A friend of mine traveled to Denmark a few years ago to do on-site ancestral research. While preparing for her trip, she ran across a postcard-size photo taken in Denmark that showed several men on board a fishing boat. An “X” inked onto the photo marked which of the men was her grandfather. Because the [...]
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I’m always on the lookout for antique hometown postcards–those beautiful old linen cards that depict the towns where my ancestors lived. To date, I’m tracked down postcards of St. Joseph, Unionville and Harris, Missouri on eBay, and all for under $5 each. Although the chances of finding a postcard of your ancestor’s actual dwelling are [...]
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I don’t know about you, but I forever need quick bits of information, like a statehood date, or where to write for dad’s death certificate. Fortunately, I got organized enough to make a separate folder in the Favorites or Bookmark section of my browser. Titled Quick Facts, the folder contains all the Web site addresses [...]
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Free online data is usually available thanks to the kindness and hard work of individual volunteers. One of the best examples of volunteerism at work is the USGenWeb, a massive site with individual pages for every U.S. county–all maintained by volunteers. Goodies vary per county, but many contain transcriptions of bibles, wills, census and tax [...]
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For many Americans, the War of 1812 remains an enigma, and for no small reason. Unlike the Revolution before, and the Civil War following, it wasn’t about independence or freedom. Instead, “Mr. Madison’s War” was all about special interests. New England remained staunchly neutral–after all, they were making a fortune supplying England in its war [...]
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One bit of information on a death record can throw open the doors to even your toughest research problem. At least that was the case for me. Although I’d searched at length for information on my great-great-grandparents, I made little progress until I ordered my great-grandfather’s death records. What was the clue? His mother’s maiden [...]
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I just ordered a book called Giants in the Cornfield, the story of the 27th Indiana Infantry during the Civil War. I ordered it when I discovered that an ancestor, Mike Keller (my genealogy software tells me that Mike was my great-granduncle) served in this regiment. As always, I started thinking about how hard it [...]
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Not long ago I wrote about receiving my grandmother’s wedding dress, and my concerns over its preservation. To learn more about preservation, I spoke with Aimee Newell, Curator of Textiles and Fine Arts at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. The village, which occupies 200-acres, contains collections, exhibits, and programs of everyday life in a small [...]
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