Tag Archives: Spotlight

Know your suffixes

American History, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, ,
Moses Lyon
Moses Lyon (3d, 2d) of Woodstock

In writing about the marital travails of my great-great-great-great-grandfather Moses Lyon (1793–1865), I was reminded of another topic that comes up frequently in consultations with NEHGS members: the use of suffixes such as Jr., 2nd, 3rd, etc. Today most people named Jr. are the child of someone with that name, and suffixes such as III , IV, or V usually denote a descent from an earlier ancestor with that name. It is often assumed that this was the practice in earlier times, which was not the case at all, even a century or more ago.

Usually the notation “Jr.” or “2nd” just meant that someone else with the same name lived in the same town and was older. That was really all there was to it. They could be father and son, uncle and nephew, first cousins, or not related at all. Continue reading Know your suffixes →

Tryphena and Tryphosa

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, , ,
Moses Lyon
Moses Lyon of Woodstock

The names my parents ended up giving their children – Christopher, Carolyn, and Katherine – are names that most people would probably consider not that unusual. But there were several other names my father had in mind. For a boy, he liked the name Asa, in honor of his great-great-grandfather Asa Thurston Child (1820–1860). For my sisters he liked the names Tryphena and Tryphosa, after even more removed relatives of whom I was unaware in my youth. These names are biblical, mentioned by Paul in Romans 16: 11: “Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labour in the Lord,” and in my experience in genealogy they have often been given to female twins. Continue reading Tryphena and Tryphosa →

A second update to Ancestors of American Presidents

Genealogical Writing, News, ,

Editor’s Note: NEHGS Senior Research Scholar Emeritus Gary Boyd Roberts continues his series of articles updating entries to his Ancestors of American Presidents, 2009 Edition, and its 2012 reprint; the previous entry appears here.

  1. Ancestors of Am Pres-14829William Howard Taft ancestor William Eure, 1st Baron Eure, p. 429, was a son of Sir Ralph Eure (and Muriel Hastings), son of Sir William Eure (and Margaret Constable), son of Sir Ralph Eure and Elizabeth Greystock, daughter of John Greystock, 4th Baron Greystock, and Elizabeth Ferrers, daughter of Robert Ferrers, 2nd Baron Boteler of Wemme, and Joan Beaufort (pp. 648–49). Thus Taft is a tenth presidential descendant of Joan’s father John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and a fifteenth presidential kinsman of modern royalty. See Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, 5 vols. (2013), 2: 527–30 (Eure to Mrs. Elizabeth Mansfield Wilson), 3: 138–39 (Greystock/Greystoke), 5: 340–41 (Ferrers). This line was brought to my attention by Martin E. Hollick. As I noted in American Ancestors 14 [2013]: 4: 52–55, Mrs. Elizabeth Mansfield Wilson was also the nearest New England immigrant cousin of H.R.H. The Duchess of Cambridge, the former Catherine Elizabeth Middleton.

Continue reading A second update to Ancestors of American Presidents →

The Governor’s chair

American History, NEHGS Collections, News, Research Methods, ,
Hancock chair 1
Figure 1. The Hancock easy chair with its replaced yellow worsted damask upholstery. The chair is currently on display at the NEHGS Library. Photo by Greg Anthony

In addition to its vast collection of genealogical materials, the New England Historic Genealogical Society houses a fine collection of early American furniture and decorative arts. Scattered throughout the Society’s Newbury Street headquarters are superb examples of eighteenth-century tall case clocks, high chests, and desks. Some of these pieces possess quite interesting provenances, including an easy chair believed to have been owned by eighteenth-century Boston merchant and Massachusetts governor John Hancock (Fig. 1).

According to NEHGS records, the Hancock easy chair originally stood in Hancock’s Beacon Hill home, which he had inherited from his uncle Thomas’ wife, Lydia Henchman, sometime after Thomas’ death in 1764.[i] It is believed that the chair is the “Yellow Damask Easy Chair” listed in John Hancock’s 1793 estate inventory (Fig. 2).[ii] Continue reading The Governor’s chair →

Tracing your African roots at NEHGS

American History, Collections, News, Research Methods, , ,
The Old Plantation
The Old Plantation. Courtesy of Wikimedia.org

From tracing free people of color in New England to identifying former slaves in the deep south, NEHGS can help you tell your family story. We have a number of guides and tools in our library and available through our education department and online databases that can help you jump start researching your African American roots all over the United States, not just New England. Continue reading Tracing your African roots at NEHGS →

Catch-22s

American History, Genealogical Writing, , ,

Alicia Crane WilliamsYikes! Just as I was starting to write this post following-up on the discussion engendered by my penultimate post, I learned that I made an egregious (and embarrassing) mistake regarding Mayflower passengers in the sketch on Samuel Maverick – I made the mother of Rebecca Allerton, who married Sam’s brother Moses Maverick, her step-mother, Fear (Allerton) Brewster. This is the second time I’ve done something like this – the first was back in the beginning of the project when I made Samuel Fuller’s uncle his father. After forty years of working with Mayflower families, I used to know all of this like the back of my hand, but the backs of my hands these days are getting wrinkly and veiny, and clearly the back of my mind has had to shed some information to make room for all the new material coming in from the Early New England Families Study Project. I just have to remember to remember that. Continue reading Catch-22s →

ICYMI: Why they came

American History, ICYMI, Research Methods,

[Editor’s note: The post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 15 May 2014.]

CharlestownCoverWhy most people went to Charlestown during the seventeenth century we can only guess. Individuals were usually far too occupied during preparation, emigration, and plantation to record their reasons for undertaking this life-threatening ordeal. We can only adduce possible factors from the heart-searchings of such (hardly typical) emigrants as Governor Winthrop, and from the prevailing conditions in emigrant areas of England.

Charlestown was settled by striving young Bristolians and Londoners driven to escape the frustrating economic conditions at home. Historians of early seventeenth-century London and Bristol emphasize the power of privileged corporate groups like the East India Company, the Levant Company, and the London and Bristol Merchant Adventurers over traditional links with the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and the Far East. Continue reading ICYMI: Why they came →

ICYMI: Useful databases at AJHS-NEA

American History, ICYMI, News, Research Methods, ,

[Editor’s note: This post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 25 April 2014. Today, AJHS-NEA is known as the Jewish Heritage Center at NEHGS.]

garner-400As the American Jewish Historical Society, New England Archives (AJHS–NEA) has only recently formed a strategic partnership with the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), anyone interested in New England Jewish history or genealogy may want to know about several databases and collections that might be specifically useful for genealogical research. They include the following:

The Records of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Boston (HIAS). The Boston office of HIAS was chartered in 1904 and operated autonomously from the national office in New York, even after their merger in 1916. Continue reading ICYMI: Useful databases at AJHS-NEA →

A significant anniversary in genealogy

American History, Genealogical Writing, News,

ASG coverThe American Society of Genealogists (ASG) was founded on 28 December 1940 in New York City as an independent society of leading published scholars in the field of American genealogy. An honorary society, ASG is limited to fifty lifetime members designated as Fellows, who may use the initials FASG (see the ASG website, fasg.org, for lists of Fellows past and present). In 1940 nothing existed to honor significant achievement in the field of genealogy or to identify competent genealogists. The three founders of ASG – Arthur Adams, John Insley Coddington, and Meredith B. Colket, Jr. – wanted to change that situation.

From the outset, ASG was (and still is) dedicated to (1) advancing genealogical research methods and encouraging publication of the results, and (2) securing recognition of genealogy as a serious subject of research in the historical and social science fields of learning. Continue reading A significant anniversary in genealogy →

ICYMI: Tips for online genealogical research

Family Stories, ICYMI, Research Methods,

[Editor’s note: This post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 20 February 2014.]

007_HaleIndexI frequently encounter eighteenth- or nineteenth-century dates, especially on the migration trail, that are not cited and which often derive from “online trees,” usually the FamilySearch Ancestral File, Rootsweb WorldConnect, or Ancestry World Tree. These days, I find it easier to determine whether any of the information is valid thanks to the many works and databases indexed at Google and Google Books. The following case suggests the variety of trails the researcher must be prepared to follow, from unverified online trees (which may hold important clues) to books and newspapers contemporary with the events mentioned (and which are sometimes flawed). Continue reading ICYMI: Tips for online genealogical research →