My heart is full as I write this last Family Ties. Read More
A bit of truth and a lot of trimmings. That’s how we view most family stories — unless they’re ours. The popular family history program “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr.” on PBS made a great start to its new season on Jan. 5 by looking… Read More
I wasn’t familiar with the name Blaine Bettinger, but I expect to know a lot more about him by April 23, which is the date when he will give the keynote address and three other talks plus take part in a question-and-answer panel during the Maine Genealogical Society’s… Read More
Family Ties: So what’s the deal? Was the test just defective? There are other explanations. Read More
Dr. Edward Rackleff died in Arkansas, leaving numerous descendants, among them members of Cherokee and Sioux tribes. One of his Caucasian children was even adopted by the Cherokee Nation as an adult. Read More
I do love it when published records include information about someone’s “someplace else.” Read More
Interview your dad or your mom or your uncle or your neighbor or your classmate. I promise you that doing so will establish a connection that will survive, that will outlast the actual experience. Read More
Yes, I’m fond of books, but I certainly appreciate a database that is available to me by computer. Read More
Thanksgiving remains a special day for me in terms of my family and our heritage, the sacrifices of those who came to a “new” country and became part of its fabric and also gratitude to the Native Americans who were so generous to the Pilgrims. Read More
Family Ties: Look up a ship, a plane, a helicopter, a half-track, a military unit, a division, a battle, a base, a fort. Who knows what you may learn — and perhaps you’ll meet someone you never thought you would. Read More
Family Ties: With Veterans Day coming up Wednesday, I have been interested in what the National Archives has online for databases. Read More
It is 130 years since consumption took the life of my great-great-great-grandmother, Roxanna Briggs Bennett, in Abbot, some three years before the tuberculosis bacillus was identified. Consumption was certainly no effort to find a gentle description for this wasting disease, which was believed to eat away the lungs… Read More
City directories and vital records can augment and clarify decennial census data. Read More
“The sea washed over them and they were gone … We shall not forget them.” Read More
New Englander that I am, married to a man whose ancestors seem to be exclusively Franco-American — French-Canadians from Quebec and Acadians from what is now Nova Scotia — I wouldn’t normally be drawn to a book with “Mississippi” in the title. But of course, it… Read More
So far, I’ve taken just one DNA genealogy test — the saliva test that uses autosomal results from genetic material on nonsex genes. Simply put, my result estimated my ethnicity as 74 percent British, 11 percent Irish and 10 percent Western Europe (German and French, I’m guessing.) I… Read More
My husband’s great-grandmother was Marie Anne (Corbin), the first wife of Antoine Saucier of Fort Kent. Her uncle Guillaume Corbin married Lucie Ringuette in 1843, which I point out only to illustrate what a small world it is. The small world at the Franco-American Centre —… Read More
Another possible clue to Ga’s Scottish ancestry, from yet another painting ... Read More
