What’s in a Name?
Unusual Names are Fun and Informative and Clues A friend told me her grandfather’s grandfather’s name was Rensselaer Holmes. I wanted to know more, how nice to research Rensselaer instead of George, William, John or Thomas. I also wondered...
Read moreSocial Studies Teachers, One of the Best
I was lucky to have Mr. Burrows for 6th grade social studies at Cedar Hill Elementary School, so were my sister and brothers. I don’t know his full name, perhaps Robert. This was when teachers’ first names were Mr.,...
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Semantics – Are You From Here?
Native, Born, Bred, Reared, Raised, or Just From Somewhere Recently, Reinette Jones, a staff librarian at University of Kentucky Libraries, asked a provocative question, if I was from Kentucky. Technically I am, I lived there about fifty years ago....
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Who is the Little Girl in the Front Row?
My second cousin, Mara, has been sending me various Breitenstein family photographs as she unearths them. I love this, new pieces of history I haven’t seen before falling into my lap, unbidden. The last bunch included one with my...
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Eight of the Nine Breitenstein Brothers
Michael Henry Breitenstein and Elizabeth Ann Steinmetz Breitenstein had nine sons between 1888 and 1908. In 1955 eight of the nine brothers had a family reunion at the farm in Okolona, Jefferson Co., Kentucky. In order from left to...
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Dating Reunion Photographs
Locate the family groups, identify the babies, check for death dates of grandparents, get a fashion time estimate and reunion photographs will be a cinch to date. Break it down, who is missing from the photograph? Who ought to...
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