Category Archives: Critical-analysis

Challenging modern records

A record generated for Meghan Markle's great-grandmother.

In my post earlier this year, regarding preliminary research into the future Duchess of Sussex's matrilineal ancestry, I indicated that I had ordered several additional twentieth-century records that might..

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A genealogist's development

[Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series of interviews with David Allen Lambert.]

Question: You joined NEHGS in 1993 and currently are its Chief Genealogist. What roles have you held in your 25-year tenure?

Answer: When I first joined NEHGS in 1993 I had..

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Kate's questions

Fred Stone (1873-1959). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Kate had questions. Her father’s family history, with its many connections to the Stone family of Hollywood, had been shrouded in mystery for years. She explained that it had been covered up through old family..

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The family archivist

The Cann family archives, before organizing.

I am not sure why my family decided to elect me – maybe because I majored in History? – but I am the “family archivist.” What does that entail exactly? I have the responsibility to decide what is kept and what is thrown..

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Loops and curves

Here on the web team, Rachel Adams (Database Services Volunteer Coordinator at NEHGS) is always working to recruit new volunteers for our major projects. As she tries to think creatively about where to find new volunteers, she often hears apocalyptic pronouncements..

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Stolen identity

Every few months, we have a “Staff Research Night” at NEHGS, where staff members stay in the library after closing and work on their genealogy. Several of the staff genealogists assist staff members in other departments who might be new to genealogy or would like some..

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Finding Lempi's ring

Juho Matalamäki outside his house in Teuva, Finland.

Sometime in 2014 in eastern Finland, Toivo “Topi” Pränny was researching his great-great-grandfather, Juho Matalamäki. As a boy, Topi lived in what was once Juho’s house and had heard many stories about him,..

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Divine intervention?

My grandfather, later in life.

When the time comes for me to plunge into my Boston Irish Catholic ancestry – my Tierneys, Quinlans, Sweeneys, and Kellards – I intend to make full use of the Catholic parish records that are currently being digitized by the historic..

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Religious necrologies

Sister Annunciation of the Sisters of Providence. Providence Archives, Montréal

In extending my research on the Trottier family (Cousins of St. Casimir), I discovered in a genealogy of St. Casimir families that Marie Trottier’s eldest sister, Athanaïs, became a..

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Who's Phebe?

When a man married two women with the same first name in colonial America and the early post-revolutionary United States, genealogical misidentifications become more likely since the wife generally took her husband’s name in all subsequent records. Children may get..

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