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The Dreaded "A" Word

...no not that one! "Adoption", genealogically speaking. By that what I mean is an "adoption" that can put a knothole in your family tree. Let me give an example from my own experience. There is a family debate as to whether my Great-Grandfather is adopted or not. George Grimsley was born 27 Oct 1867, Emporia, KS to John Smith Grimsley and Katherine (Drake) Grimsley. I have found numerous references to his birth, including the almost definitive Cutler's History of…

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Added by Darin Grimsley on September 22, 2010 at 10:50am — 4 Comments

Some common mistakes in genealogy

I tend to look at an awful lot of genealogy and some of it is really

awful. Here is a compilation of a few of the most obvious and easily

rectified errors:

1. Failing to look for and record the correct full name of an ancestor.

One of the side benefits of looking at a large collection of user

submitted family trees is that it is fairly easy to compare the

submissions of any one individual and see the variations. In this case, I

have used… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 22, 2010 at 9:13am — No Comments

Most Rev Daniel Lavery St Louis

Hi Folks,

any one know anything about the Most Rev Daniel Lavery who servedin St Louis circa 1896-1906

Added by Bernard Collins on September 21, 2010 at 9:47am — 2 Comments

Massachusetts Tour Guides and their Myths

The John Harvard statue located in Harvard Yard

A few years ago Philadelphia began a campaign to stop tour guides from telling myths and to start studying history…

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Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on September 21, 2010 at 7:03am — No Comments

My genealogy blogs

You are invited to have a look at my four main genealogy blogs:

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Added by Judy Webster on September 21, 2010 at 12:55am — No Comments

William Harvey Hinkle's Parents

WILLIAM HARVEY HINKLE'S PARENTS WERE ANN KESNER AND JACOB HINKLE. ANY INFORMATION???

Added by Diana Hinkle Johnson on September 19, 2010 at 2:26pm — No Comments

Maybe the Pinta..yes, THAT Pinta...

It's funny. Sometimes we neglect tracing back one of our ancestors because...well, because there's so much material about other ancestor lines or we think a particular line is so exciting and interesting. Lately, I've been re-tracing my footsteps to my great great grandmother, Maria Josefa Bermudez (1826-1880). She married into the Yorba family in 1842 in San Juan Capistrano. I had done sketchy research into the Bermudez line in California, but wanted to start seeing where and who they were… Continue

Added by William S Dean on September 18, 2010 at 10:55am — 3 Comments

No absolutes in genealogy

People's lives are inherently messy, no matter how short or how long and

trying to completely quantify a life is probably unattainable. Even

huge biographies, like Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln do not do justice

to a life. So what can we hope to accomplish as genealogists? How much

information is enough? Where do we stop? Or do we ever stop in

collecting information? If you are like me, you will always believe that

there is one more document and one more place to… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 17, 2010 at 10:13pm — 1 Comment

Musings Before and After "the facts" Part One - Before...

All things considered, many genealogists never get to visit significant geological "roots". Imagine going to the place where some of your ancestors first set foot on "the new homeland". That's what awaits me September 20-21 in San Diego, California. In 1769, California was still "terra incognito" to the Spanish who "owned" it. Isolated points along the coastline had been roughly mapped, but nothing was known. There were no settlements, no waiting stockpiles of supplies, no allies. That is the… Continue

Added by William S Dean on September 16, 2010 at 11:24am — 1 Comment

Register for our next live webinar (October 6, 2010) - Helping Unlock the World's Records

Join us for our next live webinar on Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at 2:00PM EDT. The webinar, Helping Unlock the World's Records: an Insider's Perspective on FamilySearch Indexing will be presented by Jim Ericson, product marketing manager at FamilySearch.

Registration is free but space is limited.

Webinar…

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Added by Geoff Rasmussen on September 16, 2010 at 10:39am — No Comments

Library of Congress Newspapers on Microfilm

Interlibrary Loan is one of the most underused resources for

genealogists. As I teach classes at the Mesa Arizona Regional Family

History Center I frequently ask the class participants if they are aware

of the interlibrary loan process. Usually, only one or two out of

twenty or more have even heard of borrowing books from remote libraries.

In our own Mesa Public Library, the Interlibrary Loan selection appears

on the individual login screen for registered users… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 16, 2010 at 8:43am — No Comments

What place controversy?

In a recent post, DearMyrtle asked the question "Being Politically Correct: What should we do as historians?"

I think this question falls into the category of the inclusion of

controversial information into our genealogies. Should we "edit" history

to take out all the undesirable and difficult subjects? What about the

criminals, the illegitimate children and the poor and… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 15, 2010 at 10:30pm — No Comments

Princess Kaiulani Movie out on DVD

The independent film "Princess Ka'iulani" I reviewed last May on this blog post ( http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/05/princess-kaiulani-in-cambridge-again.html ) is finally being released on DVD today, September 14th, 2010, in stores and online. You can read about it more at this link at Amazon…

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Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on September 14, 2010 at 9:41am — No Comments

Newest obituary collections added - 9-14-2010

Hi all,

Below you will find the latest obituary collections added since the last list.

To search for your surnames, be sure to use the searchbox that has the GenealogyBuff.com watermark and the name of the county on the search button. Other search boxes may be a sponsor.

A complete list of collections can be found at…

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Added by Bill Cribbs on September 14, 2010 at 8:11am — No Comments

FamilySearch.org status and update

Indications are that FamilySearch must be getting closer to releasing the new version of their FamilySearch.org

website. This last week or so, a banner appeared on the original site

inviting users to try the new beta version. There is also an invitation

on the FamilyHistory Library startup page to try the beta version of the

Family History Library Catalog which is incorporated in the beta site.

The beta site for… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 12, 2010 at 10:05am — No Comments

what area would they have sailed from ??

Hi everyone
In the 1840's if you lived around Crossmolina in Northern Ireland were would you have set sail to go to Canada ? Now Killala Bay is not far or would they have traveled to other ports?I can't find any ships that would have sailed from Killala Bay ! can anyone help? Thanks

Added by Diane Warren on September 12, 2010 at 6:46am — 2 Comments

searching howland

My mother is Elsie Howland Copp born 1920. Her father was Thomas Stanley Howland born 1894 in New Bedford Mass. His father was Henry D. Howland married to Annie M. Simpson. That's as far back as I know for sure. What I'm trying to do is find out if my lineage goes back to the Mayflower. I am new at this and not really sure what to do. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Added by connie simonow on September 10, 2010 at 2:10pm — 10 Comments

History Street Cred

My historical "street cred" is strong in California. My ancestors were among the first Spanish/Mexican settlers in my home state of California, so you may be able to understand both my interest and my quest to always "know more" since my "roots" are so deep in California history. Many of the following ancestors' sons also served at California Presidios, gained grants to rancho lands; many of their daughters married into the same or other Spanish/Californio families.

Many of these men… Continue

Added by William S Dean on September 10, 2010 at 2:10pm — No Comments

Researching in the Oberkaufungen Kirchbücher

The amount of information contained in these Churchbooks gradually increases from very minimal in 1573, to quite a lot by 1830. For example, the first page in the first volume containing the first 26 Baptismal Records of a total of 41 for the year 1573, the very first… Continue

Added by Mitchell Staude on September 10, 2010 at 12:15pm — 1 Comment

Connecting the Research to the Genealogist

A while back, I wrote a post about connecting the genealogist to the

research. Now, I am going to turn that around and talk about another

side of the issue, connecting the research to the genealogist. In other

words, how do we get the information we find out to the genealogical

community without being lost in the background noise of the Internet?

A article from Ancestry Magazine from November/December 2000 called

"Share and Beware -- Sharing Genealogy in the… Continue

Added by James Tanner on September 10, 2010 at 8:15am — No Comments