Advance your research skills from home! This online workshop includes one-on-one consultations, informative lectures, live demonstrations, an extended Q&A with our experts, and access to recorded content and other materials beyond the end of the program. February 24–26, beginning at 9 a.m. ET each day. Members save 10% on virtual courses! Register now
Online Seminar
Classical Architecture in Europe and America
Classical architecture, derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, dominated architectural design in the Western world from the Italian Renaissance until World War II. This three-week course will examine outstanding and influential public and private buildings throughout history that helped create the modern world. Live broadcasts: February 8, 15, 22 at 4 p.m. ET Register Now
Online Seminar
Tracing Female Ancestors in America
Women make up 50% of your ancestry, yet their lives, experiences, and even complete names are all too often forgotten by written history. This course will provide resources and strategies for finding maiden names, discuss women’s legal rights through history as they pertain to genealogical documents, explore using mitochondrial DNA to trace maternal lines, and more. Members save 10% on virtual courses! Live broadcasts: February 2, 9, 16, and 23 at 6 p.m. (ET). Register Now
Spotlight: Newspaper Archive at Benzie Shores District Library, MI
by Valerie Beaudrault
Benzie County is located in the northwest of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, on Lake Michigan. The Benzie Shores District Library has made a newspaper archive, comprising 10 titles, available on its website. The database can be searched by keywords. Click the thumbnail icon in the search results to view the page image. If you prefer to browse the collection, click the X in the upper right corner of the search window to close it. Next, select and click a newspaper title to start browsing. To return to the search window, just click the Search button in the upper right. Search Now
Online Lecture Zoom Demo: The New AmericanAncestors.org
Join Claire Vail, Vice President for Digital Strategy and Communications, to learn about key new features, how to navigate the site, and how to get the most out of the website from home!
Shop new listings of unique and hard-to-find books and save 10%! No need to enter a coupon code—the 10% discount will automatically appear at checkout. Act now before these titles fly off the shelves!*
Researching African American Ancestors in New England
This online lecture will highlight useful collections and online databases, plus provide advice on searching for less obvious source material in archives and repositories in New England.
An Old Virginia Plantation, a New Owner and a Family Legacy Unveiled Growing up, Fredrick Miller lived a half mile from a distinctive home called Sharswood. “He didn’t know it had once been a plantation or that 58 people had once been enslaved there. He never considered that its past had anything to do with him.”
Revolutionary Recycling In the Historic Deerfield blog, David Bosse explores how “decorative visual vocabulary featuring the figure of Liberty, the flag, and American heroes began to populate the era’s material culture.”
Last week's survey asked if any of your ancestors or relatives had a book-related job or career. We received 2,627 responses. The results are:
32%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives wrote books or contributed to books.
12%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives worked in the publishing industry in an editorial, management, or sales capacity.
12%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives worked in the physical creation of books—as a book binder or typesetter, at a printing press, or in a factory related to the production of books.
8%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives worked in a bookstore.
5%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives sold encyclopedias or other books door-to-door or in another non-store environment.
22%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives was a librarian or worked in a library.
6%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors or relatives had a book-related job or career not mentioned above.
45%, No, none of my ancestors had a book-related job or career.
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.
Last week's survey asked whether any of your ancestors or relatives had a book-related job or career. Thank you to everyone who replied. Below is a selection of reader responses.
Neysa Garrett, Orinda, California: My great-grandfather, Edmund J. Carpenter, lived in Milton, Massachusetts, and worked for Boston newspapers: the Boston Globe, the Daily Advertiser, and the Boston Transcript. He also wrote books: one historical novel and many history titles. My grandmother, Johanne Christiansen, of Horsens, Denmark, left school at fourteen to work as a typesetter. When she was eighteen, she immigrated to the U.S., where she worked at a Danish-American newspaper in Iowa.
Gail V. Jordan, Logan, Utah: My great-granduncle, Charles Emilius Lauriat, was a bookseller and publisher in Boston; Lauriat’s Bookstore was founded in 1872 (and remained in business until 1999). We have several books that were sold in the bookstore in the late 19th century. His son, Charles Emilius Lauriat, Jr. (b. 1874), followed in his father's footsteps and traveled for the bookstore many times. In 1915 he was traveling for business on the Lusitania when it was torpedoed and sunk. Most passengers drowned. He survived and wrote an extensive account of his ordeal, which was published later that year. (I learned from David Allen Lambert’s article in Vita-Brevis that the Lauriats lived at 101 Newbury Street, where the NEHGS building now stands.)
Julia Kramer, Lexington, Massachusetts: My great-great-grandfather, Henry Dimond, was a bookbinder who was sent to Hawaii in 1835 by the American Board of Commissioners for their mission. The missionaries were importing a printing press so the Bible could be printed in the Hawaiian language. His blunt and argumentative letters to the ABCFM and his family in New York describe the printing office, the Hawaiians who helped him, and his dismay at discovering the sheep skins he needed for his work had suffered water damage from the long sea voyage.
Kathy Wright, Los Altos, California: My ancestor, Manly Tooker, was a Methodist Episcopalian itinerant minister in western New York. In 1845, he was appointed to be the agent for the American Bible Society for the region. He traveled on horseback distributing the Bible. He later wrote and published Jottings of Itinerancy in Western New-York (1860). It offered me a wonderful window into both his religious and family life. And, as for me, I worked as an assistant manager in a bookstore for a time. It was one of my favorite jobs before I settled into a substitute teaching career that allowed me to share my love of books with students over many years.
Database News
New Cemeteries: Massachusetts: Catholic Cemetery Association Records, 1833-1940
We have collaborated with the Archive Department of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston (RCAB) and the Catholic Cemetery Association of the Archdiocese of Boston (CCA) to create a database of Catholic cemetery records 1833-1940. Most volumes contain records of lot sales or interments, and include information about lot owners, date of burial and location of burial. Maps of each cemetery are being made available to help locate the final resting places of individuals in the records. Recently we’ve added the records of the final four cemeteries in the database: North Cambridge Catholic (Cambridge), St. Mary (Lynn), St. Mary (Salem) and St. Patrick (Watertown). Search Now
*Promotional discount will automatically be applied at checkout. Membership discounts do not apply to this promotion. Prices valid through 01/31/22, while supplies last.
