Tag Archives: Spotlight

“Some very satisfactory items”

Family Stories, NEHGS Collections, ,

PP231.236 Regina Shober Gray. Not dated.
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
By this period of the Gray diary, the month of June was generally a month in which Mrs. Gray visited her surviving siblings in Philadelphia and Pottsville, Pennsylvania. In 1873, the diarist’s invalid sister died while Mrs. Gray and her son Frank were hurrying to her bedside; in 1874, Mrs. Gray paired a sojourn with her sister Sallie in Pottsville and a visit to Dr. Gray’s niece Fanny in New York. A year later, the Grays were hosts to a Baltimore cousin, whom Mrs. Gray found “real Baltimore-y”![1]

Boston, Sunday, 25 May 1873: A sorrowful telegram last evg, summoning me to St. Catharine’s [in Ontario]. Mary Shober[2] had a severe relapse last Wednesday; typhoid symptoms have set in and I fear she is sinking. I know Sallie [Lewis][3] would not bid me come unless she felt it very necessary, for we both dread the agitation my quick return will cause our precious sister, though I think she has long felt convinced herself she should never get well. Continue reading “Some very satisfactory items” →

ICYMI: Double-dating

ICYMI, News, Research Methods, , ,

[Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 5 January 2015.]

Charles I death warrant
The Death Warrant of King Charles I, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/rise_parliament/docs/charles_warrant.htm

Millions of British citizens and their colonial counterparts across the Atlantic Ocean went to sleep on 2 September 1752 and woke up on 14 September. This shift in dates was due to an Act of Parliament passed in 1750, known as Chesterfield’s Act, which put into motion a series of changes that fundamentally altered the way that many measured time. Continue reading ICYMI: Double-dating →

Giving voice to the silenced

American History, Collections, Genealogical Writing, , ,

Siekman 1a
Figure 1: The Freedmen’s Bureau by Alfred R. Waud in Harper’s Weekly 25 July 1868 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
A very exciting and important project, one creating a searchable database for 1.5 million Freedmen’s Bureau records, is near completion. The database will allow family researchers to locate records of their ancestors at the click of a button and will surely revolutionize the way African-Americans conduct family research. The best part is, you can help!

The Freedmen’s Bureau, officially known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, was created near the end of the Civil War to help those needing assistance following the war, namely newly-emancipated slaves and white refugees, as well as to manage and resettle lands abandoned by former owners. Continue reading Giving voice to the silenced →

Some super-centenarians

American History, News, , ,
Little girls playing, ca. 1900. Image courtesy of Wikimedia.org

Susannah Mushatt Jones, who died in Brooklyn, New York on 12 May 2016 at the advanced age of 116 years and 311 days, was (at her death) the oldest verified living person in the world. Susannah was born at Lowndes County, Alabama, on 6 July 1899, a daughter of Callie and Mary Mushatt. Her parents were African-American sharecroppers and her grandmother was an ex-slave. There have been many Americans over the years who were super-centenarians (living past their 110th birthdays), but with Susannah’s death a door in American history now closes. Continue reading Some super-centenarians →

The House Beautiful

American History, NEHGS Collections, , , , ,
Figure_1_C_Rotunda_04
Figure 1. The Treat Rotunda at NEHGS. Figures 1, 2, 4, and 5 are courtesy of the author

The New England Historic Genealogical Society is rediscovering many treasures within its Atkinson-Lancaster Collection, an eclectic assemblage of art that came to the Society in 1933 from the Atkinson family of Newburyport, Massachusetts. The Atkinsons made their fortune in the nineteenth-century India trade. We’ve just rehung the Treat Rotunda (Figure 1) with pieces from the collection, including two lovely celadon-and-cream-colored nineteenth-century Chinese garden seats (Figure 2, below). Continue reading The House Beautiful →

The Babson brood

American History, Genealogical Writing, ,

Alicia Crane WilliamsThe Babson Historical Association is preparing an updated Babson Genealogy for publication in 2017. The Babsons are unique in several ways.

First, they are one of the few families descended from a Great Migration matriarch who came to New England without a husband. Isabel Babson came to Salem in 1637 with her sons Richard and James. Her husband, Thomas Babson, had died in England. A married daughter – Joan, wife of John Collins – came with her husband shortly thereafter. Son Richard returned to England permanently and had four children we know of, but we have not traced any of the English descendants. Continue reading The Babson brood →

The Centennial of the Easter Rising

American History, Family Stories, News, , , ,
Easter Proclamation 1916
Courtesy of Wikipedia.org

At Easter 2016, Ireland commemorated a seminal event in its struggle for independence, the Easter Rising of April 24–30, 1916. Led by men and women from the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish Volunteers and Cumann na mBan, about 1,200 rebels seized several key buildings in Dublin. With artillery and 16,000 troops, the British quickly overwhelmed the Irish insurrection, and the leaders captured and executed.

One leader, Thomas Kent of Castlelyons, County Cork, and his brothers had organized a branch of the Irish Volunteers in Castleyons in 1914. Thomas Kent was not in Dublin during the rebellion, but stayed away from home hoping to mobilize the Volunteers. When he returned home, the Royal Irish Constabulary (police) surrounded his house on May 2, 1916. Continue reading The Centennial of the Easter Rising →

In the news

American History, Family Stories, News, ,

Alicia Crane WilliamsLooking at one’s family at any particular point in time can be educational. Recently, I was interested in 1881 because three of my grandparents were born that year and the fourth was born in December 1880, which is close enough. I was wondering what their parents would have been reading in the newspapers at that time.

Online digitized newspapers are big business these days and there are plenty of pay sites like newspapers.com, genealogybank.com, findmypast.com (for English papers), eliphind.com, and newspaperarchives.com. Newspapers that are still in business often have their own archives, such as the New York Times and Boston Globe, although they require subscriptions, too (you may be able to access these free through your local library). Continue reading In the news →

Family puzzles

American History, Family Stories, , , , ,
Martin and Elizabeth Schwindt
My mother’s maternal grandparents Martin and Elizabeth (Heft) Schwindt and their family, including my grandmother Elizabeth standing second from right, in Nebraska ca. 1910.

When I was young, my mother mentioned that in her youth her parents would sometimes playfully argue whether Norka was better than Balzer. When asked what that meant she explained to me that these were the names of villages in Russia. That confused me because I knew that she was of German descent. She explained that her German ancestors moved to Russia but eventually life became hard for them there, and after several generations they emigrated to the United States. Continue reading Family puzzles →

A new Irish records database

Collections, News, Research Methods, , , , ,

Houses_Eyeries_CtyCork_IREMany Americans are familiar with the popular and scenic Ring of Kerry in Ireland. They might be less familiar with a peninsula just to the south, in County Cork, called Beara. Those who are attempting to trace their roots to the Beara Peninsula are among the most fortunate genealogical researchers in the world, thanks to the monumental work carried out by a teacher (and genealogist, historian, footballer, and champion accordion player) named Riobard O’Dwyer. O’Dwyer, who was born in the U.S. to Beara parents but grew up in Beara, took it upon himself to study the families of the peninsula as comprehensively as possible. He spent the better part of his life visiting the localities of Beara, gaining access to and transcribing its (sometimes nearly illegible) church records, interviewing its residents, and examining the headstones of its cemeteries. Continue reading A new Irish records database →