Tag Archives: A Genealogist’s Diary

Logic problems

Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, , , , ,
The dovecot at Corstorphine. Courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland

If A is the son of B, and C is the grandson of B, and C’s father is D and mother is E, then how is E related to A…?

In addition to the main allied families in the Livingston project — Douglas of Dalkeith, Fleming of Wigtown, Hepburn of Bothwell, Menteith of Kerse, and Bruce of Airth — there are others that recur, either as ancestors of Livingston spouses or kin of kin in some way. One of the most prevalent is the Forrester family of Corstorphine, Torwood, Garden/Carden, and Nyddrie/Nidrie/Nithrie. Without even including the later Lords Forrester, I can easily count eight instances of Forresters in concert with other families to be covered in the Livingston book. Continue reading Logic problems →

Fireside stories

Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , , , ,
Corstorphine Old Parish Church, near Edinburgh. Courtesy of Wikipedia.org

As a kind of sequel to my post on “kinbot,” the medieval Scottish practice of making amends after slaying a kinsman, I can offer two stories of Livingston family murderesses … and the very different impression their acts made upon their contemporaries. The first took place more than a century after Sir John Bruce was “slaughtered” by his Menteith kinsmen and concerns the Livingstons of Dunipace, from which family the Rev. John Livingston’s mother was descended. Continue reading Fireside stories →

Historical relations

Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , ,
One of a set of watercolors depicting the Eglinton Tournament of 1839 by James Henry Nixon, inspired by an earlier time. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

As I work on a genealogy of the Livingston family in Scotland and America, I am roughing out appendices covering the family of the 4th Lord Livingston, the Livingstons of Dunipace and Kilsyth, and the Fleming and Hamilton families in seventeenth-century Edinburgh: this is the family circle around the Rev. John Livingston (1603-1672), whose son and grandson emigrated to New York later in the century. All of this is meant to answer the questions, To what extent did the Livingstons feel connected to their Scottish kin, and are there clues to be found in some of these connections? Continue reading Historical relations →

The boy around the corner

American History, Family Stories, , , , ,
127 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. (The Ayer family also owned 125, at right.) Photo by Bainbridge Bunting. Courtesy of Back Bay Houses/The Gleason Partnership

My grandmother[1] and her sister[2] grew up in the country, and both considered themselves countrywomen, devoted to family and animals, later managing farms on the North Shore of Boston, on Long Island, and in Virginia. (My great-aunt, who left New England for Virginia, had much the most significant spread, on land near Middleburg, acquired years before the development of Dulles Airport made the neighborhood a commuting town for Washington, D.C.)

They also grew up in the city. While both were born in their parents’ summer homes in the country, Theo and Anne Ayer were brought up at 161 Bay State Road, 127 Commonwealth Avenue, and, finally, 315 Dartmouth Street in Boston, from which house Aunt Theo was married in 1928. My grandmother married a New Yorker, with some Boston connections, but Aunt Theo married, one could say, “the boy next door.” Continue reading The boy around the corner →

Kinbot, and friendship

Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, , , , ,
Mercat Cross, Edinburgh. Courtesy of Wikipedia.org

As part of my research on the Livingston family in Scotland and America, I have been looking at allied families – who sometimes turn out to be Livingstons themselves. One such case is John Bruce of Stenhouse (Airth), sometimes Sir John, who married Elizabeth Menteith,[1] the daughter of William Menteith of Kerse and Helen Livingston, a daughter of Sir Alexander Livingston of Callendar.[2] John and Elizabeth’s daughter, in turn, married William Livingston, younger of Kilsyth, a descendant of Sir Alexander’s half-brother, also William.[3] Eventually these three Livingston lines united in the marriage of the Rev. Alexander Livingston, grandson of the 4th Lord Livingston, and Barbara Livingston of Inches (a descendant of Callendar as well as a cadet line of Kilsyth).[4]

John Bruce died in circumstances I have yet to work out. Suffice it to say that he was “slain” by his wife’s brothers, the Menteiths, but what happened after the “slaughter”[5] is somewhat surprising. Continue reading Kinbot, and friendship →

The devil’s Mr. Gideon

Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , , , , ,
Torphichen Preceptory, where Henry Livingston was preceptor in 1449. Photo courtesy of Kim Traynor

The Livingston family genealogist devoted two large volumes to a painstaking account of the Livingstons in Scotland and America.[1] His volume on the Livingstons of Livingston Manor, in introducing the Scottish ancestry of the American immigrants, glides right by the siblings of “Worthy famous Mr. John Livingston” – father and grandfather of two Robert Livingstons – remarking that John was the “only child [of his parents] we need take any notice of.”[2]

Brave words! As it happens, though, a series of biographical volumes on Scottish ministers fills in the names of the children of the Rev. William Livingston and two of his three wives, and in the biographies of the ministers who married John Livingston’s sisters there are indeed stories on which to linger.[3] John Livingston’s sister Anna married the Rev. Thomas Vassie (or Wassie), later of Torphichen, in 1627; their half-sister, Jean, married the Rev. Gideon Penman, a widower, in 1651.[4] Both the Vassies and the Penmans figure in questions of witchcraft – even as the three brother ministers were involved in the religious and political ferment of the period. Continue reading The devil’s Mr. Gideon →

ICYMI: Mysterious Menteiths

Family Stories, ICYMI, Research Methods, Royal Lines, , ,

[Author’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 20 November 2019.]

Click on images to expand them.

As I work at reconstructing the environment in which the Livingstons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries lived, I have been struck by the frequency with which I have encountered members of the Menteith family. (It is fair to say that there are a number of such families in this project, interrelated in various ways, but the Menteiths keep turning up!) To arrive at the early modern Livingston family, I have gone back on various lines (including the ancestry of Livingston spouses), so the resulting family trees cover individuals who were not named Livingston – or aware of these particular connections. Continue reading ICYMI: Mysterious Menteiths →

Near neighbors

American History, Family Stories, Research Methods, , , , , , ,
Small world. All images, unless otherwise noted, courtesy of backbayhouses.org

My grandfather[1] came from New York, and when I was growing up it was understood that the Stewards were from New York and the Ayers (my grandmother’s family) were from Boston. A little digging suggests a more complicated picture – my grandfather’s mother-in-law[2] came from Newark, and his maternal grandmother[3] had only New England ancestry – while there is also an interesting collateral connection, somewhat obscure to later generations of the family. Continue reading Near neighbors →

In the neighborhood

American History, Family Stories, Research Methods, , , ,
The Fensgate, today’s Charlesview Condominium. All images courtesy of backbayhouses.org

Real estate transactions might not seem very romantic, or as offering much in the way of narrative, but sometimes proximity and dates can signal ongoing relationships. One in my own family comes to mind: in 1899, my Ayer great-great-grandparents[1] moved from Lowell to Boston, initially renting a house on Beacon Street while they planned to build a new home on Commonwealth Avenue.

At the same time, my great-great-grandfather’s sister-in-law, the former Mary Hascall Wheaton,[2] was living in a house on Beacon Street while planning her own new house, just two doors down. Of all these houses, only Aunt Minnie Kittredge’s former home has been torn down, to make way for The Fensgate at the corner of Beacon Street and Charlesgate East. And while the street addresses don’t hint at it, the Kittredge and Ayer houses were just two blocks apart. Continue reading In the neighborhood →

Belmont High School, 1942

American History, Collections, Research Methods, Technology, , , , , , ,

I recently discovered an online app. that allows me to scan my photographs. As I like to be able to refer to a record of my collection (still somewhat maddening if I forget the subject’s name), this has been a revelation. One of the vernacular photos I bought some time ago shows a cheerful group of four young men standing in front of a large building, perhaps a school. On the reverse, the four have signed their names. So who are they?

The clearest signature belongs to Henry Angiola, and a check of Ancestry.com’s databases yields Henry Angiola, a student at Belmont High School in Los Angeles. The cryptic S ’42 next to Sinn Lew’s signature is seen on Henry’s yearbook page, and all four may be found in the Campanile, Belmont High’s class of 1942 yearbook. Continue reading Belmont High School, 1942 →