Category Archives: Research-methods

“Beginning at a stake and stones…”

According to John Emory Morris’ Stephen Lincoln of Oakham, Massachusetts, His Ancestors and Descendants (1895), Stephen Lincoln first built a home in Oakham, Worcester County, Massachusetts, in 1784. As late as 1895, this house stood on the road leading from Rutland..

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Excerpts from Martha Anne Kuhn's diary, 1836

Martha Anne (Kuhn) Clarke kept a diary in 1836, while a student at the Temple School in Boston. The series of excerpts began here and continued here and here. In this installment she writes about the conclusion of a journey around New England.

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Mothers-in-law and "new print" searches

Complementing my last post about researching other spouses of spouses, this week we add mothers-in-law.  No sooner had the new Early New England Families Study Project sketch on William Hilton been posted when a sharp observer (“Westtrack”) wrote in with a correction...

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Revelations from my recliner: Part One

From left to right: Orella (Turnbull) Turnbull, her daughter Sylvia (Turnbull) Rohrbach, and Sylvia's daughter Helen (Rohrbach) Johnson holding her daughter Norma Johnson.

I recently spent a week at home, recovering from foot surgery. With time off from work, I..

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A brief history of New Hampshire vital records

I was recently asked about the apparent disappearance of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century vital records of Walpole, New Hampshire. The originals survived into the early twentieth century, but they are no longer to be found in the town clerk’s office in Walpole.

I..

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Searching journals on AmericanAncestors.org

Click on images to enlarge them

NEHGS members have the ability to search a large number of genealogical journals, including The New England Historical and Genealogical  Register, The American Genealogist, The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, Rhode Island Roots, ..

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Excerpts from Martha Anne Kuhn's diary, 1836

The "quarter card" for Mr. Alcott's school, summer 1836

Martha Anne (Kuhn) Clarke kept a diary in 1836, while a student at the Temple School in Boston. The series of excerpts began here and continued here. In this installment she writes of her journey through..

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Notes on a Wolf family reunion

Members of the Quartette Club in New Britain, Connecticut

I arrived last fall at the New England Historic Genealogical Society as a neophyte in family research and I still consider myself one. My position as NEHGS Publications Coordinator, however, has given me some..

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World wide Italian immigration

The Museo Nazionale Emigrazione Italiana in Rome

When we think about Italian immigration here at NEHGS, it is often because the patron we are helping is looking for ancestors who arrived here in the late 1800s or early 1900s. However, Italians immigrated to many..

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A suspicious first cousin

My mother's grandfather and her aunt

One day a few years ago, my mother (who was 85 at the time) got a phone call from a young lady who said “Hello, I think I’m your cousin!” Mom, who was well aware of and always on the lookout for scams, immediately assumed that..

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