Category Archives: Family-stories

Sins of the fathers

Major General Israel Putnam (1718-1790). Courtesy of Wikipedia.org

In family history research, we often glean valuable information from genealogies published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the period when genealogical publishing was enjoying..

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Phillips House

This is usually the time of year that many house museums open for the season. While the museums are closed this year due to the coronavirus, I thought I would look back at some of my favorites. One that stands out is the Phillips House, a beautiful Federal-style..

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Plagues are personal

Baptismal record for Laers, son of Truels Laersen, living at Bruk 4 of Broe, from the Kirkebok for Rennesøy Palm Sunday 24 March 1771.

While I was researching and writing “The Early Years” segment of the book I have been writing about my..

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Gone to the dogs

My daughter adopted her first dog back in July. Emje is a 9-year-old, 78-pound creature who curls up in your lap like a cat. His papers say he is a Pit Bull, but he has an unusually shaped body that got us thinking he may be a mixed breed. To find out for sure, we did..

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'Grandpa Ewer'

Recently Meaghan E. H. Siekman shared tips for how to incorporate genealogy into at-home learning, noting that going through old photographs is a good way of introducing children to relatives who passed away before they were born.

That reminded me of a mystery in my..

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Family ties

What is it that they say about coincidences, that there are no coincidences? The word is defined as suggesting a remarkable concurrence of circumstances that seem to have “no apparent causal connection.” The OED shows a 1598 usage meaning “exactly contemporaneous” and..

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History as art

© 2020 Nina Tugarina

It is always a mystery how an artist gets inspiration. It could be a book, a person, an object, or even an historical event. Massachusetts, a state with many historical turning points, has always attracted artists. It is impossible to count how..

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Twilight

Courtesy of Findagrave.com

From our modern perspective, seventeenth-century New England was a strange cultural cosmos: a post-medieval/pre-modern world where metaphysical beliefs, superstition, and fear of the supernatural still prevailed – a world in which people..

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A walk in their footsteps

Sam Carlsen in his Coast Guard uniform, ca. 1940s.

My great-grandfather was born in Wisconsin in 1901, just about a year after his parents and older sisters immigrated from Norway. His father, a sailor who was once "honored by the King of Norway," settled the family..

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Courage and innovation

Climbing Mount Washington with a view of the other Presidential Mountains, ca. 1870. Courtesy of the Mt. Washington Auto Road website

New Hampshire has a special place in my heart. My friends and I camp in the White Mountains every summer and each year we find..

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