Adoption and Genealogy
Cousins are Cousins. I have very few first cousins. First cousins once removed, second cousins, and third cousins abound, including two second cousins who are adopted. Because my great Aunt Mary’s daughter was lucky enough to adopt a girl...
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Memorabilia With a Story
Family stories, amazing or amusing? My maternal grandmother passed away in 2000. Amongst a box of her papers, I found a fifty-year-old uncancelled check. On the face of it, no big mystery, a little absurd perhaps to have a...
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How to Date a Snapshot
Finding an old labeled snapshot is so rewarding, because there are hundreds of unlabed specimens in drawers, boxes and albums everywhere.
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Antique Touring Car 1909 or 1910
Like many families, we have studio photographs, snapshots, and now digital photographs galore. Way too many of them are not labeled. However, those that are known might be able to help someone else identify someone or something. Keep Trying to...
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Prestonia P.T.A. Jefferson Co., Kentucky, 1950
Flora A. Breitenstein, a.k.a. Mrs. Emil R. Breitenstein, was the president of the Prestonia P.T.A. in Jefferson Co., Kentucky in 1950. She saved memorabilia from her term in office minutes, photographs, thank you letters, ephemera, PTA annuals, programs, name...
Read moreImmigration
America – A Nation Of Immigrants If, as I have long suspected, Temperence (Baley) Cocke was the daughter of Cecely (?) Jordan Farrar, she and her mother are my earlier known ancestors on this side of the Atlantic. Temperence...
Read moreWhat’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...
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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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