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Weird Artifacts Amongst some curious odd sports equipment, baseballs, softballs, squash balls, raquetballs, golfballs, gloves, etc. retrieved from the flood two months ago, I found an autographed baseball from David Dymecki, a boy couple years behind me at William...

The Maternal Line or the Umbilical Line Remember the Ladies! Maternal naming patterns are much harder to spot since surnames change on each marriage and every generation. Sometimes a pattern may become apparent by looking at a straight maternal...

Good news is meant to be shared. Marriages are generally considered to be good news. Marriage records are a holy grail of genealogical research because they give up the maiden name (usually) of the bride, and possibly the parents...

What’s only a date for your files, is a sad life event for the family. Genealogy is more than just dates and we sometimes forget that. Last week a friend of a good friend of mine passed away. The...

Researching Browns Sometimes it can’t be helped, while researching you come across a Brown line, a Wilson line or worse a Smith, Jones, or Johnson line. There it sits, blocking your way to more easily researched lines and relations....

Which was most likely, widowhood or remarriage? It was partially an economic decision. If a widow had enough wherewithal to stay put in the house or on the home farm, she did, especially with younger children for whom she...

Genealogists, family historians and researchers need a surname to begin. Without that, you really are searching in the the dark for the proverbial needle in a haystack. When a surname is extremely common, it is almost as though there...