Washington, D.C. is home to some of the most important repositories for genealogists. Whether you are doing research on your veteran ancestor, immigrant ancestor, homesteading ancestor—or simply want to leverage published resources, newspapers, and maps in your family history research—our nation’s capital holds the records you need. This four-day virtual research program will bring D.C. to you! Join us for live sessions March 24-27.
This week we’re announcing the addition of 29 new volumes and 12 updated volumes to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 from Gate of Heaven (South Boston), Most Holy Redeemer (East Boston), St. Francis de Sales (Roxbury), St. Joseph (Roxbury), St. Mary (Charlestown), St. Mary (Lynn), and St. Peter (Dorchester). This update is part of our multi-year collaboration with the Archdiocese of Boston. Become a member of American Ancestors to search this and many more exclusive databases.
Join us March 23 at 6 p.m. ET for a discussion with the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Matteson. His new book lluminates three harrowing months of the Civil War and their enduring legacy for America, seen through the eyes of five extraordinary individuals on both sides of the conflict – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Arthur Fuller, Walt Whitman, Louisa May Alcott, and John Pelham.
The city of Timmins is located in east-central Ontario. The Timmins Public Library has made a newspaper database available on its website. The database comprises a single newspaper, The Porcupine Advance, which was published from 1912 to 1950. The paper served the Porcupine gold mining camp, city of Timmins, and environs. The database can be searched by keyword. Researchers can also browse the full-text newspapers by date, browse or search the Articles indexes, and browse or search the Births/Marriages/Deaths Announcement index. To view a newspaper page, you will need to click the article title and then click the thumbnail image on the right side of the webpage.
Family History and More From Experts at American Ancestors
Last month, new blogger Rufus Jones wrote about the work of the James Weldon Johnson Foundation in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where Rufus and his wife Jill live in the composer's country house, "Five Acres." Chris Child offered a sequel to Rufus's post with a look at the Great Barrington connections of W.E.B. Du Bois and Richard Pryor; he also found a surprising Vermont connection to Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and considered the New England background of Kim Janey, President of the Boston City Council and, once Boston mayor Marty Walsh is confirmed by the Senate, Acting Mayor of Boston. Dr. Aisha Francis of the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in Boston, another newcomer to Vita Brevis, depicted the lives of her great-great-great-grandparents, Hiram and Evelyn Overton, during and after the Civil War. Following up on a January post from Jeff Record, Pamela Athearn Filbert reviewed the story of her great-great-great-great-grandfather James Athearn, a bank president in Nantucket who found himself in financial straits in the 1840s; Geneva Cann considered "cousins by affection," those family friends whose cultural differences it is a pleasure to assimilate; Michael Dwyer wrote on the "different path" on which an English forebear was set by mid-Victorian access to education; Jan Doerr set aside "squirrel bins" of research to consider "mice tracks," a plateau in one's work when extended home stay means one has exhausted the impulse to organize; Jeff Record focused on a Philadelphia ancestress whose family remains a challenge; and Alicia Crane Williams sorted out multiple Daniel Axtells (one of them a Regicide) and traced the history of a family christening gown from 1858 to at least 1990.
How a Korean-American Farmer Is Sharing Her Heritage Through Rare Seeds “Since 2012, Kristyn Leach has worked the land on Choi and Daughters, her tiny, two-acre farm in Winters, California. . . These days, Leach is hailed as one of the latest leaders preserving the 150-year legacy of Asian-American farmers in Northern California.”
In London, Looking Backward to Move Forward “By the time England slumped into its latest lockdown, I would come to think of my project not merely as a surrogate for my latent curiosity but as an inspiration to endure. It just becomes that much harder to bemoan the hardship of wearing a mask in a supermarket when you think of your forebears going to bed each night for a year, waiting for the sirens.”
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: Resemblance to Ancestors
by Jean Powers, Senior Editor
Last week's survey asked if you physically resemble any of your ancestors or relatives. Thank you to everyone who replied. Below is a selection of reader responses.
Megan Priore, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: My cousin is the spitting image of my grandfather, my uncle looks a lot like my great-grandfather, my nephew looks just like my dad, and I look like my paternal grandmother. But my favorite family resemblance is that of my daughter and my maternal grandmother. My gram and I were very close and I see so much of her in my daughter, right down to the way she wrinkles her nose. My gram passed when my daughter was 5 months old so it's nice to be reminded of her. I snapped a picture of my daughter last summer and it was so similar to one of my gram, it's almost eerie!
Consuelo Torres White, Port Angeles, Washington: Yesterday I took a large, oval, hand-colored image of my father to a frame shop for restoration. The photo may have been a high school graduation portrait—unusual and costly for a young Mexican-American man raised by a widowed mother of meager means. I am 79 and my father died while I was an infant. The shop owner looked at my masked face and said, "you have his eyes.”
Pamela A. Warren, Troy, Michigan: As flaming redhead growing up in a family with two dark-haired brothers, a brunette mother, and a blond father, I was often teased about being "adopted." Around age of 5 or 6, I realized that two of my father's sisters had red hair—it was comforting to no longer feel like an outsider! In later years, I became very close with one of those fireball aunts, and my self-image was transformed by the relationship. Like me, my aunt was a bit impulsive and a bit "different." My two ginger daughters and three ginger grandchildren have made my oldest "brown-head" daughter seem like the odd one out, but we love her too.
Sedate Holland Kohler, Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin: My four siblings and I have always been told we have “Holland eyes.” Even total strangers have commented on this strong family resemblance. My paternal great-great-grandfather Robert Turner Holland married three times. My grandfather was his son from his first marriage. Several years ago I met his last surviving child, Barbara, who was 91 at the time. She shared some family photos and one clearly reflects the “Holland eyes.”
Create Your Free Family Tree Today
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