Something about Sarah

Marriage of Ichabod Bumpus and Sarah Coombs

She was right there, exactly where I had left her – twenty or so years ago. Even now, she seemed to stare back at me from her vantage point in time, one made up of long-ago names and foggy dates in an old ahnentafel. I..

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Keeping up with the Joneses

Hannah Maria (Salisbury) Olmsted

My earlier discussion of genealogical uncertainty focused on uncertain genealogical connections. This discussion will explore uncertainty in biographical information about ancestors or relatives.

Years ago, when I started exploring..

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Reuniting families

My biggest fear was marrying someone in the military.

I couldn’t fathom the idea of being a military wife with all its different aspects. I didn’t like the idea of my fate and my husband’s fate being decided by the winds of politics and world commotion. I didn’t like..

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'An ornament to the city'

Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
The third and final entry in the Regina Shober Gray [1] diary on the death of her sister Lizzie [2] turns from private grief to the public response to the news.

61 Bowdoin Street, Boston,..

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A well-kept secret

This week I received my Fall issue of The Genealogist [TG], published by the American Society of Genealogists (ASG). It struck me that this might be one of genealogy’s best kept secrets.

TG has been published twice a year over 32 years. It was founded in 1980 by Neil..

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A chance family reunion

Camp residents at Feldafing. Images courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Few things can split apart families like war, and for Jewish families World War II was akin to a tornado: a whirling vortex that broke apart structures and families,..

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Revisiting a classic

Father and daughter, ca. 1988.

I have a distinct memory of my dad picking me up from daycare and presenting me with two of the loveliest books I had ever seen: The World of Christopher Robin and The World of Pooh, by A.A. Milne. At the time, my dad was a member of..

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Abel, Jabel, or Isabel?

Click on images to expand them.

A recent example of using transcribed records reminded me that many genealogists who wrote turn of the century family histories were using the same original records that were later transcribed – and thus the records that are often..

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Playing games

Icon courtesy of the BYU Family History Technology Lab.

I had never been to New England before my summer internship; truth be told, I had barely touched foot in the eastern half of the country. So when I packed my bags and flew to Boston, I was ecstatic about the..

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Noble contributions

The Society's Treat Rotunda was the setting Saturday for Gary Boyd Roberts's seminar marking the publication of his new book, The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Québec, or the United States. More than thirty participants thronged the room to..

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