When we think about Italian immigration here at NEHGS, it is often because the patron we are helping is looking for ancestors who arrived here in the late 1800s or early 1900s. However, Italians immigrated to many different countries, including other European countries as well as countries in South America and other continents such as Australia. Continue reading World wide Italian immigration
One day a few years ago, my mother (who was 85 at the time) got a phone call from a young lady who said “Hello, I think I’m your cousin!” Mom, who was well aware of and always on the lookout for scams, immediately assumed that this was just one more. The caller said that she was the great-granddaughter of my mother’s father’s sister, ‘Louisa.’ Mom, who knew all of her father’s siblings, had visited the family regularly in Detroit when she was a child and never met or even heard of an aunt with that name. Continue reading A suspicious first cousin
Five new Early New England Families Study Project sketches have just been posted: Continue reading Other spouses of spouses
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?
Robert Frost’s famous poem, The Road Not Taken, begins with his contemplation of “two roads diverg[ing] in a yellow wood,” and his indecision about whether to follow one path or the other. In the end, the author chooses what he deems “the path less traveled by.” Yet one must wonder whether another option was available? What about a possible third (or fourth or fifth) road? What about roads that have yet to be created? Sometimes, when conducting genealogical research, one must be aware of the possibility of other roads, as the mechanisms for knowing whether they exist may not yet have been developed. Occasionally, then, one must be willing to get off the known path to explore other, hidden roads. Continue reading Traditional research techniques – and new ones
In a few days, Vita Brevis will have published one hundred blog posts. Thinking back to about a year ago, when the subject of the blog was first broached, I can say that I only thought through the mechanics of preparing and posting the first half-dozen; everything after that seemed quite remote!
What can one say about the blog, circa May 2014? After a little more than five months in existence, it has played host to thirty-four bloggers, writing on topics as disparate as RootsTech 2014, the love troubles of William Norton in 1649, the antics of the Puddingstone Club in the early twentieth century, how best to use the NEHGS catalogue from home, an historical image Smack Down! between Google and Bing, and a list of the ships in the Winthrop Fleet in 1629–30. Continue reading One hundred posts on Vita Brevis
I own some shares in mutual funds and have a basic understanding of the stock market, but I am in no way, shape, or form the person you want to talk to about investing your money. When I am trying to figure out how to invest my money, I face the same kind of information overload that a beginning genealogist faces. In both industries there are cautionary tales about not trusting everything that one reads. So who does one trust?
One piece of universal advice is to trust “reputable firms.” In the case of investments, that might be called an oxymoron, but in genealogy we soon pick up on names of researchers and authors who have good reputations. As human beings, none are perfect, but because of their “best practices” some have gained our trust. Continue reading Trust in a reputable firm
The question from the previous post was: “What if John Smith and Mary Brown lived in Barnstable but Abigail Smith and Harry Carey were married at Sandwich?” Barnstable and Sandwich are right next to each other, so why would this raise a red flag?
Although this example involves an early nineteenth-century wedding (1816), and the rules of posting banns and other restrictions of earlier centuries were becoming less common, in New England towns there was still a strong tie to church and community. Girls married in the church to which their families belonged. John and Mary (Brown) Smith belonged to the church in Barnstable – what would their daughter be doing getting married in Sandwich? Continue reading A sense of place and name
In my last post, I left Abigail (Smith) Carey in a Black Hole with conflicting information about her age. Age discrepancies are a common cause of Red Flags and avoiding them requires an understanding of such things as the average age at marriage for men and women in the time period with which you are dealing, the childbearing ages of women, legal ages, etc. I’m not aware of a single source that provides a good overall summary of these questions – let me know if you are. Continue reading Age old problems and comfort zones
My “Devil’s advocate” pops up and waves red flags at me whenever something is not quite right based on “our” experience. Our most often used flag is for “black holes” – too much missing information. The connection may be right, but it certainly hasn’t yet been proved, and skipping over these holes is like skipping two out of every three nails when you build your deck – it might hold for a while, but it isn’t safe. Continue reading Missing nails and black holes
