An estimated 9 million Americans have Polish ancestry. Connect to your rodziną—your family—in the old country with this three-session course. Live broadcasts begin June 16.
AncesTREES, an online family tree platform from American Ancestors, gathers research hints from our databases and sources across the internet to help guide your research. Start building your tree today with a free guest account, or upgrade to the ad-free version for DNA tools, higher storage capacity, and more great features!
New Sketches: Western Massachusetts Families in 1790
We've recently added 12 new sketches to this study project, managed by Helen Schatvet Ullmann, CG FASG. The project profiles heads of families in the 1790 census in historic Berkshire and Hampshire Counties, an area which includes modern Franklin and Hampden Counties.
Using the Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center Archives for Family History Research
The Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center preserves the histories of Jewish families and institutions in New England and beyond. Join us on May 27 at 3 p.m. (ET) to learn how to leverage the resources of the JHC in your family history research!
Spotlight: Carroll County, Maryland Newspaper Database
by Valerie Beaudrault
Carroll County is located in northern Maryland. The Carroll County Public Library’s newspaper database covers all available Carroll County Times issues from its inception in 1911 through 2019. Click “Search the Archive” to browse by year; search by keyword and decade or year; or perform an advanced search with additional parameters. The search results provide links to relevant issues, which are presented as PDF images of the pages. The newspaper database can also be browsed.
Next month from American Inspiration: On June 3, explore Boston's early history with Joseph M. Bagley, author of Boston's Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them. Then, on June 15, don't miss Gabrielle Glaser with American Baby, as she explores the dark history of adoption in the U.S.
Bunker Hill’s Civil War Era Guestbooks Returning Home The three-volume set of “about 42,000 signatures of Civil War-era visitors to the Bunker Hill Monument,” will be returned to the Monument by a generous benefactor who purchased the books at auction.
Visualizing History: The Polish System The nineteenth century brimmed with new methods and technologies for committing historical information to memory — and Antoni Jażwiński’s abstract grid (and its later adaptations) proved one of the most popular.
The Weekly Genealogist Survey
Last week's survey asked about the type of environment your grandparents lived in. We received 3,667 responses. The results are:
46%, Urban
27%, Suburban
63%, Small town
59%, Rural
3%, Military base
1%, Other
<1%, I don’t know.
This week's question asks about military graves and cemeteries. 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: Where Your Grandparents Lived
By Lynn Betlock, Editor
Last week's survey asked about the type of environments in which your grandparents lived. Thank you to everyone who replied. Below is a selection of reader responses.
Gaila Gilliland of Tacoma, Washington: My grandmother, Lucie, and her twin sister, Jeanne Girard, grew up in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest daughters of French immigrants, a jeweler/watchmaker and his wife. Both sisters married farmers living in Nebraska. Jeanne married Wilbur Farmer and Lucie married my grandfather, James Eber Kirby, in 1912. Each family raised seven children. Imagine the stark contrast that these young women experienced as farmers’ wives, especially during the Depression years! They went from living in a household with servants in the hustle and bustle of a large city to baking their own bread on a relatively quiet family farm. However, I am very thankful that Jeanne and Lucie met Willie and Jim on a trip to Nebraska with their father.
Mary Alice Harvey of Duluth, Minnesota: My grandmother, Bertha Stoddard Whitney, had missionary parents and was raised in northeast India in the foothills of the Himalayas. My other grandmother, Lizzie Smith Whitson, was raised at a stagecoach stop near Kearney, Nebraska, where she learned to bake pies for passengers. After making all those pies with dried apples, she never wanted to use them again. When Lizzie had her own home and land, she had a rare fruit orchard with more than 50 apple trees and a dedicated well with a windmill to keep them thriving on the prairie. Her large family got lots of apple pies—none made with dried apples.
Carolyn German Bausinger of Willow Street, Pennsylvania: My paternal grandmother, Maude Thomas German, spent a considerable part of her childhood in Pennsylvania logging camps. Her father, Charles Thomas, had come to Pennsylvania during the 1870s from Presque Isle, Maine, to work clearing the native hemlock forests. He met and married my great-grandmother, Ida Kitchin, in Clinton County. Maude, born in 1880, was the oldest of their four children. Soon, Charles was running camps and, later, owned them. Ida cooked for the loggers, and the children helped. I have a photograph of Maude, then in her forties, working with another woman in a competition to take down a beech tree in record time. One look at the picture tells you that these women knew exactly what they were doing with that giant saw!
Boston’s Smallpox Outbreak: New Records, New Insights
Records concerning Boston's smallpox outbreak, including the handwritten diary of Cambridge pastor Rev. Ebenezer Storer, are now available online, thanks to a collaboration between Boston's Congregational Library and Archives and American Ancestors. These newly digitized records provide contemporary insights into the outbreak that devastated Boston in the 1700s.
