Category Archives: Family-stories

Why I Love Revolutionary War Pension Records

Sheilagh Doerfler’s recent post about finding Revolutionary War ancestors reminded me of the story I tell people about how much I love Revolutionary War pension records. They often contain significant genealogical information—but the first time I ever consulted these..

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Divorce, Abandonment, and Family Secrets

There has always been some secrecy surrounding the Heisinger side of my family. My grandfather did not know anything about his paternal grandfather, Charles Heisinger, because my great-grandfather, Walter Heisinger, never spoke of his father. We were not even sure of..

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Finding the Fahys in Ireland

Grandmother Fahy's house, County Galway.

I recently went to Ireland to visit my dad’s family. Having investigated my grandmother’s ancestry on a previous trip, I wanted to focus this time on learning more about the Fahys.

Thomas Fahy, my paternal grandfather, died..

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An Ancestral Connection with Prohibition

Two men with a whiskey still, sometime between 1920 and 1930. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Recently I uncovered some interesting information about my husband’s great-grandfather, Peter Consigli. According to the 6 September 1930 Boston Herald,

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Finding Revolutionary War Ancestors

Frederick Wingdorf's record in the Index to Revolutionary War Service Records.

Patriots’ Day—the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord—is fast approaching here in Massachusetts. This particular holiday makes many of us a little reflective. Was my..

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Finding Uncle Morris

Family Tradition versus Fact, and a few shades of Gray

Gravestone of Morris Larned Healy. Findagrave.com.

One story often repeated in my family concerned the mystery of my grandfather’s uncle, Morris Larned Healy, who reportedly had died of “lead poisoning” at a..

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Crossing Paths: Two Stories of Buchenwald

U.S. Army troops in Germany, 1945. Photograph by Herbert Gorfinkle. From the Papers of Herbert Gorfinkle, P-904 at the American Jewish Historical Society-New England Archives.

April 11, 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp...

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Testing the “strength” of a local legend

Elmer Bitgood and his back press board weighted with stones in Voluntown, CT. Findagrave.com account of William Molis, Jr.

Voluntown, a small eastern Connecticut town of just over two thousand, was once home to a national legend who is all but forgotten today. From..

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Beacon Hill Place

At center, a view of the intersection of Tremont and Beacon Streets. G. W. Bromley & Co., Atlas of the City of Boston: City Proper and Roxbury (1890), Plate 2. Click on the images to expand them.

Mrs. Gray’s Boston, at least during the 1860s, was one largely arrayed..

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A helping hand

Chris Child helping Jean get started in the 4th floor library at NEHGS.

Before I began researching my ancestry, I was overwhelmed by the undertaking. It seemed like an impossible task that would take up all my time — trying to make sense of all those..

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