to everyone. Does the standard go beyond names, dates, and places? Are probates, land and church records, gravestones, obituaries, pensions, census records, and the like provided in detail when available? How exhaustive has the search for these facts been? Continue reading Completeness and restraint →

Analyze what?

Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, ,

Genealogical articles, such as those published in the Register, very often address a problem or omission from a previously published genealogy. The author explains the problem, describes methods and sources used to address it, reports results and, then, if the answer is not clear cut, presents an argument as to why one conclusion is preferable to another.[1]

Every family has its share of complications that need to be addressed in their genealogy. The most common egregious element of nineteenth-century genealogies, in particular, is the claim of English/royal ancestry. Continue reading Analyze what? →