Category Archives: Family-stories

Cinema royalty

Herbert Marshall, who starred with Moyna Macgill in "As You Like It" (1920) and "Interference" (1927). Photograph by Elwood Bredell

I am currently helping to research the ancestry of Dame Angela Lansbury for an event NEHGS will hold in November, and part of my work..

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A night of staff research

Initial chart showing the frequency of NEHGS staff immigrant ancestors arriving in the U.S. by year, based on entries to the Immigrant Ancestors of NEHGS Staff database. Courtesy of Ginevra Morse, NEHGS Online Education Coordinator

Since coming to work at NEHGS,..

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The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

I’ll be blunt: J.K. Rowling is my favorite author. I’ve read (and reread) all of her books, watched her interviews (including an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?), and I follow her on Twitter and Facebook. She has..

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One small pin

A little while back, my mother gave me several pins which had belonged to her mother. One of them was a badge for the American Women's Voluntary Services (AWVS), an organization established in 1940 that provided aid and assistance to the American armed forces and..

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The Alden Homestead

The Alden Homestead

My regular trip from Plymouth up to Duxbury this week was a pleasant, sunny autumnal drive. I wasn’t exactly tracing my ancestors’ footsteps, since I went up Route 3. (If they had gone overland, their trail would be closer to what is now Route..

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"Saloon Man Routs Amateur Gunmen"

Click on images to expand them.

Some family stories are so fascinating and memorable that they are passed down through multiple generations, becoming a well-known piece of lore; others, while equally interesting, get lost in the shuffle. The latter truism might..

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Courtesy titles: a primer

The coronation of King George IV in Westminster Hall, 1821.

Given that the British peerage system developed over time, its labyrinthine rules and unfamiliar nomenclature are not all that surprising. As feudal peerages – a somewhat amorphous class bound by land..

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Hidden treasures in Immigrant Aid Society records

Click on images to enlarge them. First two images courtesy of NARA; third image courtesy of AJHS-NEA.

While visiting the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston recently, I took the opportunity to look at their collection titled Charitable Irish Society Records...

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How I became a genealogist: Part Three

There was no light-bulb moment when I discovered I wanted to be a genealogist, but by the time I came back from Kentucky, I’d done enough work on my family’s genealogy to decide history wasn’t so dull after all. It happened that NEHGS was hiring an assistant editor for..

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Taking the long view

As a researcher, I most enjoy looking through collections of personal papers. For me, seeing what items still exist is just as interesting as finding the data they contain. I have gone through family papers that I was told were “junk” and found information that I would..

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