Tag Archives: Spotlight

Fifty years on Newbury Street

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Reading Room Ashburton Place
The Reading Room at 9 Ashburton Place. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, NEHGS

On 14 December 1964, NEHGS opened its doors to members at 99–101 Newbury Street for the very first time. The building on Newbury Street is the Society’s seventh home since it was founded in 1845, and this location has served as our headquarters during the greatest period of growth in our history. In the fifty years since arriving in the Back Bay, our membership has increased from 3,000 to an active constituency of more than 70,000; our library print collections have grown from 30,000 volumes to more than 250,000 volumes; and our endowment has improved from approximately $1 million to more than $25 million.

Continue reading Fifty years on Newbury Street →

Heading north

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pioneers me and nh-29386In my previous post, we took a look at some of the resources available for researching ancestors who moved beyond Massachusetts, with a focus on westward movement. Many also headed northward to current-day New Hampshire and Maine, although the area – as the frontier of English colonization and under threat of attack from the French and Indians – was not settled as quickly or densely as Massachusetts during the seventeenth century. According to NEHGS Trustee David Watson Kruger, Pioneers of Maine and New Hampshire, 1623–1660 by Charles Henry Pope is an “important primer on early Maine and New Hampshire families.” Continue reading Heading north →

Uses for Civil War regimental histories

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Doerfler Battle of Winchester
The Battle of Winchester

Regimental histories can provide a lot of information regarding our Civil War ancestors, and are often overlooked in research. Compiled by many Civil War veterans in the years after the war, these histories can provide new insight into their service, far beyond what might be found in military records. Continue reading Uses for Civil War regimental histories →

It’s a small world

Family Stories, Research Methods, ,

Siekman family treasuresI come from a long line of family historians, and we are always brainstorming ideas to get other family members interested in our ancestors. My mission this year was to spark an interest in my four-year-old cousin (soon to be five, as she will tell me). She may be too young to understand charts or many of the details of our history, but I wanted to find a way to give her an idea of who we are – and where we came from – in a way that was exciting and approachable. I decided that we would give her a tour around the world of all the places her ancestors came from without ever having to leave her living room. Her gift is one that can be easily changed to fit your unique family background,  an easy and fun way to get kids interested in their family roots by introducing them to cultural elements from the places of their ancestry. Continue reading It’s a small world →

Thoughts on the Y-DNA of Richard III

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Richard IIII wrote in American Ancestors last year about the fascinating discovery of the remains of King Richard III in a Leicestershire parking lot, and the use of mtDNA via matrilineal relatives over many generations to get a positive match. Now, in another twist to this story, comes the publication of Richard III’s Y-DNA results, published in Nature on 2 December 2014 – a second and more detailed genealogical chart appears in the Telegraph.

The gist of the story regarding the Y-DNA is that Richard III [haplogroup G-P287] did not share the same Y-DNA as four of the five documented descendants of Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort [haplogroup R1b-U152], descended from Richard’s great-great-grandfather King Edward III (1312­–1377), with some commentary on how this could affect claims to the crown during the War of the Roses. Continue reading Thoughts on the Y-DNA of Richard III →

Successive generations moving west

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FirstSettlers-25377As the first settlements in seventeenth-century Massachusetts colonies became more established, and as various reasons for becoming restless or disenchanted within them developed, people began their forays beyond the known. In Genealogical Notes: First Settlers of Connecticut and Massachusetts, Nathaniel Goodwin covers families in such Massachusetts towns as Cambridge, Concord, Lynn, and Northampton and such early Connecticut towns as Windsor, Wethersfield, Simsbury, and Hartford. Continue reading Successive generations moving west →

Asking Grandmother

Family Stories, Research Methods, , ,
taxphoto-1940
Courtesy New York Municipal Archives

“I wish I had thought to ask my grandmother…”

It is a sentiment that is commonly uttered by patrons at the NEHGS reference desk. And, as a genealogist, I can see the frustration. Because it is often these small details, these seemingly insignificant relationships that can help to break down age-old brick walls. But, and I think more importantly, these small details also allow researchers to connect with their ancestors on a more personal level. So, rather than recording dates and names (which, yes, are also important), genealogists should also aim to learn more about the lives of their family members. Continue reading Asking Grandmother →

Thanksgiving, a history we all share

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Pilgrim Migration softcoverThanksgiving is a holiday that prompts many of us to imagine, based on the history we’ve learned from childhood, what it was really like at the first Thanksgiving in 1621. It’s a story all Americans share, regardless of whether our ancestors were already living here in 1620, were among those who arrived on the Mayflower, or were counted as part of the multitude that followed in the coming decades and centuries, for Plymouth Colony set the stage for the America in which we now live. Continue reading Thanksgiving, a history we all share →

The Mayflower Compact

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Signing the Mayflower compact croppedWhen one is associated with the Mayflower Society and other Pilgrim groups, it is almost inevitable that eventually one will be called upon to read the Mayflower Compact in public, and it was my duty to do so at the annual meeting of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts this year. The Mayflower Compact was written 394 years ago by a group of “forefathers” who found themselves sitting in a cold, wet ship in November in Cape Cod Bay. (They had thought they were going to land somewhere near the Hudson River, in what they called “Northern Virginia.”) Continue reading The Mayflower Compact →