Tag Archives: Family papers

The last survivor

American History, News, Research Methods, , ,
San Francisco City Hall
The remains of San Francisco’s City Hall, 20 April 1906. Courtesy of WIkimedia

“It was 5:14 o’clock in the morning of Wednesday, April 18 [1906]. Nearly half a million people on the western edge of the American continent awoke suddenly with a roaring in their ears and a sensation in every nerve that struck indescribable terror to their souls.”[1] On the fateful morning of the San Francisco earthquake, and in the troubling days that followed, more than 3,000 citizens lost their lives.[2]

In addition to the tragic loss of human life, the effects of another significant loss have been felt in the 110 years since that disastrous day. Continue reading The last survivor →

Strategies for Scottish and Irish research

American History, Research Methods, , , , , , ,

[Editor’s note: Katrina Fahy has written a number of posts on researching her Scottish, Irish, and German ancestors. Some of her techniques – and successes – are excerpted below.]

William Muir in 1900From Finding William Muir: When I began working as a genealogist, my mother expressed great interest in learning more about her father’s family: the Muirs. While she had much information on her mother’s side of the family, which was quite large, she knew little about her father’s side of the family beyond her grandparents, so I began there… Continue reading Strategies for Scottish and Irish research →

A thousand words

American History, Collections, Family Stories, , , ,
Alice Selig Harris and friends

Coming from a family of active amateur photographers, the (still) new digital age of photography has significantly changed the way I look at and convey my world, its events, my life, and my family. Gone are the days of, “Oh, no, I just got to the end of a 36-exposure roll and missed the perfect picture I’ll never get again.” With three expensive cameras sitting in my closet collecting dust, like many of us I now use my smart phone for most of my photographic pursuits. This is not such a bad thing: it’s always in my pocket ready to get, as DeWitt Jones says, “not just a good frame, but a great frame.” Continue reading A thousand words →

A Telluride story

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , ,
Alice and Kenny
Alice Pheasey and Kenneth McLean on their wedding day.

There are many stories that reside in the papers and photographs our forebears set aside to keep. These stories sometimes lack a key, but here is one that, thanks to a loving sister, retains its general outline.

Kenneth Angus McLean was born in 1873 in a farmhouse on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the youngest of nine children. As a young man, Kenny left the family farm to join his older sister Christine in Boston, where he would have a wider choice of occupations. He didn’t last long in the confines of the city. Kenny, like so many others, decided to seek his fortune out west. He took out a $1,000 life insurance policy, named his sister as beneficiary, and got on a westbound train. Continue reading A Telluride story →

2015: the year in review concluded

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

Great Migration DirectoryOn the first day of 2016, Vita Brevis can boast 780,157 page views over the life of the blog. With dozens of voices writing for the blog, I hope that readers will check back often to see what’s new at Vita Brevis. Following yesterday’s blog post, here follows a snapshot of the second six months of 2015 at the blog.

Robert Charles Anderson’s post on the new Great Migration Directory was published on 1 July:

The Great Migration Directory attempts to include all those who immigrated to New England during the Great Migration, and only those immigrants. After much examination of the historical record, and particularly of the activities of the passenger vessels each spring, I determined that the Great Migration ended during 1640, and so this volume is designed to include every head of household or unattached individual who arrived between 1620 and 1640. Continue reading 2015: the year in review concluded →

2015: the year in review

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, NEHGS Collections, News, Research Methods, , , , , , ,
scanros1
Meeting cousins in County Roscommon.

Vita Brevis recently marked a milestone, with the publication of its five-hundredth blog post. Early in January 2016, the blog will celebrate its second birthday, and, in a tradition started last year, today and tomorrow I will write about twelve representative posts published in the blog in 2015. With about 250 posts in both 2014 and 2015, Vita Brevis holds a lot of material for readers to sample, and I urge the curious to wend their way through the blog using authors, categories, or tags to navigate.

On 23 January, Eileen Pironti wrote about finding some of her Irish cousins in County Roscommon: Continue reading 2015: the year in review →

Maine deeds online: a rich resource

American History, Collections, News, Research Methods, , ,
Alyssa True 1
The deed naming Moses True as the son of Winthrop True (and grandson of Israel True). Image courtesy of Cumberland County Registry of Deeds

A happy discovery in my genealogical research was the online availability of deeds for the state of Maine. The Maine Registers of Deeds Association provides links to each Maine county website. Users can download up to 500 pages per calendar year for free. As Lindsay Fulton wrote in her April post 8 More Vital Record Alternatives, deeds are often an acceptable source for proving specific relationships between family members. And if you haven’t gone hog wild and used up your quota already, you can stay in during this snowy end of the year downloading just about every mention of your Maine ancestors in these deeds.

The site for Cumberland County is a particularly rich example of this resource’s offerings. While other counties may only have a few decades of digitized deeds, Cumberland County has put up online records from 1753 to December 2015! Furthermore, it is especially valuable for Cumberland County researchers, as probate records for this area before the 1908 fire in Portland are (ahem) toast. Deeds for this county are currently not online at FamilySearch nor are they available on microfilm at NEHGS. Continue reading Maine deeds online: a rich resource →

The Philadelphia box

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

In 1860, when Regina Shober Gray began keeping her diary, gift-giving was spread between Christmas and New Year’s Day: indeed, the latter day was the more important of the two in the eyes of the Gray children. For at least the period of the Civil War, the Gray family of Boston impatiently awaited the arrival of “the Philadelphia box” – containing presents from Mrs. Gray’s siblings[1] – with shipment timed for the days around January 1. Continue reading The Philadelphia box →

A Victorian Christmas album

American History, Collections, Family Stories, ,
Lula 1
My grandmother Lula. Click on the images to expand them

Searching for anything in My Old House carries certain risks, usually in the form of an interesting distraction (corsets, small bones I still refuse to discuss, or shoe lasts). My latest search turned up my maternal grandmother’s greeting card album, so I’ve completely forgotten what it was I initially sought! The album is a treasure of illustrated birthday and calling cards from friends and relatives, small “reward of merit” cards presented by her teachers, Valentine’s Day cards, Easter cards, and, of course, Christmas cards.

Lula Atlant Roberts McLeod (1876–1958) was a teacher in the schools of central Aroostook County, Maine, before her marriage in December 1899. Christmas cards had gained popularity from their beginnings in the 1850s, and by the 1890s, when my grandmother was teaching, cards with silk fringes were offered. She signed hers “Lula Roberts, Teacher.” Continue reading A Victorian Christmas album →

Poor relief records

American History, NEHGS Collections, Research Methods, , ,
Sheldon Poor House 1860
Sheldon Poor House Association, 1860. Click on images to expand them.

Vita Brevis readers are likely all too familiar with the problem of brick walls in genealogical research. Many are aware of the uses of probate and estate records, but what if your ancestors are not to be found in the probate records of the area where they died? There can be any number of reasons, for economic conditions in the colonial and early Federal period were often unstable, and a family could find itself experiencing periods of both comfort and destitution at one point or another. Fortunately, there are a number of techniques to track less wealthy ancestors, both in the interest of making family connections and learning something of the reality of their lives. Continue reading Poor relief records →