Tag Archives: Massachusetts

Seeing double

American History, Mayflower, Mayflower 2020, , ,

On a glorious early fall day, with a plan to gather myself a small fistful of forget-me-nots blooming along the town brook and revisit some of the landmarks that I wrote about last year in my Outdoor Classroom posts, we took a ride to Plymouth. As this Pilgrim “first year” year slowly extinguishes itself, the town was busy with visitors taking in the sights. Oh, if only 2020 had cooperated, but better late than never.

Making a beeline for the waterfront, sparkling on that clear, crisp afternoon, I wanted to pay another visit to the Pilgrim Mother, a memorial fountain cut from Knoxville marble and given to the town by the DAR in 1920 in recognition of the tenacity, resilience, and hopefulness of the Mayflower women. Continue reading Seeing double →

Finding Francis

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , , ,

Finding Aaron, it turned out, meant finding Francis, a family connection in my own backyard. I’ve written several posts about my genealogical journey to learn about my maternal grandfather, John Joseph Osborne, and, in the course of that journey, I discovered ancestral roots in the ancient colony of Acadia in Nova Scotia; family members accused during the Salem Witchcraft hysteria; a great-great-great-grandfather who was one of the first patients to be operated on using ether; and a great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Aaron Osborn (the older version of the surname was spelled without the last e), who set out with his fellow Danvers militiamen on the morning of 19 April 1775 to answer the Lexington Alarm. Continue reading Finding Francis →

ICYMI: Of Plimoth Plantation

American History, Genealogical Writing, ICYMI, Mayflower, Mayflower 2020, News, , , , ,

[Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 17 August 2020.]

Watching the videos of Mayflower II being escorted through the Cape Cod Canal brings weird thoughts to my mind. What if there had been a canal in 1620? Would “Plimoth Plantation” have been “Long Island Plantation”? Things would have been different, but since there was no canal, that stray thought is of no importance. Continue reading ICYMI: Of Plimoth Plantation →

The wrong Blood!

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

My recent post on “Philoprogenitive ancestors” resulted in several comments from readers about their own ancestors with many children. I mentioned my ancestor Simon Willard, and one reader also noted him as her own ancestor through his daughter Elizabeth. I was planning to comment back to the reader with my full line of descent (also going through Elizabeth, wife of Robert Blood), but before doing so I did a quick verification of the lineage as I had it. Long story short, Simon Willard can now be classified as one of my Former Ancestors. Continue reading The wrong Blood! →

“Love and affection”

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , , ,
Sara Theodora Ilsley, July 1896

One does not turn readily to probate matters for cozy human interest stories, so I was surprised (and delighted) to find a momentary bright spot in the will of my great-great-grandmother Emily Anne Finlay, the “relict of Francis G. Ilsley, deceased.”[1] Emily’s family background is suggested in bequests to her children Beekman (“the family Bible of the Beekman family”),[2] Francis (“two oil portraits of Dirck Lefferts and his wife”),[3] and Sara (“my tea set of silver service”), but in fact the estate was a small one, with two house lots in Newark, New Jersey as the major asset.[4] Continue reading “Love and affection” →

St. Augustine Cemetery: resources for research

American History, NEHGS Collections, News, Research Methods, , , ,
Courtesy of Wikipedia.org

Known as the oldest Catholic cemetery in Boston, Saint Augustine Cemetery in South Boston will celebrate its two hundred and third anniversary in 2021. Built in 1818 by the first Catholic Bishop of Massachusetts, Fr. John Louis Ann Magdalen Lefebvre de Cheverus (1768-1836), the cemetery’s first burial was that of  Fr. Francis Anthony Matignon, one of the first Catholic priests in Massachusetts. Less than a year later, on 4 July 1819, the Saint Augustine Chapel was inaugurated as a mortuary chapel to honor Fr. Matignon. The Saint Augustine Chapel is, to this day, the oldest surviving Catholic church and Gothic Revival church in Massachusetts.[1] Continue reading St. Augustine Cemetery: resources for research →

July 4 and my family

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , ,
Ward Township in Hocking County, Ohio. (David Eggleston’s land can be seen at the lower right.) Courtesy Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library

In casting around for a July 4 post, I thought it might be interesting to see which (if any) of my ancestors were born on – or married, or died on – the fourth of July. It turns out that there were several!

The closest, a woman likely known to my mother (and certainly to my maternal grandparents), was my great-great-grandmother, Rebecca Jane Eggleston,[1] who was born in Ward Township, Hocking County, Ohio, on 4 July 1856 – just eighty years after the date on which the Declaration of Independence was approved for publication in Philadelphia. Continue reading July 4 and my family →

A census, rediscovered

American History, Collections, News, Research Methods, , , ,

Over the years I have fielded a number of questions about why researchers haven’t been able to locate their ancestors in the 1810 census for Salem, Massachusetts, when other records place these ancestors there for their entire lives.

Well, the simple answer was that in the census for 1810, as made available through the National Archives and Records Administration on microfilm (which is where all the digitized census records on sites like Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org have come from), somehow the town of Salem was not included. Continue reading A census, rediscovered →

‘Not a very tall man’

American History, Family Stories, Lineage Societies, News,
The Battle of Plattsburg. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

“He was not a very tall man”: words I read in a message associated with my great-great-great-grandfather Henry Poor of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Henry was born in Newbury on 20 June 1769, a son of Captain Jonathan and Sarah (Dole) Poor. His father led a company of the 2nd Essex Regiment on the Alarm of 19 April 1775 and served at various times during the war. I often wondered what young Henry knew about his father’s service that was lost in our family traditions. Continue reading ‘Not a very tall man’ →

A Massachusetts matrilineal line

Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, ,

The death of Alma Wahlberg, aged 78, mother of actors Donnie and Mark Wahlberg (also both known for their earlier musical careers in New Kids on the Block and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, respectively), was announced last month. I had worked on the Wahlbergs’ ancestry several years ago as a surprise for Gary Boyd Roberts, who has been a longtime Mark Wahlberg fan. Years later, when Gary was at Wahlburgers in Boston, noticing numerous pictures of the Wahlberg family as well as those of Mark’s movie career, Gary told his waitress, “This place needs a little less Mark Walhberg and a little more Marky Mark!” To Gary’s amazement, the teenaged waitress said she did not know who “Marky Mark” was! Continue reading A Massachusetts matrilineal line →