Category Archives: International-genealogical-research

The Coffin cluster

Three new sketches have been uploaded to the Early New England Families database for Tristram Coffin, his mother, and one of his sisters.

Tristram Coffin, age 32, and his wife Dionis (Stevens) Coffin, about the same age, brought their five children – ranging in age..

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In ceaseless orbit

Gowrie House, Perth. Courtesy of Perth & Kinross Council

As I continue to map out the connections of the Livingston family of Callendar, Stirlingshire, I am struck by how comparatively closely related the sixteenth-century Livingston family was to two of the..

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Marrying up

The ruins of Cadzow Castle.

In reviewing some late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century marriages in the Livingston family in Scotland, I was struck by a pair of alliances that must have been important to the Livingstons of that era. This review also underlined..

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Royal claims

The future King Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor.

Another story of a person “claiming” the British throne appeared in the news recently. While years ago I wrote about a silly claim of an American going back centuries allegedly to the Welsh throne, this story is..

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Family left behind

Thomas and Bernard Corcoran arrive in New York in 1920.

Tracing your immigrant ancestors across the ocean is a journey. You need to understand the ports they have left from as well as those to which they came. You also need to familiarize yourself with the different..

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The saga of a family Bible

John George Lea with his wife Harriet Ann (Wilkinson) Lea and their children Mary Olive (Lea) Rogers and John Samuel Lea, ca. 1906.

Since 1993, I have read countless family records within the pages of old family Bibles for colleagues and patrons at NEHGS. I have..

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Francis de Marneffe Family Collection at NEHGS

Diary entry of Francis de Marneffe, 9 March 1941.

As many of you may have concluded through your research or education, primary sources are incomparable when it comes to understanding events and information. They often hold truths about which we can otherwise merely..

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My little slice of Irish ancestry

The author's children with relatives in Ireland, 2004.

Although my background is almost all German and English, I’ve always wanted to find a bit of Irish in me. This is because my husband was born in Cork City and after numerous visits I’ve fallen in love with..

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Edward to Boris, how many times?

King Edward I

Last week, I put together several charts relating to newly appointed U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. These charts were based on the research of Gary Boyd Roberts, and I had assisted him on some of Boris’s Pennsylvania and Connecticut ancestry, which..

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Happy error

In genealogy, mistakes are rarely fortuitous. They often send us down time-consuming rabbit holes and frustrate us to no end. But, sometimes, they work in our favor.

Recently, I had been working to extend my Garvin line in Mallow parish in County Cork. I had been able..

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