Tag Archives: U.S. Presidents

ICYMI: Family papers

September 21, 2016American History, Collections, Family Stories, ICYMI, Research MethodsA Genealogist's Diary, African American Research, Brick Walls, Critical Analysis, Family papers, Family stories, Object Lessons, Photographs, Research tips, U.S. PresidentsScott C. Steward

[Author’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 19 August 2015.]

My grandfather died almost 25 years ago, and sometime before that he gave me a box of “family papers.” The box itself is rather striking: a metal strong box, easily portable, with my great-great-grandfather John Steward’s name stenciled on top in fading paint. Inside the box are not just family papers, but intriguing (and, of course, unidentified) daguerreotypes and examples of other early photographic processes, along with materials treating the family of my great-grandmother, Margaret Atherton (Beeckman) Steward (1861–1951). Continue reading ICYMI: Family papers →

Lost generations

September 9, 2016Family Stories, Research Methods, TechnologyA Genealogist's Diary, Brick Walls, Critical Analysis, Family stories, U.S. PresidentsScott C. Steward

uncle-livy-beeckman-for-vb — John Henry Beeckman’s nephew, Robert Livingston Beeckman (1866-1935).

One of the trends in my ancestry is the curious one whereby, when given the choice between staying in a locale or moving on, my nineteenth-century forebears often remained behind as other relatives ventured further west. One of the sadder family stories is covered in the 1999 book Intimate Frontiers: Sex, Gender, and Culture in Old California, by Albert L. Hurtado, and concerns my great-great-great-uncle John Henry Beeckman (1818–1850).

Uncle John was the eldest son of Henry Beeckman and Catherine McPhaedris Livingston, and the family was a prosperous one in the days before the Civil War. That they were socially acceptable to New Yorkers and Virginians alike is suggested by the fact that John H. Beeckman married Margaret Gardiner in 1848 at the Virginia plantation of the bride’s brother-in-law, former President John Tyler. Still, John Beeckman was a young man, fired up by the discovery of gold in California, and in 1849 he left bride and newborn son to travel west. Continue reading Lost generations →

“The dear old lady”

May 19, 2016American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, NEHGS CollectionsA Genealogist's Diary, Critical Analysis, Family papers, Family stories, U.S. PresidentsScott C. Steward

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

Another way in to Regina Shober Gray’s diary is through selected entries clustered around the same date. Today is 19 May, so – to pick the arbitrary span of the Civil War years – what sorts of observations does she make in her mid-May entries?[1]

Boston, Saturday, 18 May 1861: These two or three clear days have helped Morris[2] a good deal – he drives often, and walks twice a day with me. I shall be known as “the woman that follows the drill” ere long, for he trudges after each company all over the parade ground [on Boston Common], and his military accoutrements attract no little attention to his poor pale face…

A report is very current to-day that Gen.l Beauregard[3] has died of wounds rec’d at the attack on Sumter. Somebody has heard somebody’s letter read, giving an acct. of his funeral!! Continue reading “The dear old lady” →

General Grant in Singapore

February 15, 2016American History, Collections, NewsA Genealogist's Diary, Critical Analysis, Object Lessons, Spotlight, U.S. PresidentsScott C. Steward

An autograph letter from former president Ulysses S. Grant[1] is a completely unexpected treasure in my grandfather’s box of family papers. The envelope holding the letter is not in Grant’s hand; evidently Rear Admiral Daniel Ammen (1819?–1898), to whom Grant wrote it in April 1879, handed it on to one of my grandfather’s relatives – at a guess, my great-great-uncle Robert Livingston Beeckman (1866–1935), then a boy of thirteen. Coincidentally, another family connection mentioned in the letter is my great-grandfather Steward’s kinsman, Rear Admiral William Edgar Le Roy (1818–1898).

The letter itself is rather a travelogue, although General Grant is at pains to explain his apparent discourtesy to Richard Wigginton Thompson, the Secretary of the Navy. An interesting postscript is Grant’s compliment to Admiral Ammen on his “paper on the [Nicaraguan] Inter-Oceanic canal”[2]: the Panama Canal would not be built for another quarter-century. Continue reading General Grant in Singapore →

Update for Ancestors of American Presidents

December 1, 2015American History, Genealogical Writing, NewsBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, Early New England Families Study Project, Great Migration Study Project, International genealogical research, Spotlight, The Well-Stocked Genealogical Library, U.S. PresidentsGary Boyd Roberts

Editor’s Note: NEHGS Senior Research Scholar Emeritus Gary Boyd Roberts makes his Vita Brevis début with a series of articles updating entries to his Ancestors of American Presidents, 2009 Edition, and its 2012 reprint.

The subject matter of Ancestors of American Presidents (first published in 1989) is intrinsically interesting, of course, but I have also found it to be a useful delineator of major patterns in American genealogical evolution. As I noted in the introduction to the 2009 edition of this book, within it “lie not only clues perhaps to new lines in your own ancestry, but also … various, and collectively millions, of kinships to presidents. Discovering and enjoying these kinships…, you will, I hope, have further thoughts about your own genealogical connection, or ‘fit,’ into the country at large.”

The following entries show recent published research on the ancestors of American presidents and their spouses: Continue reading Update for Ancestors of American Presidents →

Torch-light processions

November 6, 2015American History, Collections, Family Stories, NEHGS CollectionsA Genealogist's Diary, Critical Analysis, Family papers, Family stories, U.S. PresidentsScott C. Steward

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

History is full of portentous moments – in retrospect. America, 1860: To us, today, it is axiomatic to say that, with the election of Abraham Lincoln, the nation teetered on the verge of civil war. Yet for one diarist, writing late in the year, the potential outcome of the presidential election was of very limited interest. Regina Shober Gray’s[1] near-daily diary entries take no notice of the rival candidates’ campaigns until early October. Her earliest mention is so vague that it would be easy to miss: Continue reading Torch-light processions →

The Harding DNA Study

August 17, 2015American History, Family Stories, News, TechnologyBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, Research tips, U.S. PresidentsChristopher C. Child

Harding chart_2 — Harding family tree, showing the relationships predicted by recently-announced autosomal DNA tests. Click on the image to expand it.

I was fascinated by the story released in The New York Times last Wednesday regarding the DNA research to help establish that Warren G. Harding had had a child with his mistress Nan Britton. Continue reading The Harding DNA Study →

New voices at Vita Brevis

July 9, 2015American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Lineage Societies, News, Research MethodsBrick Walls, Critical Analysis, International genealogical research, Irish research, Lineage societies, Object Lessons, Research tips, U.S. PresidentsScott C. Steward

The Apprentices — Giuseppe Sarni with some of his apprentices.

A number of new bloggers made their début on Vita Brevis during the first half of 2015. Tricia Labbe, of the Society’s Membership Services team, wrote in February about breaking through a brick wall on her father’s mother’s family, the Dionnes:

“When I began working at NEHGS in 2014, I realized that staff experts might help me uncover questions relating to my Dionne family line. Continue reading New voices at Vita Brevis →

Massachusetts court cases setting precedents on marriage law

June 26, 2015American History, Family Stories, NewsAfrican American Research, Critical Analysis, Spotlight, U.S. PresidentsChristopher C. Child

Ishmael Coffee Marriage Cropped — Marriage intention for Ishmael Coffee and Hannah Gay

As the Supreme Court announces its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges relating to recognition of same-sex marriage nationally, I am reminded of how nineteenth-century judicial cases became relevant to the marriage equality cases of the last twelve years. While dozens of cases and laws relating to same-sex marriage have been discussed since 2003, the primary catalyst was the landmark Massachusetts case of Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, which found that same-sex couples had the right to marry in the Bay State. Marriages began on 17 May 2004, but our then-Governor Mitt Romney seized upon a 1913 state law (the Uniform Marriage Evasion Act), which stated: Continue reading Massachusetts court cases setting precedents on marriage law →

Celebrating Presidential Kinship, U.S. Ancestry

February 16, 2015Family StoriesSpotlight, U.S. PresidentsChristopher Carter Lee

George Washington portrait; Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860), NEHGS Rotunda, Boston.

The past year saw the American Presidency surpass 225 years as an establishment of government and state. Presidents of the United States number among the most recognizable, beloved, and reviled (not mutually exclusive) figures in our nation’s history and that of the world. Since the inauguration of George Washington, forty-three men have been entrusted by the American people to safeguard our independence, defend the Constitution which binds a widely dispersed and diverse nation, and exemplify virtues and qualities of leadership that contribute to this country’s exceptionalism. Emerging from the seedbeds of the Revolution, genteel Southern patricians and their learned New England peers were joined by New York Dutch, Scotch-Irish settlers, proverbial young men who pioneered the West, and even descendants of relatively recent immigration as our presidential pantheon has expanded in number while also developing genealogically. The ancestries of recent presidents, Jimmy Carter, both Presidents George Bush, and Barack Obama, have embraced several of these regional and ethnic origins, much in keeping with the social development and mobility of the whole American people. Continue reading Celebrating Presidential Kinship, U.S. Ancestry →