Travel to Boston for three days of research, one-on-one consultations, and social events while exploring the rich offerings at the American Ancestors/NEHGS Research Center and benefitting from the knowledge and assistance of expert genealogists. Join us on October 21–23, 2021. Register Now
This Thursday! Virtual American Inspiration Event
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar with Still Mad: American Women Writers and Feminist Imagination
Join us for a look at women’s history back to 1947, seen through the lives and works of past decades’ literary pioneers including Sylvia Plath, Betty Friedan, Diane di Prima, Audre Lorde, and Joan Didion. Forty years after their first groundbreaking work of feminist literary theory, The Madwoman in the Attic, these award-winning collaborators map the literary history of feminism’s second wave, from its stirrings in the midcentury to a resurgence in the new millennium. Don’t miss this remarkable account by Susan M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar on September 2 at 6 p.m. ET. Register Today
Online Course
Using Probate Records in Your Family History Research
Probate records are crucial, but sometimes overlooked, sources for family historians. Hiding in these legal documents may be full family groups, origins, and even maiden names. These sources may also be used as vital record substitutes and provide a glimpse into your ancestor’s property and worldly possessions. This three-week online course will provide an in-depth tutorial on how to understand, locate, and leverage wills, inventories, guardianships, and other probate records in your family history research. Live broadcasts: September 15, 22, and 29 at 6 p.m. ET. Register Now
Catching up with Vita Brevis
Lindsay Fulton pondered the loss and reappearance of the 1810 Federal Census records for Salem, Massachusetts; Jennifer Shakshober contemplated the details recorded in an ancestral aunt's daybook; Jeff Record wrote on his ambivalence at reviewing, and discarding, some of his genealogical research notes and other family papers; Elizabeth Peay reminded readers about the forgotten Revolutionary War sailor Seth Harding; Scott C. Steward reported a discovery on the family of his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Banyar in London's St. George's parish; Jan Doerr riffed on apple trees and "Underwear Days"; Andrew Krea introduced his sons to the Battle of Gettsyburg; and Christopher C. Child prompted a discussion of unusually fecund forebears in "Philoprogenitive ancestors" and then inventoried the graves in Jamaica Plain's First Church cemetery.
Spotlight: National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
by Valerie Beaudrault
The National Cemetery Administration of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers a burial database on its website. The National Gravesite Locater, updated daily, allows you to search for the graves of military veterans and their family members buried in a variety of cemeteries. The cemeteries include VA National Cemeteries, state veterans cemeteries, and other military and Department of Interior cemeteries, as well as private cemeteries where the veteran’s grave is marked with a government grave marker. There are several search parameters including name and year of birth and/or death, and you can limit your search to a single cemetery. Search Now
Online Course
Building Genealogical Skills
Take your research skills to the next level! Live broadcasts: September 14, 21, and 28 at 6 p.m. ET
"Although DNA ancestry test takers likely make up a sliver of the U.S. population—16%, according to a 2019 estimate by the Pew Research Center—the wide reach of the marketing efforts of companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com, which operates the AncestryDNA service, should not be underestimated."
"The Bible, it turned out, was part of the legacy of Eduard and Ernestine Leiter, a Jewish couple from Stuttgart killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust."
Before his 102-year-old grandmother’s passing, Cedar Park, Texas, resident Sandy McNair visited her in Florida and discovered two broadsides: political slander cartoons made against then-presidential candidate Andrew Jackson ahead of the 1824 election.
"Clarke Ruiz’s late father fought in the Korean War, and she believed that he might have had a relationship while he was deployed there."
The Weekly Genealogist Survey
Last week's survey asked if you remember your great-grandparents. We received 3,199 responses. The results are:
40%, I can remember one or more of my great-grandparents.
2%, I can remember one or more my great-great-grandparents.
59%, I cannot remember any of my great- or great-great-grandparents.
less than 1%, I’m not sure
This week's question asks if any of your ancestors played a musical instrument.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: Grandparents and Great-Grandparents
By Jean Powers, Senior Editor
Last week's survey asked if you remember your grandparents and great-grandparents. Thank you to everyone who replied. Below is a selection of reader responses.
Billie Stone Fogarty, M.Ed., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: I have great memories of my grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and one great-great-grandparent. This week's survey triggered those memories of playing Samba and Canasta with my great-grandfather and of marveling at my great-grandmother's quilting skills and the large quilting frames set up in her living room. I was 33 when my last great-grandmother died. It was a terrible loss when my two grandmothers passed within eleven months of each other at ages 102 and 94, when I was 56 and 57.
Melynda Brenton, Aztec, New Mexico: My paternal great-grandmother, Hansina Karolyn Pedersen, was born in 1895 in Omaha, Nebraska, and died in 1971 in North Hollywood, California, when I was nine years old. The family was Danish and came to the United States in 1892 by way of Ellis Island. Hansina spoke with an accent and had a little whistle in her voice when she said some words. She ran a strict house: when my sisters and I would visit with family, we had to be on our best behavior or she would get after us with a wooden spoon. Hansina was a small lady, but boy was she feisty!
Mary Inwood, Wilmington, Ohio: My last great-grandparent, my father's paternal grandmother, died a year after I was born, so I do not have any recollection of her. However, I do have her collection of several 5-year "Line a Day" diaries. I was born after a long succession of great-grandchildren, the fifth child and fourth girl in a row for my parents. All other births, deaths, and marriages were accompanied by names—but her notation after I was born was simply "Jack and Norma had another girl."
Carolyn Stetson, Castleton New York: My paternal great-grandmother, May Andres, lived in Iowa. She met and married Charles Stetson, who was visiting a relative in the area. The couple moved to Charles’s father’s farm in upstate New York. Charles, my great-grandfather, died in 1944, but May lived another thirty years. In the last year of her life, May worried that she needed to buy a wig because her still very luxurious silver hair had started to thin. She died at age 98, still upright and engaged. I have some of her daily journals and her cast iron roasting pan.
New Massachusetts Cemeteries on AmericanAncestors.org
Catholic Cemetery Association Records, 1833-1940
American Ancestors, the Archive Department of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston (RCAB) and the Catholic Cemetery Association of the Archdiocese of Boston (CCA) are collaborating to create a database of Catholic cemetery records spanning 1833 through 1940. Most of the volumes contain records of lot sales or interments, and include information about lot owners, date of burial, and location of burial. In addition to the searchable database, maps of each cemetery are being made available to help locate the final resting places of those in the records. This database features cemeteries administered by the CCA in eastern Massachusetts. Recently we’ve added records from four of these cemeteries: Holy Cross (Malden), Immaculate Conception (Marlborough), St. Francis de Sales (Charlestown), and St. Joseph (Lynn). Search Now
