Category Archives: Technology

Two new digitizing projects

November 2, 2015American History, Collections, NEHGS Collections, TechnologyFamily papers, SpotlightThomas Grebenchick

Rufus Chapman letter — Letter and envelope from the correspondence of Rufus Chapman, a Union soldier with the 8th Maine Infantry Regiment, to his wife Catherine.

This is part one of a series on digitizing our special collections.

At NEHGS, the R. Stanton Avery Special Collections are a unique and treasured resource. Since 1845, we have provided access to our collections of manuscripts, typescripts, and photographs, including family histories, vital records, and original primary source documents. The items NEHGS has collected have immense value to researchers – not only for genealogists and family historians, but for students, scholars, and anyone looking for a window into the past. Continue reading Two new digitizing projects →

Citing internet sources

October 29, 2015Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, TechnologyCritical Analysis, Research tips, SpotlightAlicia Crane Williams

Readers have asked how to cite Internet sources. Confession, I don’t really know the answer – and I don’t think many others do, either. It is a new, still-evolving discipline complicated by the transitory nature of the beast, where links to pages get changed and/or vanish into cyberspace. Often I cannot even find my own way back to something I ran across while researching. Continue reading Citing internet sources →

A price beyond rubies

October 21, 2015American History, Collections, Family Stories, TechnologyBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, Family papers, Family stories, International genealogical research, Object LessonsDavid Allen Lambert

In 2010, I visited the town of Rose in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, to meet the nieces and nephew of Ada Lophemia (Halliday) Clark. Ada was the second wife of my great-grandfather Thomas William Clark of Moncton, New Brunswick. Within the walls of their ancestral home in Rose I heard stories of a great-grandfather who died more than a quarter-century before I was born, a man that my own father only mentioned by name, and whose face is still unknown to me. No photograph is known to exist of my great-grandfather. Nonetheless, through genealogical research and family stories I have been able to draw a picture of what he was like, with a rough sense of his life story. Continue reading A price beyond rubies →

A research exercise

October 12, 2015American History, Collections, Research Methods, TechnologyA Genealogist's Diary, Brick Walls, Critical Analysis, Object Lessons, PhotographsScott C. Steward

I tried this for July 4, and thought it might be fun to try it again: I have several photos of Hollywood actors and actresses associated with a director and a film, and I wonder if some Vita Brevis readers can square the circle and identify the photos’ subjects. Continue reading A research exercise →

Unintended consequences

October 2, 2015News, TechnologyCritical Analysis, International genealogical research, Object LessonsZachary Garceau

After the turn of the nineteenth century, the number of medical schools around the world increased significantly. While the increase in these institutions led to monumental developments in the medical field, it also had previously unforeseen consequences. One such consequence was a shortage of bodies for dissection and examination. Continue reading Unintended consequences →

A second toe in the web

September 14, 2015Research Methods, TechnologyCritical Analysis, SpotlightAlicia Crane Williams

When I started my experiment of creating a web page about seven months ago, I advised everyone not to follow my advice and not to expect quick results. Good thing, because as of this writing, I have just managed to publish a website with one page!

Back in February I found the procedures and information that I needed to wend through in order to create a web page far more complex than it had been the “old days,” when I had successfully created a website with Network Solutions, so I let the project linger while attending to more urgent and/or fun things. Continue reading A second toe in the web →

Navigating German language records

August 18, 2015Research Methods, TechnologyBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, International genealogical research, SpotlightAnna Todd

While searching for online records for Bremen, Germany, I came across a digitized collection of Bremen address books spanning the period 1794–1955 with the help of the website German Roots. The Bremer Adressbücher 1794-1955 (Bremen Address Directories) database has been digitized by the State and University Library of Bremen, and can provide a wealth of information about your Bremen ancestors that might not be found in American records.

These directories can be browsed by surname and street number, like the city directories published for Massachusetts. The website and the directories are both in German, but you can use the Google page translator function on your browser or simply open a second tab to Google Translate for words that you need help deciphering. Once you begin attempting to translate the actual record, it can be helpful to keep handy a chart of German letters and common abbreviations such as the one at left.[1] Continue reading Navigating German language records →

The Harding DNA Study

August 17, 2015American History, Family Stories, News, TechnologyBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, Research tips, U.S. PresidentsChristopher C. Child

Harding chart_2 — Harding family tree, showing the relationships predicted by recently-announced autosomal DNA tests. Click on the image to expand it.

I was fascinated by the story released in The New York Times last Wednesday regarding the DNA research to help establish that Warren G. Harding had had a child with his mistress Nan Britton. Continue reading The Harding DNA Study →

Composition: Part Three

August 13, 2015Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, TechnologyCritical Analysis, Early New England Families Study Project, Research tipsAlicia Crane Williams

Footnotes

Each Early New England Families Study Project sketch is an article by itself, so full bibliographic citations are given the first time a source is used, with short form citations thereafter. I have a Word file with the full citation for every source I have used (which grows with each new sketch), and I can “cut and paste” these into footnotes without having to retype. This is my manual version of the bibliographic and footnote options that come with most genealogical database programs these days. Continue reading Composition: Part Three →

“Mr. Loring’s play”

July 31, 2015American History, Family Stories, TechnologyA Genealogist's Diary, Critical Analysis, Object Lessons, Photographs, Research tips, SpotlightScott C. Steward

Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Ayer’s house in Prides Crossing, 1906.

My cousin Neil recently shared some family albums with me: the oldest one belonged to his grandfather, Frederick Ayer (Jr.) (1888–1969), who kept it in 1905 and 1906. Over time, the images and the captions have faded, and the book’s middle section is held together with ancient cellophane tape, but Uncle Fred obviously cared about the record he was keeping. One of the most puzzling, and therefore interesting, images fills almost an entire leaf of the album; the identifying captions are squeezed out to the page edge: D. Sohier, D. Beal, F. Ayer Jr., etc. Continue reading “Mr. Loring’s play” →