All Blog Posts (3,108)

James Wilson was born in Londonderry, New Hampshire on March 15, 1765. His father was a farmer, and James was an apprentice to a blacksmith. He had little formal education. In 1796 he…

Dear Member, We are looking for individuals who can participate in evaluating new.familysearch.org before each quarterly update.

We need individuals with different levels of computer skills, family history backgrounds, languages, and new.familysearch.org experience.

We try…

An early Halloween Story.....

In the spring of 1819 the residents of Ipswich’s Chebacco Parish (now the town of Essex) saw lantern light in the graveyard at night. Soon they discovered that the graves had been disturbed, and several families discovered that their relative’s graves were empty. Eight graves, going back to…

Since 1995, Ira Glass, one of the greatest storytellers of our time, has been the host of the radio show “This American Life,” a weekly hour-long show that is primarily journalistic non-fiction but also features essays, short fiction and occasionally memoirs.

I had the pleasure of seeing Ira live this past weekend at Jones Hall here in Houston. My experience was less like sitting in a…

I just came across some interesting information regarding my grandfather, Frank Boyd. Frank originated from Waycross, Georgia. What I now know about Frank is his mother's name was Parilee and Peter Boyd was his father.

What is my interesting information? Frank had a wife. Her name was Inidiana and they had a daughter, Annie.

To some this just may be this is great, you found a grain, that little piece that gives our search gratification. What I found was…

News Clipping from the Salem Evening News, June 3, 1938 (a Massachusetts Newspaper).

Old houses in Essex Of…

I previously wrote "Searching For Me" but have come to an additional afterthought. I look like my father, Cecil Boyd.

Out of his six children that's what everyone said. Then I thought of his father, Frank Boyd. Frank died when I was five, so my recollection is not that keen but I remember that his complexion was a reddish bronze. He had high cheekbones and shiny soft hair, known to African American's as good hair. But there were his eyes. His eyes seemed to have the ability to…

We recently completed a video that we were hired to do by Bright Sky Press, a Houston-based publisher of fine books for national and international trade distribution. The video explores the message of Venerable Master Miao Tsan, abbot at Vairocana Zen Monastery in Garden Grove, CA, lecturer and author of several books including his newly published, “Just Use…