Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Name Game

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Does anyone remember word clouds? Word clouds—also known as tag clouds—were popular from mid-2000s to around the early 2010s. (At least, I remember them being heavily featured in a “History and New Media” class I took in college.) They are visual representations of textual data, wherein the size and sometimes color of each word or tag represents the frequency of that word within a specific text.

For a while now, I’ve been interested in how I might be able to visualize data from my family tree in the form of a word cloud. In particular, as someone with a lifelong fascination with given names, I was curious what a name-based word cloud using data from my family tree would look like. What were the most common given names in my tree?

To answer this, I used a couple of different tools. I started with my RootsMagic software program, generating a custom report that had only two columns: Surname and Given Name. I opened this report as a basic text file and then transferred that data to an Excel spreadsheet. From there, I deleted the Surname column, as I was purely interested in given names. From there, all I had to do was find a free word cloud program to upload my data to. In retrospect, I could have generated a list of just given names from the start and saved myself one step, and may have even been able to feed the basic text file into a word cloud generator.

I tried two different platforms, both of which were freely available online. The first was the aptly-named FreeWordCloudGenerator. I imported my data as a .csv file and asked it to visualize the top 95 words (in this case, names). This program also let me pick a color palette and font, which was fun but not entirely necessary for this exercise.

Continue reading The Name Game →

Catan: Playing with Pieces of History

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Photograph of a Catan boardMy family and I started playing board games when I was in high school in the early to mid-2000s. Catan (formerly known as The Settlers of Catan) was the game that introduced us to this world-within-a-world. Its popularity grew during my college years, and it is considered one of the “gateway” games that led to the explosion in popularity of modern board games in the last fifteen years or so. Klaus Teuber, the German designer of the game, unfortunately passed away earlier this year on April 1st. In memory of the late Klaus Teuber, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to explore the real world historical inspirations which make up the fictional world of Catan.

Catan was originally released in 1995 to moderate success, but its popularity soared at the turn of the millennium. To date, Catan has sold over 40 million units in 50 languages across the globe. Hard-core board gamers even casually refer to 1995 as a benchmark in the history of the hobby: B.C. (before Catan) and A.C. (after Catan)—thus, we are currently in the year 28 A.C. That may sound silly to us history buffs, but the game’s popularity really was a landmark moment in the history of board games. No game like Catan had seen this much mass appeal and success before. It brought strategic and complex games to the mainstream market, and inspired a whole new genre of board games, known as Eurogames, which has been refined and expanded in the decades since. Continue reading Catan: Playing with Pieces of History →

Tying Knots in the Loose Ends of Scotland

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The Dome at Scotland’s National Records House

Hugh MacDiarmid, one of Scotland’s most successful modern-day poets, once described his home country as having “loose ends.” Scotland is, undeniably, a land steeped in legends, myths, and mysteries—from the enigmatic Loch Ness monster to the ancient marvel of the Ring of Brodgar. The allure of the unknown, these “loose ends,” as MacDiarmid put it, has always been an integral part of Scottish culture. As someone deeply rooted in Scottish ancestry, my admiration for the country my ancestors and I grew up in has been deepened even further by the aspects that have no concrete answers. Recently, I was invited on an insightful genealogy tour of Edinburgh organised by American Ancestors/NEHGS, allowing me to delve deeper into these mysteries and pursue my own family’s “loose ends” in Scotland.

We embarked on a genealogical journey through Scotland, focussing on tracing our tour members’ Scottish ancestors. We visited three national repositories: The National Records House which houses Scotland’s People Centre, the National Library of Scotland, and the Scottish Genealogical Society. Continue reading Tying Knots in the Loose Ends of Scotland →

Becoming a Genealogist at Age 10

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Me standing outside NEHGS headquarters on September 24, 2011

You could be 10, 43, or 85. You could be a beginner or an expert. But if you love genealogy as much as I do, you know how special a visit to the headquarters of New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), now known as the American Ancestors Research Center, can be. When my dad took me there for the first time at age 10, I was a total beginner. The only thing I could have been an expert at back then was watching SpongeBob SquarePants.

A few months earlier, I had asked my grandmother about our family history for the first time. I had no idea her answer would kickstart my passion for genealogy. She told me to wait, went upstairs, and came back with a small blue book about the Mayflowerpassengers who sailed to Plymouth in 1620. In the back was a record of two direct lines connecting my grandmother to the families of passengers John Alden and Francis Cooke. I had always felt drawn to history—I especially loved sitting in libraries all day, and watching the History Channel—but something about seeing connections between my family and historical legends on the page excited me more than anything else. Continue reading Becoming a Genealogist at Age 10 →

Why Was Lower Canada Above Upper Canada?

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1818 map by John Pinkerton showing British possessions North America.

For a country which gained its independence from the United Kingdom just 155 years ago, Canada has gone through a significant number of changes to its internal structure and boundaries. The relatively frequent shifting of jurisdictions among the oft-renamed areas has proven to be troublesome to genealogical researchers.

Before delving into the history of Canadian political geography, it is important to be aware of a few notable terms and concepts. First, is the difference between a Territory and a Province. A Province receives its power and authority from the Constitution Act of 1867, whereas Territories have powers delegated to them by Parliament. 1 Presently, Canada is composed of ten provinces and three territories, a count which changed most recently in 1999 with the creation of the Territory of Nunavut. Additionally, parts of modern-day Canada were once considered distinct Colonies of the United Kingdom, including the colonies of British Columbia (1858-1866), Prince Edward Island (1604-1873), and Newfoundland (1610-1907). Continue reading Why Was Lower Canada Above Upper Canada? →

“He looks like a deranged Easter Bunny…”

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Image from A Christmas Story. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1983.

There are no right answers here, but my choice for the greatest Christmas movie of all-time is A Christmas Story. You can’t convince me otherwise. I love it so much that I bought a leg lamp for our front window. Every year, even before we’ve purchased a tree, the leg lamp makes its appearance—and we have copious amounts of glue, should anything happen.

Beyond nostalgia and tradition, the subtle one-liners are the movie’s greatest strength. Some of my favorites, in no particular order:1

  • “In our world, you were either a bully, a toady, or one of the nameless rabble of victims.”
  • “Adults loved to say things like that, but kids knew better. We knew darn well it was always better not to get caught.”
  • “In the heat of battle, my father wove a tapestry of obscenity, that as far as we know, is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.”
  • “Some men are Baptists, others Catholics; my father was an Oldsmobile man.”
  • “Randy lay there like a slug. It was his only defense.”
  • “He looks like a deranged Easter bunny.”

I can’t remember the first time I saw A Christmas Story, but after the fourth or fifth time watching it, the word “deranged” became part of my vocabulary. I didn’t look up the definition, but from context clues I knew it meant “wacky,” “silly,” “insane,” or something to that effect. So, when I started work on a project for the Society of the Cincinnati—the nation’s oldest patriotic organization, founded in 1783 by officers of the Continental Army who served together in the American Revolution—I was surprised to see the word “deranged” used as a description of one’s military service. Continue reading “He looks like a deranged Easter Bunny…” →

Following Irish Migrant Workers

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Photo of the Irish countrysideHow did our Irish tenant ancestors earn the money they needed to pay their yearly rent? One possibility: they travelled to Great Britain to work for the summer.

A common occurrence in many parts of Ireland in the 1800s, the Irish harvest migration was a well-established means of earning a living. In the spring an Irish cottier would plant his potatoes, cut his turf, and possibly plant some oats. By late spring, little needed to be done on the farm until the fall harvest, giving the farmer time to take on supplementary work elsewhere. One option was to sail to Great Britain and find agricultural work for the summer. When the harvest was done in Britain, the farmer would return to Ireland for the fall, leaving enough time to bring in his potatoes and harvest any other crops. But most importantly, he would return home with cash to pay the landlord for his lease.

Continue reading Following Irish Migrant Workers →

Discovering Caleb Dyer, the Only Shaker Ever Murdered

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Caleb Dyer ca. 1863, via Enfield Shaker Museum

Plenty of people own Shaker furniture or have heard of Shaker-style craftsmanship, but it’s less common to find someone with Shaker ancestry. There’s good reason for that: the Shakers, or the United Society of Believers, were a Christian religious sect that believed in gender equality, pacifism, and complete celibacy—no marriage or children. They first arrived in the U.S. from England in 1774 and settled in villages throughout the Northeast and Midwest, where they lived communally, kept separate from “the world” of nonbelievers, and worshipped through song and dance.

Shakers didn’t hold with violence, so I was intrigued to come across the story of Caleb Marshall Dyer, believed to be the only Shaker murder victim in history. A respected leader in his community, he was killed in a dispute with a local man over custody of the man’s daughters, who had been entrusted to the Shakers of Enfield for a period of time. Ironically, I only became aware of Caleb Dyer because of his involvement in an earlier custody dispute—that time not as a community leader, but as one of the children in question. Continue reading Discovering Caleb Dyer, the Only Shaker Ever Murdered →

The Search for Hannah Hobart’s Missing Husbands

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I recently went searching through newspaper records for information about the family of John Doane of Eastham for the next Early New England Families (ENEF) sketch. Newspaper resources about 17th– and 18th-century families are rare, but do exist for larger cities such as Boston. I happened upon the following abstract from the Boston New-Letter:

Scan of handwritten record which reads: “Doane, Hannah, w[ife]. John, d[aughter] Capt. Joshua Hobart of Hingham, (twice a wid[ow]. when she m. Doane), at Eastham, apoplexy, Sept. 4, 1731.”

“Doane, Hannah, w[ife]. John, d[aughter] Capt. Joshua Hobart of Hingham, (twice a wid[ow]. when she m. Doane), at Eastham, apoplexy, Sept. 4, 1731.”1

Um. I had the marriage of Hannah Hobart to John Doane, all right, but two more husbands? Continue reading The Search for Hannah Hobart’s Missing Husbands →

Mr. John Griffin and the Boston Common Treasure

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Detail of 1814 map of Boston Common by John Groves Haley.

As anyone who as ever spent time doing genealogical research can tell you, searching through historical records can oftentimes feel like a little bit of a treasure hunt. When I noticed an unusual headline printed in The Boston Statesman on October 4th, 1852, I found myself immersed in a real-life treasure hunt.1 The article read:

Treasure Buried on Boston Common- A Mr. John Griffin petitioned the city government yesterday for permission to dig a hole on Boston Common six feet in diameter for the purpose of obtaining $1000 which he asserts his father, John Griffin, who served in the war of the Revolution, secreted during the “Troubled Times” preceding the war. Griffin says he is poor and wants the money bad. The petition was referred to the Committee on the Common.

Continue reading Mr. John Griffin and the Boston Common Treasure →