Category Archives: Genealogical Writing

A case of mistaken identity

January 12, 2022American History, Family Stories, Genealogical WritingBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, Family stories, Road Trips, Serendipity, Smack Down!Angela Napolitano

German Evangelical Home in 1925. Eugene L. Armbruster photographs and scrapbooks, v1974.001, courtesy of the Brooklyn Historical Society.

My grandmother, Emma Mueller, never really knew her father. Her mother, Marica Michelic Muhvic, a widow – born in Stari-Tsg, Slovenia, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1873 – had emigrated alone to New York in 1903 to seek a better life.[1] Marica changed her name to Mary and found a job working as a housekeeper in the German Evangelical Home for the Aged in Brooklyn, New York, where she was living in 1905.[2] Here she could interact with people that made her feel like she was in her home country, since they shared a common language and culture. Continue reading A case of mistaken identity →

ICYMI: A problem in perspective

January 10, 2022Genealogical Writing, ICYMI, Research MethodsA Genealogist's Diary, Brick Walls, Critical Analysis, Family stories, International genealogical research, SerendipityScott C. Steward

[Author’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 26 March 2021.]

Sometimes one loses perspective on one’s researches, so when I say that the identity of Master James Livingston, a younger son of the 4th Lord Livingston, is a problem for the ages – a quandary for which many await resolution – I may be overstating things a little. Still, he is one of several men in the ancestry of the American Livingston family whose life, and whose marriage(s) and child(ren), has long been a puzzle. Continue reading ICYMI: A problem in perspective →

Comic relief

January 7, 2022American History, Family Stories, Genealogical WritingBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, Family stories, SerendipityJeff Record

Sometimes the better part of a genealogical journey is exploring threads linking to the simplest of distant memories. Most ‘normal’ folks might call this going down the rabbit hole, and in this regard they’d no doubt be correct. Nevertheless, there’s a great deal of satisfaction in revisiting the thoughts and images that float through our family consciousness-at-large. These are the memories and images that often remind us of just who we are and where we’ve come from. Continue reading Comic relief →

2021: the year in review concluded

January 3, 2022American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, ICYMI, Mayflower, Research MethodsBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, Family stories, Road Trips, SerendipityScott C. Steward

[Author’s note: Part 1 can be found here.]

In July 2021, Christopher C. Child reviewed a surprising feature in his ancestry: that he has 1 (one) ancestor who resided in northern New England during the seventeenth century:

“…My connections to Vermont are even briefer. A great-great-great-great-grandmother, Julia (Vaughan) Perry (ca. 1814-1899), was born in Allegany County, New York. Her parents William and Elizabeth (Foster) Vaughan were born in Massachusetts, Vermont, or Rhode Island (sources vary). Continue reading 2021: the year in review concluded →

2021: the year in review

December 31, 2021American History, Collections, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, ICYMI, Research Methods, TechnologyA Genealogist's Diary, African American History, African American Research, Brick Walls, Critical Analysis, International genealogical research, Object Lessons, Research tips, Road Trips, U.S. PresidentsScott C. Steward

“May you live in interesting times” is supposed to be a curse – it’s certainly an exhausting way to go through life. As 2021 rolls over to 2022, here is a look back at 2021 in Vita Brevis:

In January, Ann Lawthers urged genealogists visiting cemeteries to apply some of the insights garnered from their research, in this case about how the changing cultural norms around death translated into stone: Continue reading 2021: the year in review →

Where’s Waldo?

December 29, 2021American History, Family Stories, Genealogical WritingCritical Analysis, Family stories, U.S. PresidentsChristopher C. Child

Over the fall, our daughters took an art class at the Museum of Fine Arts each Sunday. This gave my wife and me two hours to stroll around the museum, enjoy a leisurely lunch or, weather permitting, enjoy the outdoors. While visiting a section of Japanese art, I noticed a lot of the art work was donated by American art collector Denman Waldo Ross (1853-1935), a trustee of the museum. I have encountered Ross’s middle name of Waldo several times over the years, and for New Englanders this usually indicates a descent from Cornelius Waldo of Ipswich and Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Continue reading Where’s Waldo? →

I’ll be home for Christmas

December 24, 2021American History, Genealogical WritingFamily stories, Road Trips, Serendipity, SpotlightAmy Whorf McGuiggan

During this festive time of the year, magical Christmas “villages” seem to pop up everywhere, transforming nooks in the home as well as entire downtowns. It is a loaded word and whenever I see “village” attached to a place (and not only during the Christmas season), be it a village inn, pub, green, or a village itself, I am immediately enchanted. The word conjures up all the nostalgia of yesteryear with the hope and anticipation of reclaiming a bit of quaintness, simplicity, and charm. I live in an area of many of the country’s oldest towns and, because they were “unplanned” towns that grew organically, often in a haphazard way, even the busiest of these places retain pockets of their “village” atmosphere, complete with narrow streets, clustered old buildings, bricks and cobbles, town clocks, and Dickensian lampposts. Continue reading I’ll be home for Christmas →

A Christmas anachronism

December 23, 2021American History, Family Stories, Genealogical WritingBrick Walls, Family stories, Object Lessons, SerendipityJan Doerr

Like so many people during this season, I’ve been (slowly) decorating Our Old House for Christmas. As I arranged the mini-“Dickens Village” on the kitchen hearth today, I realized that it was more than a little anachronistic. This old Maine farmhouse, built in 1788/89 by American Patriots, would never have seen such a British or Victorian display of Christmas! Continue reading A Christmas anachronism →

Family associations

December 20, 2021American History, Family Stories, Genealogical WritingA Genealogist's Diary, Brick Walls, Massachusetts, Object Lessons, Road Trips, SerendipityScott C. Steward

My grandfather in Topsfield with his sister Margaret and son Charles, December 1953.

Here I don’t mean surname associations or descendant groups — I mean a family’s association with a place. This concept is on my mind as my father prepares to sell his house, built 27 years ago on land that his parents had bought back in the 1920s. For that matter, my paternal grandfather[1] was born in a house his parents built and on a piece of land that had (already, in 1898) been in the Steward family for about 150 years.

Sad to say that neither my great-grandparents’ house nor the older John Steward Homestead still exist. Continue reading Family associations →

Spousal cousins

December 17, 2021American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, MayflowerBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, Massachusetts, SerendipityMichael Dwyer

Scott Steward’s ICYMI post “Surrounded by family” inspired me to reflect on shared ancestors among my mother’s paternal grandparents, Millard E. Morse and Myrta E. Pierce, who married in Wareham, Massachusetts, on 13 October 1906. This photo, a family gem, captures the happiness of their wedding day.

Considering this couple came from long-established Plymouth County families, it came as no surprise to me that they would share 33 pairs of shared ancestors — starting six generations preceding them, well beyond any shared recollections. Continue reading Spousal cousins →