Category Archives: International-genealogical-research

Banks' Planters of the Commonwealth

In genealogical research, discovering the names of ships on which immigrant ancestors came to the New World is interesting not only as a discrete fact, but because it can often be a clue for further research. As there was a tendency for members of communities to travel..

Continue reading

Putting your best foot forward

Image source: http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/generationemigration/2011/11/02/traditions-of-emigration-the-irish-habit-of-going-away/irish-immigrants-ellis-island/

It is difficult to imagine leaving everything you have ever known behind. Yet millions of our..

Continue reading

Thomas M. Menino 1942-2014

The Ancestry of The Honorable Thomas Michael Menino, Mayor of Boston, Massachusetts. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, NEHGS

In April 2009, the New England Historic Genealogical Society presented Mayor Thomas Michael Menino of Boston (1942–2014) with a..

Continue reading

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,..

Continue reading

Two hundred posts on Vita Brevis

An illustration used with Andrew Krea's transcription of Martha Anne Kuhn's diary, June-July 2014. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections

This post marks the two-hundredth entry on Vita Brevis since its début on January 10. After ten months and more than 250,000 page..

Continue reading

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...

Continue reading

Planning an ancestral trip

Last week, I was happily recalling my 2012 trip to Finland, specifically a visit to my ancestral village, Teuva. I had the great good luck to meet cousins there and see the land that my ancestors farmed – and even the foundation of the tiny house where my grandmother..

Continue reading

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

First two images from Fritz Verdenhalven, Die Deutsche Schrift (The German Script) (Neustadt an der Aisch, Germany: Degener, 1991).

An article linked from The Weekly Genealogist had me thinking about how to conduct research in unfamiliar languages. I will soon..

Continue reading

A code of ethics

Disclaimer: If you are a member of the Happ family of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, please read no further.

I think I’ve done something bad. I may never be invited to another Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll never be allowed to see my family again.

I think I just discovered that..

Continue reading

"My ancestor was born ... where?!"

Detail, view of Saint Helena. Images courtesy of bweaver.nom.sh

One must always expect surprises when researching family history, because you just never know what you might uncover.

When researching my paternal ancestors, I discovered that our family had ties to one..

Continue reading