With Prince Philip’s recent death, Prince Charles has succeeded his father as the 2nd Duke of Edinburgh. This is the third creation of the dukedom,[1] most recently bestowed upon Prince Philip in 1947 as the son-in-law of King George VI, and limited to Philip’s..

An article I co-wrote on a colleague’s ancestors in Berwick, Maine was recently published in The Maine Genealogist. While I have worked on families in Maine over the years, and several of my colleagues have..

Throughout the 20th century it was somewhat common, when a divorced (or widowed) mother remarried, for the stepfather to adopt her child or children, often taking the new husband’s surname. (See a recent post on President Bill Clinton, as well as President Gerald Ford..

Following up on my previous post about the tragic later life of my great-great-great-uncle John Merrick Paine, this post covers other places I have run across his name in my genealogical research and in tracing his descendants. One of the only other places John Merrick..

My recent post on "Retroactive surnames" prompted a few comments on the topic of “retroactive middle names,” something that has happened in my own matrilineal ancestry and that of my father’s, as well as with a great-great-grandmother being given a second middle name..

Jeff Record’s recent post on his relative Evan Evans reminded me of similarly named persons in colonial Connecticut aptly named Christopher Christophers. While I am not related to these individuals, the fact that these men shared my first name twice is surely a reason..

Following on my previous post on Paines of northeastern Connecticut, this post relates to the most recent relative of mine with the Paine surname, Lieut. John Merrick⁸ Paine (John^7-6, Daniel^5-4, Samuel³, Stephen^2-1), a Civil War veteran, who has a more immediate and..

With Prince Philip’s recent death, several colleagues shared with me the story that recalled how in 1993 the Duke of Edinburgh had helped solve a Russian Romanov murder mystery. This was one of the earliest high profile uses of mitochondrial DNA to confirm historic..

The death of Alma Wahlberg, aged 78, mother of actors Donnie and Mark Wahlberg (also both known for their earlier musical careers in New Kids on the Block and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, respectively), was announced last month. I had worked on the Wahlbergs’..

Following up on my prior post on retroactive suffixes, I’ll now discuss the other practice of retroactive surnames. This frequently occurs in publications relating to royalty in the medieval period, the best example being the..