One of the pleasures of collecting old photographs is the (perhaps unsurprising) genealogical content they embody – or maybe that’s just me. The focus of my recent collecting has been..

Colonial Massachusetts records are a family historian’s dream come true. From the beginning, early Bay colonists meticulously tracked the goings on of their communities, leaving records of government and community alike. These habits have resulted in a veritable trove..

The Federal Census of the United States was established to accurately list the nation's citizens, including those serving time in jail. In June 1850, men by the name of Christian Meadows and William..

I have been looking at lots and lots of photos lately – mostly of my mother-in-law, Ella Mabel Corke. Her recent death at 99 – almost 100 – prompted a sifting of hundreds of photos. Ella’s family always seemed to have a camera at..

As I have been making my way through my grandfather’s box of family papers, one letter – written by my great-great-grandmother Catharine Elizabeth (White) Steward[1] to her son, my great-grandfather[2] – has proved elusive. It was, I remembered, written in 1864, and..

I have, on most occasions, an irreverent attitude toward my family history. I think the critical details of names, dates, and places are the foundation of any genealogical research, but beyond that it seems..

When I started my experiment of creating a web page about seven months ago, I advised everyone not to follow my advice and not to expect quick results. Good thing, because as of this writing, I have just managed to publish a website with one page!

Back in February I..

Mabel Winters, my great-grandmother, left Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia, when she was about eighteen or nineteen years..

As an avid genealogical researcher, I am keenly aware of the role that tradition plays in history. In all cultures, each new generation largely expects to follow traditions set by their predecessors, often without much thought as to..

In his monumental work The Pioneers of Massachusetts, Charles Henry Pope summarized the occupations and trades of 1,725 of the 6,000 “pioneers” for whom the information was available. These 6,000 individuals were identified “in the journals and lists of the colonies,..