Top Ten Favorite Genealogical Libraries
My Top Ten Personal Favorite Genealogical Research Libraries I love libraries and try stop by to visit even the smallest library when I travel. If the library is having a book sale that day, all the better for...
Read moreTruth or Myth – Born at Sea
Born At Sea A couple of weeks ago, a television commercial by Ancestry caught my attention. The actor wondered why his grandparents never mentioned they lived next door to the Wright brothers. How could that fact, amongst all others,...
Read moreIs it Censorship if You Just Don’t Buy the Book?
Censorship or Not Is it parental censorship if you don’t buy the book? Maybe, but I doubt it. Last year on 4 June 2011, Meghan Cox Gurdon wrote a thoroughly provocative article in the Wall Street Journal about young...
Read moreSpierling – Chicago, Cook Co., Illinois Research
Large City Research Sometimes researching in a large city is problematic, too many people with similar names, hard to differentiate. Various immigrants with strong accents made the census much harder to use. The Soundex program was a huge help...
Read moreThree Bags of Books
A Good Friend Knows I recently broke three bones including one in my wrist and was so aggravated by the idiocy of the whole situation, I couldn’t believe it. A good friend went into her study and piled three...
Read moreDeath Certificates – Sources Created under Stress and Grief
Last month to the shock of his family and friends, my brother-in-law, Paul Shea Zak passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. He was the youngest; we were stunned. Unlike his brothers or me, Paul was gregarious, hundreds of...
Read moreWas William Phillip Breitenstein Really Skipped in Both the 1880 and 1910 Census?
William Breitenstein of Louisville, Kentucky Genealogical research into the federal census of Jefferson Co., Kentucky brings up a couple of questions. William Phillip Breitenstein was enumerated with his father Jacob Breitenstein and mother Maggie in 1860 and 1870 in...
Read moreReading, Libraries and Female Protagonists or Self Censorship
Reading through the Ages When I describe myself as a reader, it should probably be “I am a READER.” I read a lot, every day, every week, every month, every year. When I find an author I enjoy, I...
Read moreWhile You are Waiting For Proof to Arrive in the Mail
Waiting For the Mail The Internet is so immediate, a multitude of names and dates at your fingertips on various lines in different centuries. There is always someone who has your line back to Adam and Eve, a King...
Read moreReaders, Books and LibraryThing.com
Books, Books, Books I am a reader, a researcher and a writer, pretty much in that order. I read a lot, two or three hundred books a year. I really can’t help it. When I was a kid I...
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