We are interested in knowing the significance of historical events in your family history, and so are offering this counterfactual poll. The results will be included in an upcoming issue of Ancestry Magazine.
Quick, how well do you know your Spanish-American War history? A tiny clue within a clue within a clue (and a naval battle) hides an answer to this photographic mystery.
A matryoshka doll is a brightly painted wooden figurine that can be taken apart to reveal successively smaller dolls nesting inside one another. It’s also known as a Russian nesting doll.
Money on your mind? You’re not the only one. When you’re looking for an old will or clues to a financially solvent family tree, be sure to check Ancestry.com. You’ll find a list of them at the Court, Land, Wills, and Financial Records tab.
Forget those winning European lottery announcements that keep filling up your inbox and the dreams of a jumbo prize check coming to your door. You could be next in line to score a real prize—and you might not even know it.
So who would know? An heir tracer—a genealogist assigned to a find out just who is entitled to an unclaimed estate.
I was parked in front of the TV a few nights ago when I received an unexpected phone call from Bob Velke, owner of Wholly Genes. He had a puzzle he suspected (correctly, as it turns out) I wouldn’t be able to resist. After we spoke, he summarized it in an e-mail:
My father-in-law, Thomas F. Reid, was a 26-year-old captain in 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (“The Old Guard”) in Ft. Myer, Virginia on 22 November 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
From the time I filled out my first family tree for a homework assignment in second grade, I knew two things: I was Norwegian, and I liked learning about my family. Fortunately, one of my grandmother’s aunts—Aunt Bertye—was still with us and never ran out of family history to share.
One day when I was 15, I sat down with 94-year-old Aunt Bertye, a box of old photos, and a tape recorder, and I had her identify as many people in the pictures as she could.
My great-great-grandfather has a medium mouth. At least, that’s what some Joe Schmoe wrote on his passport application in 1892. Actually, that Joe Schmoe’s name is Horatio Pickett, and he also said my grandfather had a large nose. His description for my great-great-grandfather’s face? Common. C’mon, Horatio. Now you’re just asking for it.
I found all this in the U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 collection on Ancestry.com.
I have never liked the term “shirttail relative.” However unintentionally, it consigns some very interesting people to afterthought status. How many opportunities for information and illumination are lost to this dismissive epithet and its laundry overtones? You never know when a “shirttail” will turn out to be someone quite significant—someone I call a heartstring relative.
Do you laugh when you see yourself in an old photograph and wonder, “How could I have worn that?” Looking back, it is surprising to see how much clothes have changed in our lifetimes. But the same thing happened in the times of our ancestors.
No wonder Aunt Snake didn’t know what to call her big sister.
Our grandfather “Pappy” was notorious for labeling family members with a nickname. Some were cute and funny and some, well, were neither.
Sometime before 1986, my cousin David (a.k.a. Goliath) and I had the opportunity to sit down with Pappy and chat about these names and some other things. This was when I first heard of Squidge.