Catholic Mayflower Descendants

Cover of the summer issue of Mayflower Descendant. Photo: Cimetière Saint-Jean, St. Barthélemy, burial location of Louis Charles Lambert and his wife Jeanne Augustine.

Our summer issue of the Mayflower Descendant includes an article by myself and Michael Leclerc..

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Catan: Playing with Pieces of History

My family and I started playing board games when I was in high school in the early to mid-2000s. Catan (formerly known as The Settlers of Catan) was the game that introduced us to this world-within-a-world. Its popularity grew during my college years, and it is..

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Stories of People in Poverty: The Trail Continues

1864 Tewksbury Almshouse Intake Records #21827 and #21828 for Margaret Kellaher and John C. Kellaher.

I wrote about Margaret (Mulligan) Kelleher and her infant son John Cornelius Kelleher a few months ago in a previous Vita Brevis post. While I thought the trail had..

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Forest Lawn Cemetery Burial Records

Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, New York. Photo by user Druszaj on Wikimedia Commons.

I have been researching a group of Irish folks who came to Buffalo, New York by way of Montreal. Although the State of New York did not mandate vital registration until 1881, the..

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Quaker Marriage Records

1736 marriage of Joseph Brownell and Leah Lawton (1)

The upcoming summer issue of the Mayflower Descendant includes an interesting article by Mark Wentling entitled “Joseph Brownell (1699-ca. 1773) of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and Little Compton, Rhode Island:..

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A Kingdom of No Ends

The truth is, I’ve rewritten this post about five times. Who really wants to lead with an image of a German royal in official Nazi dress? What could a guy like this possibly have to say? Lately, though, I have been looking for something bigger in the "unusual..

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The Ashen Skeleton in the Closet

Not too long ago, I shared my experience of joining American Ancestors’ recent Scottish Heritage Tour. In that post I briefly introduced you to an intriguing ancestor of mine—John Lynch Breslin, Jr., who was imprisoned for attempted arson. Today I want to discuss how I..

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A Family Auction One Hundred Years Ago Today

I consider myself a west coast woman. Five of my great-grandparents were born on the west coast (three in Southern California, one in Oregon, and one in Washington). A sixth great-grandparent was born in Ohio, but moved to Southern California as a young boy. As for the..

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Understanding Greek Immigrants Through Church Records

The Hellenic Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Price, UT. My great-great-grandparents were married here in 1917, just one year after the church was built.

Family history research gives us an opportunity to learn more about our ancestors’ experiences in their..

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The Elusive William Ashton of Bristol, Bucks County, Pennsylvania

A painting by artist John Carwitham shows the Port of Philadelphia in 1752. Source: Hiddencityphila.org.

This past May, I taught a class on 18th century Pennsylvania and highlighted some documents I had discovered for my Pennsylvania ancestors. As I prepared for the..

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