In the early years of the Maine Genealogical Society, its quarterly contained both resources and news about genealogical activities and other items. Since then, the quarterly publication has evolved into two entities with distinct identities. The quarterly newsletter offers reviews, information about MGS chapters and announcement of the annual meeting ...

Maine Old Cemetery Association will mark 45 years of activity next year. Some 1 million names in 6,600 Maine cemeteries have been entered in the MOCA Inscription Project database. The work of so many volunteers over decades is doubly important when you consider the fact that many of the stones ...

I keep vital records in individual plastic sleeves in a green notebook. Even though I’ve had some of the birth, marriage and death certificates, and Bible records for the 35 years that I’ve been researching my family history, I’m still noticing new things — or maybe finally giving some thought ...

As a child, I was fascinated with my baby book, which was filled with my mother’s familiar handwriting making note of every smile, each new food, first tooth, first word; any small milestone. While dad was the more gregarious parent, it turns out that Mama was fascinated with us kids ...

Fred and Bernice (Drew) Getchell were Household No. 1 in Glenburn during the 1930 census. Fred, a farmer, was 57, and Bernice was 36. Son Howard W. Getchell was 6, and younger son Horace W. was 4 months old. Bernice’s older children, Charles and Alice Marshall, were 15 and 12. ...

It can be fun to turn up a distant connection to a celebrity, whether president or king, rock star or noted author. But how many genealogists actually wonder whether they share forebears with international teen star Justin Bieber? Not you? Well, I’m interested, because the 18-year-old singer from Canada might ...

If you belong to a lineage society, such as the Daughters of the American Revolution or the Society of Mayflower Descendants, you have proved your direct descent from a soldier or patriot on the one hand, or a Pilgrim passenger on the other. Other groups celebrate your French or Irish ...

We all have them, those family stories that explain why some relative or other left town. Ted Steele might have gone along with the story of a “political fight” involving one of his ancestors had he not checked out local newspapers of the day and found a different explanation. Some ...

As family historians, we take information we know from personal experience and find in documents to create a living thing from our lineage, adding flesh to the bones of names, dates and places. Thinking of the many circles of people and institutions that our own lives represent, we look to ...

The community of Sherman recently celebrated the 150th anniversary of its incorporation in 1862. A great group of local and family historians also turned out for a genealogy talk on Aug. 26, sending me home with a copy of the 332-page spiral-bound “Memories of Our Hometown.” The book was dedicated ...

Great-uncle Harry J. Steeves didn’t go overseas during his six months of service in World War I. Rather, he was in the Coast Artillery Corps, apparently in New York. He was born April 29, 1898, in Saint John, New Brunswick, was a resident of Sangerville when he enlisted on June ...

The Penobscot County Genealogical Society had an informative field trip on Aug. 15 to the Family History Center at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Bangor. Just the book section is worth a visit. I found “New Hampshire Families in 1790;” two volumes of “Vermont Families in ...

Was there, indeed, a plaque listing the passengers of the Angel Gabriel dedicated on Aug. 8, 1965, at Pemaquid Point? I don’t remember seeing one in the 1980s on my first trip to the Pemaquid Lighthouse. I asked volunteers at the lighthouse’s Fishermen’s Museum recently when my husband and I ...