All Blog Posts (3,110)

My genealogy search started over ten years ago.  I have researched many branches of my line and my husband's but the one that I am focused on is the family of John Thomas Taylor of South Carolina, my husband's great-great grandfather. 

John Thomas and his wife, Julia Nichols, left South Carolina after 1870 and headed to Arkansas via Cleburne County, Alabama.  I have much on our direct line from 1870 until the present, however, the past of John Thomas Taylor has eluded me for years.  I…

After searching Homestead Records of my Grandparents, Greatgrandparents and Great greatgrandparents of my Mother and visiting the house in Hilliard that they lived in, I'm ready to visit Ukraine and walk on the land that they walked on.   My Grandmother, Mary Diduch age 13 came with her Father  George or Yuri (40) and Mother Wasylena Diduch(36) along with Wasylena's parents  Ivan Tofan (54) and Maria Tofan (54).  They left Rusiw near Sniatyn southwestern   Ukraine in March 1900 and sailed…

Often, on the records, the people listed as "witnesses" to a wedding or "informants" of the information (births, deaths) are close family members. Pay attention to these people. Search them out. Knowing more about them will help you to know more about your ancestors.

For example, my great grandmother's wedding registration lists her sister, Janet, as a witness. This particular sister was one of three sisters that my great grandmother had. But she was the oldest sister and the eldest…

I was recently telling someone about the work I do and I got some interesting feedback. He said, “you’re an interpreter.”

I have been spending some time with that statement and find it very intriguing. I guess I have always collapsed an interpreter with a translator. But when you look up the definition an interpreter is someone who facilitates communication. From the dictionary… “The interpreter will take in a complex concept from one language, choose the most appropriate vocabulary…

The Toll of Time….and Council’s

Still on the theme of local cemeteries. Following a visit to Eastern Cemetery in Kingston, I was astonished to witness in such a well kept cemetery that an eagerness to protect the visitors, the stones themselves were being damaged.

It looks to me as though the sinking of some older graves, very likely due to some flooding and…

Is there any better way for a genealogist to spend a Friday night than glued to the telly watching Who Do You Think You Are? The programs have been mesmerising. And although we all know the things that the “experts” explain to the stars, it is once again fascinating to piece it all together and know the story.

Watching Kim Cattrall, Rosie and Steve Buscemi, I have decided that when my great grandfather went off to fight the Boer War and never returned, he likely wasn’t…

I am looking For James Barnett Born 1825 in ten. married Milley Barnett.trying to find james dad.

I have no info on him

 Irish/ Scottish  Research Talk on 1 June by Anne Bowman.  Lemon Grove Library 

A selection of my photographs from a recent exploration of cemeteries in Hull. Dating back to the early 1800’s, there is certainly much evidence of death, decay and disease. Many of the surviving stones had in fact been relocated from previous locations as the City expanded.

One of the most interesting finds was evidence of the 1849 Cholera epidemic in the City and the…

Being of the surname Billington, my family, though in Yorkshire for over 100 years, is often asked about its Lancashire origins and in particular I am often asked by historians if I have any connections to the Hangmen of Bolton. In the south of England the question is quite different and I am asked of my connections to John Billington who travelled with the Pilgrim father’s…

Last weekend we were in Washington DC, and at the top of my list of things to do in our capital city was to visit the National Archives.  If you read my blog story from last October, “Did George Washington Sign Here?”  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/10/amanuensis-monday-george-washington.html  you will know that I was questioning the authenticity of George Washington’s signature…

My 5x great grandfather Abner Poland served in Revolutionary War, but so did his father, Abner Poland, Sr., and so the records have always been difficult to separate when I started to research the Poland family.   He was born in 1761, and was only fifteen when the Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred in 1775.  He enlisted not long after, on 15 January 1776 as a private in Captain Abraham Dodge’s Company in Ipswich, Massachusetts.   He reenlisted in 1777 for another two years, and…