Category Archives: Research Methods

Excerpts from Martha Anne Kuhn’s diary, 1836

Family Stories, Research Methods,
Martha Anne Kuhn 2
Martha Anne Kuhn’s diary, 1836

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

“It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.

“I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff.

“We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other,” said Beth contentedly from her corner.

So begins Louisa May Alcott’s novel, Little Women, whose opening lines have always stuck in many readers’ minds, including my own.  When reading Little Women as a young man, I was unaware that I would one day find a manuscript that mentions her controversial father, Bronson Alcott, who was a teacher, philosopher, and creator of the Temple School in Boston, Massachusetts, in the early nineteenth century. Continue reading Excerpts from Martha Anne Kuhn’s diary, 1836 →

Tiptoe through the tombstones

News, Research Methods, ,
1904 Circular on Epitaphs p1
Click on the images to expand them

When I first began researching at the NEHGS Library, I was drawn to the wide array of cemetery records that could be found in published books and donated manuscripts. It’s not by choice that I spend time locating cemetery records; it is because many family members had the ‘misfortune’ of living in New York State, where, outside of New York City, vital records registration did not start until 1881. Instead of using cemetery records to supplement birth and death dates, they often represent the only vital information on my ancestors. Continue reading Tiptoe through the tombstones →

Ear marks and horse censuses

Family Stories, Research Methods, ,

Alicia Crane WilliamsIn the days when livestock mostly roamed loose in New England towns, it was critical that farmers could identify which animals belonged to them – to avoid disputes, identify stolen property, or recover damages if your crops were ruined by the neighborhood’s hogs.  While branding with a hot iron was done, mostly the system they used involved nicks, slits, or holes, etc., cut into the animal’s ears (similar to humans piercing their ear lobes), called “ear marks.” The types of cuts and patterns were registered with the town clerk and sometimes would be inherited from father to son. I think some of these farmers were far more assiduous in recording their animals’ ear marks than they were in recording their children. Continue reading Ear marks and horse censuses →

Another family mystery

Family Stories, Research Methods
J Frank Bell
J. Frank Bell

My mother’s parents were from Norfolk, Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland. From a grandchild’s perspective, they were Southerners, but as I grew up and became interested in genealogy, I noticed another strain: my grandfather’s mother and grandmother’s father were natives of Ohio, and it turned out that the Jacksons and Gliddens had New England forebears. A more recent insight, I blush to say, is that both my maternal grandfather and his father married women from Indianapolis, and at the end of his life my grandfather’s companion (a native of Boston) had Indianapolis connections as well. Continue reading Another family mystery →

What’s that name?

Family Stories, Research Methods, , ,
luigi ciaccia line 21 page 2
Courtesy of Ancestry.com

I just returned from representing the New England Historic Genealogical Society at the Southern California Genealogical Jamboree’s forty-fifth  annual event in Burbank, California. In addition to getting the opportunity to meet some of the great NEHGS members who live in and around California, I also had an opportunity to give three different lectures: “Following the Crumbs: Tracing Family History Through Land Records,” “Tracing Your Italian Ancestry to the Old Country,” and “Tales of a Genealogist” at the NEHGS Breakfast. Continue reading What’s that name? →

Conserving some NEHGS treasures

Research Methods

Hancock broadside

One of the things I like most about my job at the Society is that, because we are such a small operation, we tackle a wonderful array of projects. For example, for the past month I have been cleaning and backing this 29” x 42” broadside. It was an  announcement made/published by T.G.H.P. Burnham on 6 June 1863 to protest the already-begun demolition of the John Hancock mansion. Sadly, the protest amounted to just that; where the mansion once sat is now the west wing of the early twentieth-century addition to the Massachusetts State House. To my knowledge, the only surviving external piece  of John Hancock’s home is the stairs, later incorporated  into the embankment of Jamaica Pond and leading to the former Perkins estate. Continue reading Conserving some NEHGS treasures →

Sandwich and Eastham Town Records

News, Research Methods,

Alicia Crane WilliamsYou know you are a genealogist when the highlight of your week is the delivery of two newly published volumes of town records! These are The Town Records of Eastham during the Time of Plymouth Colony, 1620-1692, and The Town Records of Sandwich during the Time of Plymouth Colony, 1620-1692, transcribed by Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs. Jeremy has been transcribing Plymouth Colony town records for decades, including the Scituate records published by NEHGS and the Marshfield records currently being serialized in The Mayflower Descendant by the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants. The Mayflower Descendant will also be publishing Bangs’ transcriptions of the Dartmouth and Bridgewater town records. Continue reading Sandwich and Eastham Town Records →

Still more thoughts on preparing to publish

News, Research Methods

Penny at podium_croppedBy phone, at seminars, and now at webinars, we field many questions from people who are interested in writing family histories. Here are a few of the most frequent questions we hear:

How do I get started? There’s no way around it: getting started can be difficult. You will have to shift mental gears. Take a step back, as if you’re zooming out with a camera, and begin thinking about your project as a potential manuscript, something different from your mass of research. Don’t wait until your research is done, or you’ll never get started. Just begin! Continue reading Still more thoughts on preparing to publish →

Family stories in official records

Family Stories, Research Methods,
CS passport photo with MBS
My great-grandparents’ joint passport

Ancestry.com has an interesting database category called Immigration & Travel, which includes a variety of passenger list and passport application databases. I have used them over the years to track members of my family as they traveled to and from Europe, Central and South America, the Hawaiian Islands and the Far East, and I invariably find colorful details to flesh out the prosaic ones. (I also sometimes find exact dates and places of birth that I’ve been unable to find elsewhere.) Continue reading Family stories in official records →

The Great Migration Study Project: a primer, Part Three

Family Stories, News, Research Methods,

Alicia Crane WilliamsHere is a table to help sort out where to look for your seventeenth-century ancestors in the publications associated with the Great Migration Study Project and the Early New England Families Study Project: Continue reading The Great Migration Study Project: a primer, Part Three →