Our experts are available by chat Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (EDT), to answer simple genealogy or local history questions. Learn more.
Catching Up with Vita Brevis by Scott C. Steward, NEHGS Editor-in-Chief
Vita Brevis, the NEHGS blog, offers essays by the expert staff at NEHGS | American Ancestors on their own research, as well as news of the greater genealogical community. Here’s a roundup of blog posts for September:
Sheilagh Doerfler began the month with the latest release (Dungarvan) in the Irish Historic Towns Atlas series. Brittany Contratto described the Society's new Digital Library & Archives; Kyle Hurst reviewed the NEHGS publishing program (from 1847); Jeff Record found solace in the survival of "Mother Orange" in the West Coast fires; Chris Child reviewed a difficult matrilineal line; Alicia Crane Williams noted a member's donation of years of seventeenth-century research to the Early New England Families Study Project; Zachary Garceau offered a primer on the rise and dispersal of the French Huguenots during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; Sarah Dery recalled her time at Plimoth Plantation (now Plimoth Patuxet), and the valuable lessons she learned from Native colleagues; Scott Steward documented seventeenth-century Livingstons with connections to witches and parsed the fifteenth-century use of the word "kinbot"; and Jan Doerr contemplated her family home's generational pull, and noted the way family stories can function like a game of "telephone."
Visiting NEHGS
NEHGS is now open by appointment only, with limited capacity, for onsite research visits on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.Learn more.
Spotlight: Rochester, New Hampshire
by Valerie Beaudrault, Assistant Editor
The city of Rochester is located in Strafford County, in southeastern New Hampshire. The Rochester Public Library's website provides indexes to three local newspapers: Rochester Courier (1884-1993), Rochester Times (1993-2017), and Fosters Daily Democrat (2015-2018). The index contains obituaries; wedding, birthday, and milestone announcements, and notable events. The data includes names, a descriptive word or phrase (died, weds, celebrates birthday), date of publication, and page number. Search Now.
Learn from our experts: 17th-Century English Research Register Now
Live Twitter chat October 20: researching fraternal ancestors Visit Twitter
Last chance to register! Using bank records in your research Register Now
The Weekly Genealogist Survey
Last week's survey asked about maps. 3,499 responses were received. The results are:
32%, I am a map aficionado.
22%, I collect maps.
9%, I have at least one ancestor or relative who collected maps.
15%, I have an ancestor who was a cartographer or surveyor.
54%, I have found at least one ancestor’s name printed on a map.
69%, I have used maps to plot the location of an ancestral property.
15%, I have used mapping software to plot the location and dimensions of an ancestral property.
44%, I frequently use maps for genealogical purposes.
44%, I sometimes use maps for genealogical purposes.
7%, I rarely use maps for genealogical purposes.
1%, I am not interested in maps.
This week's question asks how the Covid pandemic has affected your family history research. 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: Maps by Lynn Betlock, Editor
Last week's survey asked about maps. Thank you to everyone who replied. Below is a selection of reader responses.
Diana Nelson of Yellow Springs, Ohio: I used maps to identify an ancestral town in my husband's family. His great aunt said she was born in "Vaneef" in Czechoslovakia. But when she was born in 1909 Czechoslovakia did not yet exist. First, I plotted the hometown of her husband—Szaplancza, now Sapinta, Romania—and the hometown of a witness to her husband's naturalization—Bustyhaza, now Bustina, Ukraine—on a map of the area. Then I figured out which of 25 possibilities for "Vaneef" listed in Where Once We Walked: A Guide to the Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust was the closest to these towns. The ancestral town was Vajnag, now Vonihove, in Ukraine, which was part of Czechoslovakia between the World Wars.
John T. Nichols of Manassas, Virginia: My ancestor John Woodbury arrived at Cape Ann, Massachusetts, in 1624/25 with a party sponsored by the Dorchester Company. Together with Roger Conant he laid out the original town plat for Salem, Massachusetts. My older brother was a land surveyor and engineer for 45 years before his retirement. I am by education a geographer and have worked in the fields of cartography, remote sensing, and satellite imaging for nearly thirty years. So, maps and related activities have played a large part in our family's history to the present day.
Deborah Trask of Chester Basin, Nova Scotia: For family history research here in Nova Scotia, I have found that the A. F. Church county maps, prepared between 1865 and 1888, are particularly useful. These maps are large and backed with canvas—many hung in schools or were rolled and unrolled a lot, so they are not always in good shape. Copies of these, as well as Crown land grant maps, are available for purchase from the Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry. I understand that the Genealogy Association of Nova Scotia (GANS) is hoping to digitize these maps and is acquiring originals for the project.
Ron Dahlgren of Stillwater, Oklahoma: James Wilson of Bradford, Vermont, the brother of my ancestor Betsy Wilson, is credited with being the first maker of globes in the United States. Completely self-taught, he began with balls of wood, then covered them in paper. He started a factory in Vermont, selling his first globe for $50. In 1815, he opened a second factory with his sons in Albany, New York, using different materials and making the globes much more affordable. I was fortunate enough to see a pair of these globes (celestial and terrestrial) at the Bennington Museum in Vermont.
Richard Josselyn of Andover, Massachusetts: A Pendleton’s Lithography map of Pembroke, Massachusetts, really made an impact on me. The town map was based on an 1830 survey and had family names and homes indicated on the streets. Nine Josselyn homes were shown on the map, as well as homes of some of the Josselyn wives’ families, including the Dwelleys, Fords, Oldhams, Stetsons and Keens. All these ancestors and relatives were right there on this one map. I knew those names from documents I had previously found, but it was this map that made me look a lot closer at Pembroke, and appreciate how many people lived their entire lives close to home until the automobile was invented.
Fall Research "Stay-at-Home" Online Program
Learn about essential resources and research strategies that can be accessed and applied digitally, attend lectures given by our staff on popular genealogical topics, chat with our experts and other participants daily, and receive one-on-one consultation time focused on your research questions.
Hornell Native's WWII Dog Tag Returns Home After a dog tag that belonged to a man from Hornell, New York, was discovered in Pennsylvania, research led to his descendants.
The Monument That Created Columbus In 1792 a New York merchant decided to promote Christopher Columbus as a symbol that could unite Americans.
This week on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show, Associate Director of Database Search and Systems Don LeClair introduces an important Mayflower collaboration and Genealogist Melanie McComb discusses railroad records. Listen now.
Author Event: Claire Messud
Acclaimed novelist Claire Messud will discuss her new memoir Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write: An Autobiography in Essays with guest moderator Dani Shapiro, novelist, memoirist, and host of Family Secrets podcast. This American Inspiration event is presented in partnership with the Boston Public Library and GBH Forum Network.
American Ancestors by New England Historic Genealogical Society
To advance the study of family history in America and beyond, NEHGS educates, inspires, and connects people through our scholarship, collections, and expertise.
