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The John C. Proctor Home and Park

In addition to being on the National Register of Historic Places, Proctor Center represents another example of Outdoor Genealogy. John C. Proctor donated the center to Peoria, Illinois, more than a century ago. The center officially opened in 1913.

The Proctor family hailed from Henniker, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. The local academy, Proctor Academy in Andover, was named in honor of the Proctor family and founded by the Unitarian society.

By some accounts, the… Continue

Added by Judy Rosella Edwards on November 20, 2009 at 7:36am — No Comments

The Ayes Ancestry

D' Alez, de Alseto, d' Alest, d' Ales, d'Alles, D' Allez.

En Langueduc des anciens comtes d' Alez et marquis d' Anduse. D' Apres le moine Thegan, historien du 10 siecle, cite par l auteur de l' histoire des regentes de France, les seigneurs de Anduse descendent des duc d' Aquitaine, issus de Bernard comte de Barcelonne, que Thegan dit etre de race royale en stirpe regali.

Saint Guillaume, duc d' Aquitaine, de septimarie et de Bourgogne, Premier Prince d' Orange, comte… Continue

Added by Ayesart on November 20, 2009 at 6:30am — No Comments

Use of abbreviations

I have just read the Genwise newsletter, and find one of my frustrations is built into the Genwise system.

If I were to record an ancestor as being born, living or dieing in DG, would you know where i meant? It is an abbreviation for Dumfries and Galloway. But I would not expect Americans to know that.

Yet, we non-Americans are expected to know your state abbreviations!

Come on, guys, stop being lazy!

Added by William Douglas on November 19, 2009 at 4:16pm — 2 Comments

The Other Mayflowers, Voyage 4

The Hessian Soldier who stayed in the New World

Part four in my Thanksgiving series about ancestors who DIDN’T arrive in the New World on the Mayflower. My 4x great grandfather Johann Daniel Bollman was a surgeon from Hammersleben in Saxony, Germany. He came to North America with Baron de Riedesel’s Brunswick Regiment of Hessian Soldiers in 1776. The Duke of Brunswick had contracted with England to send 3,964 foot soldiers and cavalry to America.… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 19, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

Wiki FamilySearch Barn Raising Projects

In the Beta version of the FamilySearch start page there is a link entitled "Learn." The link takes you to a new "Learning & How To's" page. I am impressed with the links provided on that page which lead to the FamilySearch Research Wiki. Although I am well aware of the huge amount of information pouring into the Wiki, it is apparent that FamilySearch is finally getting to the point where all of this information will become more accessible.…

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Added by James Tanner on November 19, 2009 at 8:48am — No Comments

The Other Mayflowers, Voyage 3

Prisoner of War aboard the ship “John and Sara”

From Scotland to Boston, 1651

This is part three of my miniseries of Thanksgiving blogs on the immigration of certain ancestors to America, during the week when our thoughts usually rest with our Mayflower passenger ancestors. My 7x great grandfather William Munroe arrived in Massachusetts a little more than thirty years after the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth. His immigration was forced as a prisoner of war and indentured servant,… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 18, 2009 at 9:30pm — No Comments

DAR Online Research!

http://services.dar.org/public/dar_research/search/

This is great, if this had been available 3 years ago, my Evans research would have been an easy trip. :)

Added by Kate Steere on November 18, 2009 at 5:05pm — 4 Comments

FamilySearch Alpha is now Beta

For some time now, on Labs.FamilySearch, there has been an alpha version of the new homepage for FamilySearch. An announcement on November 17, 2009 introduced the beta version of the new homepage. The announcement was made on the FamilySearch Labs Blog. As explained in the announcement:

The FamilySearch Beta is a project that will eventually replace the current www.FamilySearch.org website with a new site at the same address that integrates all of… Continue

Added by James Tanner on November 18, 2009 at 9:01am — No Comments

Lily Koppel’s “The Red Leather Diary”

If you follow me on any of the social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, then you know a couple of weeks ago I spent the week in Valley Forge Pennsylvania at the Association of Personal Historians annual conference. It was an amazing five days (plus I tacked on another two to do some urban touring around Philadelphia), and I met some remarkable people and learned a lot. My last blog post was a general recap of the week there and some of the highlights but I would have to say that I… Continue

Added by Stefani Twyford on November 17, 2009 at 4:56pm — No Comments

The Other Mayflowers, Voyage 2

Unknown Ship, from Rotterdam to Salem, Massachusetts

This is part two of a series of Thanksgiving blogs for my ancestors who DIDN’T come on the Mayflower. Today I’m thinking about my 3x great grandfather Peter Hoogerzeil. We don’t know the name of the ship he took to arrive in America, and we don’t know the date, but the other details of his immigration are so interesting my cousin wants to write them into a historical romance. I’ll… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 17, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

Thanksgiving -- the end of New FamilySearch

Well, not really the end, just the end of the longest software introduction in the history of computers. The Salt Lake Temple District will be completely given access to New FamilySearch on November 23, 2009. They should probably declare a national holiday. Oh, they did. Only it is three days later on Thursday, November 26, 2009.
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Added by James Tanner on November 16, 2009 at 7:48pm — No Comments

The Other Mayflowers Series

1960 Lockheed Constellation- Madrid to New York City

This week before Thanksgiving will be dedicated to blogging about my other family members and ancestors who came to the New World, not just my Mayflower ancestors. There are a lot to choose from, but I’m going to start with my mother and father-in-law, who arrived in New York City in 1960 aboard an Iberia Airlines Lockheed Constellation prop plane from Madrid, Spain. It was 340… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 16, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

Cincinnati Library digitizing full color Sanborn Maps

The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County's Virtual Library has full color Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps online, available for download. These large scale street plans include building outlines, property boundaries, and building use, dating back to 1904. The first two volumes are currently online and more will be made available as the collection is digitized. You can view them at the following url:… Continue

Added by Dan on November 15, 2009 at 10:04pm — No Comments

New collections in Record Search go into Wiki FamilySearch -- sort of

Record Search added a new collection of Massachusetts Marriage Records from 1842 to 1915. The collection is presently (November 15, 2009) only 19% complete. The collection includes the name index and images of Massachusetts statewide marriage registers. The marriage registers are in numbered volumes arranged by year then by individual town. Currently only marriages for the years 1906-1915 are available.
Read more...

Added by James Tanner on November 15, 2009 at 6:53pm — No Comments

A part of my pathway

Good Morning, My name is Kerry Bailey. I was born and raised on the southwest side of Chicago, IL, USA some 58 yrs ago. I have been a widow for 17 yrs. I have two daughters who were 5 and 9 when my husband died unexpectedly in 1992 while he was away on business. This was not my first loss. I had one other daughter, Cassandra Jewell, who we lost in 1984 at three and half months old following open heart surgery due to congestive heart failure. My two daughters and one 3 year old grandson now live… Continue

Added by Kerry Bailey on November 15, 2009 at 1:51pm — No Comments

New FamilySearch -- the end is in sight Members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Salt Lake Temple District will have their first official access to the New FamilySearch p…

New FamilySearch -- the end is in sight

Members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Salt Lake Temple District will have their first official access to the New FamilySearch program on November 16, 2009. Thirty Stakes will gain access on that date leaving approximately 38 remaining Stakes for a future date. This may well end one of the longest, if not the longest, software introductions in the history of computers. It has been over two years since the first Stake… Continue

Added by James Tanner on November 13, 2009 at 6:00pm — No Comments

SteveMorse.org and an immigration mystery solved

I've been working with the passenger lists and ship manifests from the Ellis Island website (www.ellisisland.org) and, like many people, became just a bit frustrated with some of the inabilities of the search engine to find and sort the search results. Particularly, I wanted to find all of the people that came from a very small, mountain town in Hungary between the years of 1900-1920. It appears that most of the young adult men were… Continue

Added by tami osmer glatz on November 12, 2009 at 5:25pm — No Comments

Personal Ancestral File -- only mostly dead

I recently had a discussion with a patron at the Mesa Regional Family History Center who was trying to learn more about genealogy to help others with their research. She indicated that she was sort of serving by default as the Ward Family History Consultant in her LDS Ward. During the discussion she mentioned that a member of her Ward was teaching classes and insisting that everyone had to use Personal Ancestral File. Apparently, as I have mentioned in the past, some people think their is a… Continue

Added by James Tanner on November 12, 2009 at 8:52am — No Comments

DISTURBING THE DEAD – PART II

I believe that the solution to my riddle is that there was a generation left out of the oral history told by my great grandmother.

I have looked at an 1805 marriage in Stretham, Surrey between James Wicks and Mary Chitty but repeatedly discarded it because of my great grandmother’s story and the certainty that Mary must have been a Russell. Finally – and mostly because of a lack of other possibilities – I decided to research this marriage and search for the Chitty… Continue

Added by Fred Close on November 11, 2009 at 11:10pm — No Comments

Josiah Rucks-Rev War Patriot

My GGG Grandfather Josiah Rucks, born in Chesterfield Co., VA in 1759 and died and buried in Smith Co., TN in 1836, fought with two of his brothers in the American Revolutionary War. He was given title to land in Smith Co., TN where he settled and formed a Baptist Church at Knob Springs. He is buried on what was his estate at Smith Co., TN. His headstone reads "A Rev War Soldier". At one time the DAR accepted this as proof of his service, but this is no longer true. I have been trying to find… Continue

Added by Beverly Simpson on November 11, 2009 at 3:00pm — No Comments