Tag Archives: Object Lessons

The Red and White Schoolhouses

November 17, 2015American History, Family StoriesFamily stories, Object Lessons, Smack Down!Jan Doerr

Red schoolhouse 1 — The Red Schoolhouse in 1932. (My aunt Pauline Church is on the right in the back row.)

When I was perhaps three years old and lively, my mother returned to teaching grades K–8 in a one-room schoolhouse just north of our house in Augusta, Maine, known as the White Schoolhouse. Lacking daycare at the time, she took me with her most days, and I learned the Palmer method of cursive handwriting long before I learned to sit still. I didn’t realize until much later that the school had been a point of contention between my great-great-great-great-grandfather Read and the City’s school board. Continue reading The Red and White Schoolhouses →

Collateral relations

November 13, 2015American History, Collections, Family StoriesA Genealogist's Diary, Brick Walls, Family papers, Family stories, Object Lessons, PhotographsScott C. Steward

My grandfather’s box of family papers continues to yield treasures – and some fresh mysteries. Among the former (and the latter) are a pair of small leather traveling photo frames: one, the larger, is maroon and holds a photograph of a middle-aged woman; the other (biscuit colored) shows an older man being circled by a dog.

I suspect that the subjects of this pair of photos are my Steward great-grandparents,[1] although it is certainly possible that the woman is not Daisy Steward (1861–1951) but one of her sisters: Katharine Livingston (Beeckman) Lorillard (1855–1941), Helen (Beeckman) Lyman (1858–1938), or Martha Codwise (Beeckman) French (1863–1951). Continue reading Collateral relations →

“Ask a lady her age!”

November 12, 2015American History, Family Stories, Research MethodsBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, Family stories, Object LessonsKyle Hurst

80th bday — With my grandmother, the granddaughter of Andrew and Mary Smith, on her 80th birthday.

For the past two weeks, many NEHGS staff members celebrated birthdays, bringing to mind my birthday celebration last year. At the restaurant, our waiter announced my birthday to the entire restaurant and led them in singing to me. While that was embarrassing, it was fine until he asked my age. I answered with the old adage, “You know, it’s not polite to ask a lady her age.” As a genealogist, however, that answer left me feeling disappointed in myself. Where would we be today if our ancestors always responded to that question in such a way? Continue reading “Ask a lady her age!” →

Transformations

November 11, 2015American History, Family StoriesFamily stories, Object Lessons, Photographs, World War IIGinevra Morse

My ancestry is replete with American patriots, soldiers – veterans. From Anthony Morse Jr., a lieutenant in the militia at Newbury, Massachusetts, in the 1660s, to Samuel Morse, a soldier in the War of 1812; from Thomas Morse, a patriot in the American Revolution, to Colonius Morse, a private in the 19th Massachusetts Regiment during the Civil War,[1] I have ancestors who served in most major U.S. conflicts from the colonial period to the 1970s. I often wonder what life was like for my family in these times of turmoil. How did war affect the young men who served? How did it change them? Continue reading Transformations →

Checking family stories

November 5, 2015American History, Family StoriesA Genealogist's Diary, Critical Analysis, Family papers, Family stories, Object LessonsScott C. Steward

It’s funny how family stories take shape. The story of my great-great-grandfather’s business failure during the Crash of 1873, for instance: I had assumed (based on what information?) that the family at once retrenched, leaving their house on Fifth Avenue in a genteel retreat to my great-great-great-grandmother’s household around the corner, at 13 West Twenty-first Street, and that it was here my great-grandfather grew up. Yet a glance at my notes on the 1880 Census indicates that, on 2 June 1880, John Steward was the head of a large household at 152 Fifth Avenue which included his sons, mother- and sisters-in-law, son-in-law, grandchildren, and several servants.[1] Continue reading Checking family stories →

Border crossings

November 3, 2015American History, News, TechnologyBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, International genealogical research, Object Lessons, Western Massachusetts researchZachary Garceau

Garceau house illustration — Line house in Canaan, Vermont/Hereford, Quebec. Courtesy of Matthew Farfan, The Vermont-Quebec Border: Life on the Line.

As many genealogical researchers know, it is hardly unusual to have a person listed as born in one state on a census record, then ten years later, listed as having been born somewhere else. For instance, it is not unheard of to see a person listed as born in Virginia in 1910, West Virginia in 1920, and Kentucky in 1940. This is due largely to the fluid nature of state borders until relatively recently. Continue reading Border crossings →

“No friend at court”

October 28, 2015American History, Collections, Family Stories, NEHGS CollectionsA Genealogist's Diary, Critical Analysis, Family papers, Family stories, Object LessonsScott C. Steward

Hedwiga Gray diary1 — Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, entries for 5-7 February 1864. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections

Just as Morris Gray seems to have been a model child, so Regina Shober Gray’s only daughter, Mary (1848–1923), appears to advantage in her mother’s diary. Inclined to be timid – a tendency the robust Mrs. Gray tried to counter[1] – Mary Clay Gray[2] never married, although she did not lack for suitors, as seen in her mother’s diary entry for 16 February 1873. Continue reading “No friend at court” →

A wedding at a glance

October 27, 2015American History, Collections, Family StoriesA Genealogist's Diary, Critical Analysis, Family papers, Family stories, Object LessonsScott C. Steward

My grandfather once told me that his parents had to wait for several years to marry. When they did, in January 1885, my great-grandfather was 32 and his bride 23 – hardly old by our standards, perhaps! My grandfather’s box of family papers yields a copy of the wedding invitation; even better, another envelope contains the tiny (2 5/8” by 4”) notebook in which my great-grandmother listed her wedding presents. Continue reading A wedding at a glance →

Orphan trains

October 26, 2015American History, Family Stories, NewsBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, Family papers, Family stories, Object Lessons, Research tipsAnna Todd

I received a phone call the other day from my parents as they were driving through Kansas on a road trip. They wanted to tell me about a curious roadside advertisement they had seen that they thought would interest me: the National Orphan Train Complex in Concordia, Kansas. I had never heard of this museum, let along its subject, so I decided to do some sleuthing. What I discovered was an intriguing, controversial, and apparently slightly obscure facet of American history. Continue reading Orphan trains →

Leaving their mark

October 22, 2015American History, Collections, Family StoriesBrick Walls, Family papers, Family stories, Object LessonsEileen Pironti

A few months ago, my husband and I moved to Dorchester, Massachusetts, to work as caretakers of the William Clapp house, which was built in 1806. William Clapp and his wife, Elizabeth (Humphreys) Clapp, were married in the parlor of this house on 15 December 1806. They had nine children, two of whom died at a young age. This family also suffered the loss of three more children in November of 1838 from typhoid fever. Rebecca Clapp, aged twenty, and James Clapp, aged nineteen, died on the same day, and their brother Alexander Clapp, aged seventeen, died four days later. Continue reading Leaving their mark →

Vita Brevis

A resource for family history from AmericanAncestors.org