New Database! Catholic Cemetery Association Records
Massachusetts: Catholic Cemetery Association Records, 1833-1940 contains records detailing lot sales, interments, lot owners, and dates and locations of burial for twenty cemeteries across eastern Massachusetts for the years 1833 through 1940. We’re releasing records from nine of these cemeteries—records from the remaining 11 cemeteries will be added by December 2021, and will total about one million names when complete. We're also offering interactive maps of each cemetery to help you locate each lot. Become a member of American Ancestors to search this and many more exclusive databases.
In partnership with the Archive Department of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston (RCAB) and the Catholic Cemetery Association of the Archdiocese of Boston (CCA)
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Online Conference: Christian Church Records & Research
Learn about researching your ancestors through church records, including the following denominations: Anabaptist, Baptist, Catholic, Congregational, Episcopal, Jehovah's Witnesses, Lutheran, Methodist & Methodist Episcopal, Mormon, Presbyterian, Quaker, and Seventh-day Adventist. Last chance before live Q&A! Register Now
Freedoms and Challenges: America’s Earliest Jewish Communities, 1650–1840
Join us in a lively and meaningful exploration of America’s earliest Jewish communities and their writings, architecture, ideas, and daily life experiences. Last chance before live broadcasts begin! Register Now
Online Course: History for Genealogists
This five-week online course will demonstrate how the principles, tools, and strategies of historians can be applied to your own family history research. Last chance before live broadcasts begin! Register Now
Video: Meaghan Siekman on Challenges in African American Genealogy
In this compelling and informative feature on African American genealogy, Tampa-based CBS-affiliate Channel 10 reporter Tamika Cody interviews American Ancestors' genealogist Dr. Meaghan Siekman about the 1870 brick wall and overcoming challenges to African American family history research.
Author Event: Russell Shorto with Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob
In Smalltime, Shorto traces his family’s history from a postwar factory town in Pennsylvania, back to a dusty hill-town in Sicily; and recounts three generations of life, labor, and love. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear about his family, the mafia, and the quintessentials of the Italian-American immigrant experience. Join us Tuesday, March 2 at 6 p.m. ET
Wirt County is located in the western part of West Virginia. The county seat is Elizabeth. The Wirt County, West Virginia website is dedicated to making information about the county’s history accessible. Click the Cemetery Homepage link to access the burials indexes. In addition to providing details related to the deceased individual’s life, death, and family relationships, researchers can find gravestone photographs and scanned death records, when available. Points of contact for the cemeteries have also been provided. The burials indexes are works in progress. Click the Obituary Archive link to access the collection of digitized obituaries. Additional resources include a variety of articles found on the history and school homepages.
Join us Friday, February 26 at 3 p.m. ET for an afternoon of virtual trivia from the comfort of your own home! Play on your own, alongside a like-minded community that prides itself on its genealogical and historical knowledge. How do you measure up? Come play to find out!
Mask Force: London's Five Centuries of Face Coverings From the Black Death to the suffocating smog, traffic pollution to the threat of gas attacks, face coverings have been worn by Londoners for the past 500-odd years.
Vintage Wedding Photos Charlotte Sibtain, a London-based collector of vintage wedding photos, tries to locate descendants of the happy couples.
World's Oldest DNA Sequenced from a Mammoth that Lived More than a Million Years Ago "’This DNA is incredibly old. The samples are a thousand times older than Viking remains and even pre-date the existence of humans and Neanderthals,’ said Love Dalen, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm.”
The Weekly Genealogist Survey
Last week's survey asked about your ancestors or relatives who practiced medicine. We received 2,979 responses. The results are:
51%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives was a doctor.
46%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives was a nurse.
15%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives was a midwife.
15%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives practiced medicine in another capacity.
1%, Yes, I work (or worked) as a doctor.
7%, Yes, I work (or worked) as a nurse.
<1%, Yes, I work (or worked) as a midwife.
4%, Yes, I practice (or practiced) medicine in another capacity.
21%, No, I have not practiced medicine, and neither did any of my ancestors or relatives.
This week's question asks about hereditary conditions in your family. Take the survey now
Want to share your thoughts on the survey with us? We are always happy to hear from our readers. Email us at weeklygenealogist@nehgs.org. Responses may be edited for clarity and length and featured in a future newsletter.
Readers Respond: Ancestors Who Practiced Medicine
by Lynn Betlock, Editor
Last week's survey asked about your ancestors or relatives who practiced medicine. Thank you to everyone who replied. Below is a selection of reader responses.
Starr Mitchell of Little Rock, Arkansas: In 1781, four lines were entered into the Plymouth, Connecticut, church records about my ancestor Mary Scott Blakeslee, who had recently died “with a fit of apoplexy in the 79th year of her age”: “Forty-two years of her frail life, She served in office of mid-wife; Females lament that she is gone, And learn to do as she hath done.” I was thrilled to discover this record, which includes all I know about her life.
Allan Gilbertson of Fairfax, Virginia: In my Hull ancestry are six generations in a row of doctors. None of these men went to medical school; they all studied medicine as apprentices to their fathers or other family members. The first, Dr. John Hull (1640-1711), who moved from Stratford to Wallingford, Connecticut, apparently learned medicine by treating wounded soldiers in King Philip’s War. The last was Dr. Laurens Hull (1779-1865) of Angelica, New York, who served as president of the New York State Medical Society. His published articles, Quackery (1839) and Improvement in Medicine (1840) show that he “believed fully in the doctrine of progress.” I found a portrait of Laurens Hull at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, a marvelous resource for medical research.
Sean Furniss of Reston, Virginia: My maternal grandmother, Catherine (Gallagher) Keenan, trained as a nurse at St. Vincent's Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. She joined the Territorial Force Nursing Service at the 1st Northern General Hospital, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, in 1914. She was posted for service abroad in October 1915 and served in Egypt and Salonika, returning to England over a year later.
Denyce Cribbs of Lake Havasu City, Arizona: My ancestor Jesse Emery was a veterinarian in Illinois. In 1853 he moved to Doyle Township, Iowa, to help colonize and lay out the town of Hopeville. At the time, area residents who were seriously sick or injured had to decide if they would make the sixty-mile trip to Des Moines for treatment. According to the local history, the arrival of a veterinarian was a boon to area and Dr. Emery inevitably fell into the practice of treating humans as well as animals. He was well-regarded and known for his common sense. Stories have been passed down in our family about Grandpa Jesse being called out to care for both “two-legged” and “four-legged” folks.
Subscribe to the Mayflower Descendant in 2021
Mayflower Descendant has long been a highly regarded source of scholarship relating to Mayflower families and related genealogies, their origins in England, and their lives and places of residence in America, from the earliest settlements to their migrations north and westward. Subscribe to get the winter 2021 issue in your mailbox now, and get the summer issue as soon as it is released.
