Exploring an Ancestor’s Home

Frank Caleb Stowell’s American craftsman home in Medford, Massachusetts, circa 1911-1920

Continue reading

How Genealogy and Heraldry Connect Us to the Past

In September, I had the distinct honour and privilege of serving as Patron of the Patrons Speech at the 36th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences, the first such congress hosted in the United States of America. The congress takes place..

Continue reading

Investigating My Family’s Osage Headright

Mural in Oswego, Kansas, depicting the Osage village of White Hair circa 1841 (via Wikimedia Commons)

Continue reading

A Village Photographer Comes Back to Life

At the turn of the twentieth century, Mary True Randall set up a photography studio with a dark room in her father’s house opposite Pittsford, Vermont’s Village Green. For almost 20 years, her camera captured children in formal poses and at play, quaint scenes of rural..

Continue reading

Why Allston? A Neighborhood’s Namesake

1863 print depicting American artist Washington Allston

I have lived in Allston, a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, for about three years. For most of that time, I never gave the area’s name much thought. I assumed that it was either the name of a town back in..

Continue reading

The Anoaʻi Family: Four Generations of Wrestling Greatness

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a member of the third generation of Anoa’i family wrestlers, at WWE Wrestlemania 28 in 2012

I am about to share a secret that few, if any of my fellow researchers at American Ancestors know about me: I love professional wrestling. I was..

Continue reading

My Activist Ancestors

“Clubbed in Rent Riots”—while digging online for information about my great-great-grandparents, this sensationalistic headline from The Baltimore Sun leapt out of the screen, grabbing my attentionmore than one hundred years after it was first published.

Continue reading

An Olympian’s Origin Story

Jill Biden and Stephen Nedoroschik at the 2024 Olympics, Wikimedia Commons

Continue reading

The Oldest Synagogue in America

Touro Synagogue from Patriots Park (Photo by author)

You might know Newport, Rhode Island, for its plethora of beautiful and historic mansions, many of which overlook the Atlantic coast. Maybe you know that the city hosted the first U.S. Open Tournaments for both..

Continue reading

The Baby Found on the Doorstep

Illustration of a home in Freetown, Massachusetts, circa 1895

Continue reading