Pesky Unknown Middle Names in Church Records
Catechumens from Trinity Reformed Church near Stouchsburg, Pennsylvania A top source for middle names is the series of Draft Registration Cards held by NARA available from Ancestry and others, for men in 1917 and 1918 for World War I. Even...
Read more
Anniversary of Civil War Deployment of the Ringgold Light Artillery
In response to President Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers, the Ringgold Light Artillery left Reading on April 16th 1861, the first troops to reach Harrisburg. The First Defenders association held a reunion April 16th 1885 in Reading, Pennsylvania celebrating...
Read moreAncestors Who Fought in the American Revolution May Be Found in Newspapers of a Later Date
Newspaper Research Just Keeps on Giving Don’t despair if your ancestor is not listed in the DAR annals or the Pension files at NARA. Those are the easy paths. Most of those men were either lucky enough to have...
Read more
Moved to Colorado, Greeley’s Union Colony No. 1
Two Brothers and Two Sisters go West Newspapers are contemporaneous sources for court cases, property sales, fires, legal proceedings, deaths, marriages, births, robberies, injuries, nightly lockups, and even unclaimed letters. The Official List of Letters remaining in the Reading...
Read more
Genealogical Value of Legal Notices in the Newspaper
Administrator’s Notice Legal Notices or Advertisements were placed in the local newspaper according to the laws and customs in each state. The Administrator’s Notice was to the local townspeople, asking those indebted to the estate to pay up and...
Read moreDo Surname Suffixes Help or Hinder the Research Process?
Compound Surnames – Suffixes Surnames began as a way to distinguish men of the same first name, John the Barber, John the Miller, John the Carpenter, John the Baptist, John the Red, John the Farmer, etc., etc., etc. Then...
Read more
Van Gogh and Beethoven – In Addition to Greatness, What Do They Have in Common?
Compound Surnames – Prefixes Compound surnames differ with regard to prefixes, varying by person, family and era. Compare Ludwig van Beethoven and Vincent Van Gogh. Beethoven is Beethoven and Van Gogh is Van Gogh and yet they could have...
Read moreAn Old Line Proved Wrong
A common lament amongst experienced genealogists is that the Internet enables dabblers in family history research to add generations of ancestors “just by clicking on the leaf,” many times without any or even partially realistic attribution. This is true....
Read moreGenealogy and Etiquette
A friend called me last week and wanted to know again and exactly, why I didn’t put my genealogy on the web in one of the many linked genealogical options available, specifically Ancestry. I explained the issue as many...
Read moreThoughts about Fires and Genealogy
I think I measured once and it is three miles from our house to the high school, a staging area for the fire fighters for the Flagstaff fire. The fire was actually more behind Bear Mountain in Skunk Canyon...
Read more