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.
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.
Jim Killeen was satisfying his curiosity when he Googled his own name and found 24 other Jim Killeens. With little more than that name and sometimes an occupation, Jim contacted as many of them as he could track down.
Most of the Jim Killeens were skeptical, but seven eventually agreed to talk.
Still looking for ancestral treasures in a closet or attic? Family historian Craig Pfannkuche, president of Memory Trail Research, Inc., would tell you to dig deeper—into the outhouse. Outhouses, says Pfannkuche, can provide amazing information that you just won’t find anywhere else.
I remember watching my mother tear the fluffiest pancake I’d ever seen into chunks, crumbling it into the pan, sprinkling it with sugar, and serving it up with a side of family history as she talked about her own mother making Kaiserschmarren. According to Mom, the Austrian dish’s name meant Emperor’s Dessert, although in German a schmarr is also a cut or slash.