Tag Archives: Family papers

Probate records: Part Four

American History, Research Methods, ,

[Editor’s note: Alicia’s series begins here.]

Dixon Inventory 1
Click on the images to expand them.

The inventory

Two important dates to remember to note are the date an inventory was taken and the date it was filed with the court. There are many instances where these dates can give clues to the date of death or reveal irregularities such as delayed proceedings. On the top of the first page of John Dickson’s inventory is the date 27 June 1737, which looks like it is the date the inventory was taken, but on the back of the second page is the date 30 March 1737, which is more likely when the inventory was initially made. Because of the delay caused by the contested will it was not filed until June. The inventory may also have been updated before being made official, as there are noticeable corrections made in a darker ink, including the date. Continue reading Probate records: Part Four →

Probate records: Part Three

American History, Family Stories, Research Methods, ,

[Editor’s Note: Alicia’s series began here and continues here.]

Dixon ContestContested will

It is not often that a will is contested, but in the case of John Dickson, we have a nice, brief example.

John died on 22 March 1736/37, and by 4 April 1737 a formal petition had been submitted to the judge of the probate court by Samuel Carter, John Green, and Joseph Holden claiming that “their Father in Law Mr John Dickson late of Cambridge Decd Died Seised of an Estate Worth About four Thousand Pounds and his three sones namely John, William & Edward have Presented to your honr an Instrument in Writing Call[ed] their Father John Dickson[‘s] Last Will & Testament for Proof.… Continue reading Probate records: Part Three →

Updating “My ancestor was born … where?!”

Family Stories, Research Methods, , ,
Saint Helena map 1906
Map of Saint Helena, 1906. Courtesy of britishempire.co.uk

In September of 2014, I wrote a blog posted entitled “My ancestor was born … where?!” about my family’s unexpected ties to Saint Helena, a remote volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean. My great-great-great-grandmother, Charlotte (Sears) Legg, was born on the island of Saint Helena in 1808. She married Henry William Legg, and after his death, settled on Martha’s Vineyard with her children. This discovery fascinated me, and since then, I have resolved to learn more about Charlotte and her family. But ultimately, I hoped to learn why my ancestors had settled in such a far-flung locale. Were they soldiers of the British military or members of the East India Company? Sailors who tired of the sea? Or did they simply settle here seeking a better life? Continue reading Updating “My ancestor was born … where?!” →

Crawley root tea

American History, Family Stories, , ,
Winifred Sturgis Lee Church
My grandmother Winnie

Whenever I, in another frenzy of research, dive into the bins of my family documents, artifacts, heirlooms, and memorabilia, I usually know what I’m looking for with little idea of what I’ll actually find, like my paternal grandmother’s herbal “recipes.” While there are more musicians in my family than medicine men or women, no one ever sang “A spoonful of sugar” to me as a child when I had to swallow my grandmother’s concoctions, decoctions, teas, infusions, tonics, and “prescriptions.” That I now remember crawley root tea in particular is evidence that it has indeed scarred me for life. Continue reading Crawley root tea →

Another brick in the wall

American History, Family Stories, Research Methods, , , ,
J Frank Bell
J. Frank Bell (1878-1944), Justice of the Peace and son of John Francis Bell (1839-1905).

As I’ve mentioned before, genealogical research favors the resourceful — and the patient. One of my outstanding brick walls, a man who has defeated generations of researchers in my mother’s family, is my great-great-grandfather John Francis Bell (1839–1905). Now, while nothing I’m going to say here will provide anything so pleasing as a breakthrough on this mysterious fellow, I think (and hope) there will be value in the journey, in advance of reaching some sort of destination.

I have written elsewhere about strategies for Google searches and the uses of periodic name searches (under every conceivable name variant) when dealing with recalcitrant relatives. Continue reading Another brick in the wall →

Probate records: Part One

American History, Research Methods, ,
JohnDicksonWill_1_clipped
Click on images to expand them.

It has taken me a while to find a short and simple enough example of a will to use for this basic introduction to probate records. The will of John Dickson of Cambridge, yeoman, illustrated here, meets the short qualification although it has an interesting complication. The full probate file can be seen on AmericanAncestors.org under Middlesex County, MA, Probate File Papers, 1648-1871, Case #6264, John Dixson-Dickson-Dikson. There are 28 papers in the file.

Testate Estate: Where someone has written or dictated a will describing exactly how he or she wishes to leave his or her property and to whom. For the most part, a testator could leave anything to anyone, unless they were dealing with colonies such as Virginia that followed the laws of primogeniture where all real estate was left to the oldest son. This did not apply in New England, although it was customary to follow the legal model of giving a double share to the oldest son. Continue reading Probate records: Part One →

The evolving game of football

American History, NEHGS Collections, , , ,
Walter Camp of Yale
Walter Camp. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

On 6 November 1869, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the Rutgers Queensmen[1] defeated the College of New Jersey[2] Tigers by a score of 6 to 4 in what is regarded as the first college football game ever played.[3] College football would remain a vastly different game from today’s version for the rest of the nineteenth century. The major differences in the game are accentuated in the diary of Harvard College graduate Edward Herbert Atherton of Worcester, Massachusetts, a work available in NEHGS’s R. Stanton Avery Special Collections (Mss A 1665). Continue reading The evolving game of football →

Bible studies

American History, Collections, Family Stories, Research Methods, , , , ,

Doerr 1One of the resources every family historian hopes to find and treasure is a family Bible full of handwritten notations of births, marriages, and deaths. These Bibles are often beautiful in themselves for their illuminated pages, or for the well-worn leather covers molded by devoted hands. Not to be overlooked, however, are the enclosures some owners pressed between those pages, enclosures which might yield some of the basic data always sought, and which might also give insight into the owners’ personalities and the events of their daily lives. Continue reading Bible studies →

“A handsome woman in elaborate dress”

American History, Collections, Family Stories, Research Methods, , , ,
Hedwiga Gray diary1
Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, entries for 5-7 February 1864. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections

For the last year or so, I’ve been immersed in the diary of Regina Shober Gray (1818–1885), a Philadelphian who lived on Beacon Hill in Boston for more than forty years. During my sabbatical in 2015, I read Bob Shaw’s transcripts of the diary for the 1860s and early ‘70s; later, I reviewed PDFs of the diary volumes for the last decade of Mrs. Gray’s life. At some point in the process, I became aware that the Maryland Historical Society had a photo of Mrs. Gray, but it was only a looming American Ancestors cover story deadline that reminded me that it might be nice to see an image of the diarist.

Given my fascination with Mrs. Gray, I really cannot account for my lack of curiosity! Continue reading “A handsome woman in elaborate dress” →

Reflections on connections

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, , ,

[Editor’s note: Henry B. Hoff, C.G., F.A.S.G., is editor of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Excerpts from some of his Vita Brevis posts can be read below.]

Writers-Guide-front-cover--webFrom Just how reliable is that source?: Many of us have been betrayed, genealogically speaking, by a source that appears to be reliable but is not. Often the source is reliable for the most part. But that fact gives you no comfort when the information in which you are interested turns out to be incorrect…

Often the betrayal is of our own making. We rely on a source to be complete and it isn’t. For example, the Barbour Collection of Connecticut Vital Records does not cover all the towns in Connecticut or even all the records of the towns it includes – yet it is easy to forget these caveats and assume no record exists of a particular birth, marriage, or death. Continue reading Reflections on connections →