Category Archives: Family-stories

Generational spread

Waiting for the cold spring to turn warm, I was thinking ahead to my mother’s birthday, on May 10, which I always remember as a wonderful spring day with the lilacs in full bloom. That got me to thinking about how old my mother would have been – I thought at first it..

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Revisiting parents and grandparents

As someone who has been doing her genealogy since the 1980s, I can remember a time before there were many genealogy software options, let alone online databases. In fact, I started my genealogy on forms in a big legal size binder that I would take with me to the..

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A new Irish records database

Many Americans are familiar with the popular and scenic Ring of Kerry in Ireland. They might be less familiar with a peninsula just to the south, in County Cork, called Beara. Those who are attempting to trace their roots to the Beara Peninsula are among the most..

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"Boston people do not like such nonsense"

Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
Regina Shober Gray’s diary changes tone after the onset of her husband’s fatal illness, in 1876, so what does the year 1875 sound like? Mrs. Gray is 56 years old when the year begins, and..Continue reading

Education by camper

For reasons never fathomed or entered into by me, my parents loved to camp and travel. Mom’s mother called her a gypsy for following my Army dad around (they lived in nineteen places in the first 25 years of their marriage). My two older brothers got most of the tent..

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Solving a mystery?

I have written several blog posts on the contents of my grandfather's box of family papers, but even this seemingly inexhaustible resource must eventually run dry. I don't think I'm quite there, yet, although it's true that I am reaching the tail end of the easily..

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Buckman's Tavern

Buckman's Tavern. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Along with the Boston Marathon and a home Red Sox game, today Massachusetts observes Patriots’ Day. This holiday, the third Monday in April since 1969, commemorates the Battle of Lexington on 19 April 1775.[1]..

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An unusual family

The John Steward family of Goshen, New York. Harriet Le Roy Steward (later Stuyvesant) stands in the doorway; her brother Campbell, my great-grandfather, stands behind the toy cannon.

It is always a nice surprise to open a book and find a reference to a family..

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"A good many sharp speeches"

Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
Rhonda McClure’s Tuesday post on finding the correct death date of Martha Babcock Greene Amory in Paris reminded me that Regina Shober Gray (1818–1885) mentions her in several entries in the..Continue reading

Patriots

My Daughters of the American Revolution lineage is filed through Bernice Crane of Berkley, Massachusetts. I have other ancestors that I could have chosen, but I chose Bernice for a special reason – he is definitely my most interesting patriot ancestor.

Bernice and his..

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