“I have saved this book all these many years. Think and read before you destroy it. Thought and prayer my darling,” Love, M… - 1835

There’s an antique hymnal tucked away in the wilds outside Boise, Idaho. The pages are jaundiced and “crackled,” and they seem to move..

In recently editing an article for Mayflower Descendant, I went down a rabbit hole to confirm the ages of two siblings in seventeenth-century Cape Cod. This concerned the family of Thomas and Grace Hatch, who arrived in 1633, first settling in Dorchester,..

This photograph shows Hiram Overton (ca. 1835-1911) and his wife, Evelyn Overton (1841-1917), my great-great-great-grandparents. We opened Black History Month at Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology with a call to share personal stories highlighting our family..

There is an old maxim that to uncover our genealogical truths we must work as hard to prove ourselves wrong as to prove ourselves right. It’s been this way for me as I’ve attempted to figure out just what to do about Harriet.

While we at Our Old House maintain a certain amount of “isolation” during this pandemic, we have walked or snowshoed our property for exercise, noting as we passed the tracks the local wildlife has made. Coyotes, deer, rabbits, bobcats, foxes, and others roam our “back..

More than fifty years ago, when I first saw the musical Oliver!, I could not have imagined the discovery of an ancestor living in a Victorian-era workhouse in England. Robert Rhodes, my great-great-great-grandfather, died..

Four books rest next to me whenever I am researching in seventeenth-century New England. These are the first items I check for any previous treatment of a family:

• Martin E. Hollick, New Englanders in the 1700s: A Guide to Genealogical Research..

When the genealogy bug hits, one of the earliest field trips a budding genealogist makes is to a cemetery. Cemeteries are rich in history. The grave marker inscriptions reveal our ancestor’s death date, and perhaps age at death or date of birth. If we are fortunate, we..

A new year offers a new chance to look at old problems with a fresh eye – and to consider fresh methods for breaking through well-established brick walls. Here is a chance to put the word out: What are your..

Recently, I wrote about the search for my great-great-great-aunt Minnie (Hickok) Wilcox, and the rewards and pitfalls of what I like to call those Delayed Messages from “beyond.” While I was happy to put the mystery of Minnie to rest (and to collaborate with my new..